Forbidden Games (1952)

good back-story, and good acting

Excellent but underrated film

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The acting in this movie is really good.

FORBIDDEN GAMES is a film that in a realistic and unsentimental way showing the horrors and suffering in the war. Children's perspective in relation to the war in this film is extremely disturbing and fascinating at the same time. The girl left orphaned in an air strike during the German invasion. The son of local farmer finds a lost girl. The story shows how he makes friends with some older boy and how the two of them created many bizarre rituals to deal with the concept of death around them.The brutality of the war can influence, but can not beat children's playfulness, love and friendship. The atmosphere in the film brings a very strong feeling. With a fantastic acting and realistic the picture is almost perfect. The excitement generated during the movie, is completely justified. This is a heartbreaking war drama that shows human weakness and ends in tragedy because it destroys the most precious - children's smile, unity, love and friendship.See innocence in the eyes of two protagonists as they dedicated "forbidden game" is incredibly touching. Their world is very small, but they have each other and that's good enough. The greatest value of this film is brilliant in the conflict between the child innocence, friendship and playfulness, black humor, pathetic roughness and misunderstanding of struggling farmers.Brigitte Fossey as Paulette is brilliant in the role of five years old girl. I can not describe in words my excitement. Heartbreaking simplicity and sincerity that only a child can have. Georges Poujouly as Michel Dollé was very sympathetic to his mischief and simply magnificent in opposition to his parents at the end of the film.This is a remarkable film.

June 1950, the parents of a five-year-old girl Paulette (Fossey) are killed in a sudden strafe as they are fleeing from Paris during the Fall of France, death befalls her so wantonly, even her puppy cannot survive it. Then Paulette runs into Michel Dollé (Poujouly), a boy slightly older than her, who brings her to their rural home, a household of eight, the Dollé family takes her in, despite of the wartime difficulties.Paulette has a new home, but she is shell-shocked, what the hell can a little girl do to process the after-effects of death at such an innocent age? Director René Clément's Golden Lion champion pluckily grapples with this delicate matter in question postulated by François Boyer's source novel, it is more complex than a deviant orbit caused by children's innocence loss or juvenile blind faith (the latter would get a nice exploration in Bryan Forbes' WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND 1961). Paulette becomes fixated on the ritual after death ever since she tries digging a hole to bury her dead puppy and proffering something more orthodox to ensure a solemn promise of rest-in-peace, one thing after another, she needs other dead animals to be interred nearby for company, with Michel gladly offering his helping hand, their "pet cemetery" project goes rather smoothly, the last thing they need is crosses, and there is only one place can meet their requirement - the church cemetery.Does it sound morbid? On paper, yes, the psychological transference of a child's unhealthy obsession, which trespasses innocence and is fomented by the underdeveloped intelligence, can be reckoned as a fervent anti-war manifesto, children should never be afflicted with the cruelty of war, at any rate, that lies the meat of the film's enduring value and universal cachet. A sharp reference can be traced from the depiction of the feud between the Dollés and their neighbor, the Gouards, men are innately belligerent, and the film also shows that how shockingly easy to catalyze hostility into action even by blatant lies.Clément's spanking execution guile-fully hedges around most of the animal cruelty - save the unfortunate fate of Paulette's fox terrier, and the film itself is an absolute marvel, organically endearing and enormously poignant, Fossey and Poujouly are plain wunderkinds in front of camera, both in their first screen roles, completely tug at audience's heartstrings, in particular, their respective final scenes. It is a boy's rite-of-passage to face the vagaries of the adult world versus a girl's new chapter with her abruptly orphaned identity which chanciness beckons. But on a brighter side, love is cherished and celebrated in its purest form. Narciso Yepes' pellucid score turns mellow and romantic whenever the two kids are in the same frame, including the ear-worm takeaway, the guitar piece ROMANCE.Clément also garnishes the two leads with a rosary of subplots about the adults, each member of the Dollés is allotted with economic but well-crafted quota to reveal an authentic immediacy of life under that particular cloud, anxiety, dissatisfaction, sexual awakening and increasingly religiously dependent. To put it in a simple sentence, FORBIDDEN GAMES is a chef-d'oeuvre and one of the most important movies every human being on earth needs to watch and be affected, stunned and amazed!

Maybe a little bit of a spoiler topic, I'm not sure. Some critics propose the idea that the sweet girl is not merely a victim of loss, but a victim traumatized to the point of sadism. My understanding of the motivation for the burial rituals was a line spoken by the little girl suggesting that dead things needed to be buried, that they should not be left exposed to the elements. This barely articulated idea, obviously, is the result of seeing her parents killed and her carrying her dead dog. I saw no more to their "games" than burials. I did not see killings as a part of it. Is it an absolute certainty that the children kill anything more than a cockroach? I thought the owl killed the mice. Some critics don't mention any killings by the children. Others build arguments about sadism based on their observation that the kids not only buried the animals in more and more elaborate ritual, but killed some of them. I just don't recall seeing a killing.

I'm still crying my eyes out after watching this thing. Usually, I hate movies with children as the main characters. This is something else entirely - a simple tale with the most powerful antiwar statement imaginable. No pretense or preachiness, the filmmakers let the message come across seemingly by default. How skillful is that? And those two children!! Have you ever seen such convincing performances from anyone? This is a heartbreaker from start to finish, but along the way it's fraught with positive insights, even glints of humor. What a remarkable achievement to make such a profoundly shattering point and disguise it as entertainment! Truly unlike anything I've ever seen. Even the abrupt ending makes perfect sense - what more can you say after all that's transpired? This film just shot to the top of my all time favorite list.