Jeux interdits (1952)
Directed by René Clément

Film Review

Possibly the most stirring film about the warped complexities of childhood, Jeux interdits is a film of extraordinary lyrical power, as brutal as it is tender. More than half a century after it was made, it has lost none of its power to move an audience to tears and remains an important landmark of French cinema.  The film not only makes a potent anti-war statement, by showing the devastating impact of war on the innocent in a way that is subtle and affecting, it also explores the fragility of childhood with a startling acuity and realism.  It is also a work of immense poetry, holding us in its thrall as it divulges a sombre commentary on mankind's propensity for poisoning the unblemished loveliness that exists in the world.  We should be horrified by what the two child protagonists, Michel and Paulette, get up to - stealing crucifixes from a graveyard to adorn an improvised cemetery for dead animals and broken crockery.  Yet it is not horror we feel but an inescapable sense of sorrow, for we realise that these macabre forbidden games are merely a child's attempt to come to terms with the traumatic events taking place around them, in a world scarred by brutal warfare and petty malice.  The fact that the child protagonists cannot yet distinguish between a broken plate and a dead creature is a chilling reflection of both their innocence and the barbaric era into which they have been born.

Jeux interdits was directed by René Clément, a distinguished filmmaker who had previously won international acclaim for La Bataille du rail (1946), a near-documentary account of the French railway workers' contribution to the Resistance in WWII, and the neo-realist drama Au-delà des grilles (1949).  Clément had a knack of making films that caught the popular Zeitgeist, something that brought him considerable commercial and critical success.  Jeux interdits was his greatest triumph, not only a critically acclaimed box office hit around the globe, but also the recipient of numerous awards, including an Academy Award (in the Best Foreign Language Film category), a Best Film BAFTA, the Grand Prix Indépendant at Cannes and a Golden Lion award at the 1952 Venice Film Festival.  Although Clément would later notch up several other successes, including Gervaise (1956), Plein soleil (1960) and Quelle joie de vivre (1960), his career petered out in the 1970s. Whilst the work of his New Wave contemporaries is still widely celebrated, Clément is too easily overlooked and is virtually forgotten outside his native France.  Films such as Jeux interdits provide a lasting testament to the fact that not only was René Clément a technically accomplished filmmaker, he was also a notable auteur, who brought a personal touch and authenticity to each of his films.

Jeux interdits was originally conceived as the middle segment of a three-part anthology film (at a time when such films were starting to become very popular).   When producer Robert Dorfmann was unable to secure the funding necessary to make the other two segments of the film, he decided to extend the short Jeux interdits episode into a full-length film.  This necessitated a remount, a year after the original short film had been recorded.  René Clément and his crew were incredibly successful in hiding the fact that the two principal child actors had aged markedly in the interval between the two filming sessions and also that the locations had changed somewhat.  However, the film's integrity was compromised by some drastic cuts which were made without its director's approval and reduced the runtime by about 20 minutes, presumably to make it more marketable.  A short prologue and epilogue to the film, in which a young boy and girl (Georges Poujouly and Brigitte Fossey) read from a book the story of Paulette and Michel, were excised, and this accounts for the abrupt beginning and end to the film.   Jeux interdits is based on a popular novel by François Boyer, whose screenwriting credits include La Guerre des Boutons (1962), another memorable film about childhood with an anti-war subtext.

What makes Jeux interdits such a powerfully moving film is the absolutely spellbinding central performance from Brigitte Fossey, who was just four years old when filming began early in 1951.  Although Fossey would go on to lead a very successful acting career on stage and screen, this is her most triumphant moment, melting hearts across the generations as the droopy-eyed orphan girl Paulette.  Fossey's angelic Paulette is beautifully counterpointed by Georges Poujouly's mischievous Michel - both actors are captivating and offer up a portrait of childhood innocence that is almost too harrowing to watch. How can we not feel mournful and a tad queasy as the purity of Paulette and Michel's little world of make-believe becomes tainted by adult influences, twisted into something that is tragic and grotesque?   The look of incomprehension on Paulette's face as she fails to revive her dead parents, Michel's inability to understand what he has done wrong by stealing the cross from his dead brother's grave, the earnestness with which the children bury dead animals and other broken things - these are powerful moments where the audience is compelled to reflect on the horror and injustice of the adult world and see things as a child might when confronted with evil for the first time.  Narciso Yepes's unforgettable guitar theme (which would later find its way into Terence Young's equally lachrymose L'Arbre de Noël, 1969) completes what Fossey and Poujouly so nearly accomplish - demolishing our emotional defences and stripping away the last vestige of adult cynicism, to leave us stunned with pity and regret.  Only a soulless block of titanium-reinforced granite can fail to be reduced to tears by the film's despicably cruel ending.  Poor Paulette.  Poor Michel.  Poor unthinking humanity...

Film Synopsis

June 1940.  Whilst fleeing from the Nazis during World War II, a convoy of French refugees is attacked from the air by German planes.  Among the survivors is five year old Paulette, who has just seen her parents shot dead, along with her small dog.  When a stranger throws the dead dog into the river, Paulette hurries after it and manages to recover it.  As she does so, she is spotted by a young boy named Michel, who is her elder by about five years.  Having befriended the solitary girl, Michel takes her back to the farm where he lives with his parents and invalid older brother.  Michel's parents take an instant liking to Paulette and agree to let her stay with them for a while.  With Paulette still grieving over her dead puppy, Michel tries to console her by digging a grave for it in a run-down watermill.  Paulette is still not happy - how can she be when her dog is buried alone?   Michel has the answer: they will assemble a cemetery for dead animals, stealing crosses from the local graveyard...