L'Oeil de Vichy (1993)
Directed by Claude Chabrol

Film Review

It wasn't until the late 1960, early '70s, that the extent of France's shameful involvement in the Holocaust first became apparent.  Marcel Ophüls's documentary Le Chagrin et la pitié (1969) came as a shocking revelation that few were willing to accept, and even now it is hard to believe the degree of complicity between the Vichy government that supposedly ruled France during the Occupation and the Third Reich, particularly in relation to Hitler's programme of genocide. (It was Vichy, not Nazi Germany, that instigated the deportation of Jewish children to the death camps.)  The acquittal of French militiaman Paul Touvier when tried by a French court in 1992 for crimes against humanity prompted director Claude Chabrol to make his personal condemnation of the Vichy regime, L'Oeil de Vichy (a.k.a. The Eye of Vichy).  The film consists of clips of newsreels screened in cinemas during the Occupation (1940-1944) which were intended to deceive and brainwash the French public, allowing Maréchal Pétain and his army of anti-Semitic collaborators to get away with mass murder, all for the glory of France.

When the film was first released in 1993, Chabrol came under fire from some critics who chastised him for not showing more of what was really going on.  By limiting the film's visual content to Vichy propaganda, he risked playing into the hands of France's present extreme rightwing political parties, particularly as some of what we see seems to echo the sentiment of Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National.  The one flaw that L'Oeil de Vichy has is that it assumes the spectator has some awareness of the real state of affairs of the Occupation era.  For those not aware that the Vichy government was a ragtag band of opportunists, fascists and anti-Semites led by a deluded old man who had completely sold out to Nazi Germany, the film's content could be mistaken as being factually accurate, rather than a flagrant distortion of the truth.  The caveat that Chabrol gives in his introduction to the film and his running commentary as to the true state of affairs are barely strong enough to counter the power of the barrage of pro-Nazi propaganda that assails us as we watch the film.  Julian Jackson's insightful tome France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944 is worth perusing before you go anywhere near this film.

What is most striking is the level of deception that was foisted on the French public in these seemingly benign newsreels.  Not content with blaming the Jews for the decadence and corruption that was apparently rife in the Third Republic, the propaganda merchants set out to convince us that it was the Jews who were responsible for France's military defeat when it went to war with Nazi Germany in 1940.  Not only are Jews characterised as an 'impure race' who have spent the last few centuries engaged in inter-race breeding (presumably to break the monotony of accumulating vast amounts of wealth which they fritter away at resorts in the south of France), they are likened to rats, vermin to be exterminated.  The Nazis' disgusting purification programme is given legitimacy by the claim that not only will it purge France of its 'anti-social elements', but it will also create jobs for true (i.e. white-skinned Aryan) French men and women.  The bucolic images of farm workers toiling contentedly in the sun and uplifting displays of sporting prowess at youth camps hold out the prospect of the dawn of a new era "with unlimited possibilities".  The Vichy slogan "Patrie, famille, travail" appears to be less an edict and more a signpost to Utopia.

Of course, the propaganda isn't exclusively directed against the Jews.  The Allies are demonised just as fiercely, and who could not loathe the Americans and British after their wicked bombing of innocent French citizens?  In a spoof cartoon, Popeye drops bombs on French householders as they listen to one of General De Gaulle's radio broadcasts.  The thousands of tons of concrete and ammunition making up the Atlantic Wall on France's western and northern coast are presented as an impenetrable barrier that will protect France from invasion.  If Churchill and Roosevelt are portrayed as agents of capitalist greed, Hitler is venerated as a living saint.  Wherever he goes, Hitler's number one fan Pétain is worshipped by adoring crowds, and a portrait of him takes pride of place in every French household.  How audiences must have wept when they watched the dear old Maréchal's Christmas messages, even if he has his head buried in his hand-written notes and devotes most of his Yuletide sermon to the threat of Communism.

And just look how effectively the Vichy government has dealt with the scourge of unemployment!  In 1940, there were over a million unemployed in France; by 1943, this figure had dropped to practically zero.  (Thankfully, Mr Chabrol reminds us of the reasons for this: many tens of thousands of French people were conscripted to work in German factories, and most of France's increased productivity was for the benefit of Nazi Germany.)  Light relief is provided by some humorous publicity and public information films.  Old movies are melted down and made into nail varnish and shoe polish; human hair ends up being used as a substitute for wool in garments.  A shortage of leather?  No problem, wood will do just as well for shoe soles.  And of course there are the movies, some happy to do the work of the propagandists and remind audiences they were being led to the promised land by a wise and wonderful man.  What a jolly old time they had in Nazi-occupied France.  You'd hardly think there was a war on.

Film Synopsis

Claude Chabrol assembles a montage of newsreel clips from the time of the Nazi Occupation to show France not how he saw it, but how the Vichy government wanted it to be seen.  Chabrol's voiceover commentary reminds us of the terrible truths which the propagandists sought to keep from the eyes and ears of the French public.  Throughout the Occupation, the head of state Maréchal Pétain was regarded as the saviour of the French nation, a man committed to restoring France's prestige and building a new civilisation "purged of all destructive and anti-social elements".  For Pétain's glorious vision to come about France must reject capitalism, eradicate all Jews and defeat the evil that is Communism...