The irreplaceable Philippe

The Beginning
When the patrol wagon takes a detour, the officer who is wearing a uniform asks the prisoner who is wearing handcuffs “we’re taking a little detour. You are not in any hurry?” the answer is “not at all”. The film has already started in the first few minutes; by exchanging the sentences, alters our mentality of a prisoner and handcuffs, builds a kind of comfort; a suspended comfort. Because the patrol wagon hasn’t got to the destination and after the conversation, the attention of the kindhearted officer is being drawn to the hand-cuffed hands of the prisoner and his smile bitterly fades. The wagon arrives to the destination and here, this the manager of the camp who is careful about the prisoner “use the carrot (not the stick) … indeed. But use it with caution”. Then our prisoner Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura) enters the camp which he is supposed to be a prisoner in it. This camp, without any bars, is not very similar to a prison. Apparently, there are not many limitations for rambling in the camp’s yard and one of the prisoners is in charge of the upkeep of electricity. There is no such a thing as work or any kind of difficulty. Everybody, standing up or sitting down, are having a conversation, playing games or playing music. Philippe also, in a long and without a cut zoom-back, strolls in the camp’s yard, and while he is watching the prisoners from different places in the world, he promenades its length in peace. Comfort, in its domination is pervasive. Even the ill catholic teacher who is a resident in Philippe’s residency seems like sleeping. Without any moaning and whining, in silence, in the corner of the frame. The picture is being cut off. Philippe’s voice without an image is audible “the catholic teacher died one night. Without a sound as usual”. We now have the picture. Two people are carrying the body away “some Kabyles removed the body”. Now death has entered. The cutting off of the quiet and calm flow of events within the picture, that by this moment has been narrating the story unhurried –and in some instances slow and even still- puts a question mark in front of the comfort that has been built and brings it in to a new phase by creating a caesura. The other prisoners who had been sitting in the frame but farther, approaching the young (quoting from Philippe) lost friend of the catholic teacher (Legrain) but he says “I’m not sad. Armel is better off this way” while his face says something else. Seems like out of stubbornness toward sadness, he is angry. When the prisoners go away within the frame, Philippe enters the frame, offers him a cigarette, calmly and determinedly says “the score will be settled” and he turns back to go out of the frame again. The other prisoners are (quoting from Philippe) fools and behind and when Legrain rejects them, they return to their game. But Philippe is ahead and also sees himself in the role of a mentor for this young lost man. He acknowledges his anger –and not like other prisoners his sadness- at the same time, with his calmness promises calmness. And before Philippe leaving the frame Legrain applies a request to have a discussion with Philippe to talk about an escape plan with Philippe. Sadness, anger, daydreaming. He says “they need you on the outside” and looks in to the eyes of Philippe.

“the communist and I secretly worked out an escape plan. We gradually eliminated obstacles” the escape plan taking shape gradually and unhurried. Daydreaming in comfort. We hear this internal sentence from Philippe, when he is sewing, the point in which the manager of the camp enters, while he is not careful about him anymore “Gerbier, let’s go. Take your things”. He starts packing up his belongings “hurry up Gerbier” before reaching the exit door, Philippe stops for a moment and stares at the empty bed of Legrain. The escape plan aside, Legrain is not even there for saying good-bye and portrayal of this behavior (stopping and starring at the bed) is narrating that, their daydreaming has become nothing; “tell Legrain good-by for me”. At the moment of stepping out, he turns for a second, looks at the old man who is incarcerated beside him. Watch the frames and their places in the editing of this moment. The invasion of lump to the throat has interrupted the old man’s speech and Philippe, who have the manager of the camp and other soldiers behind him watching him, says “jackasses” –he is quoting the old man and is pointing to the ones who are behind himself- while he is smiling. The comfort has been trampled by the both sides and Philippe’s carelessness, announces his awareness of the fate he has ahead of him. And similar to the old man, subjected to the invasion of lump to the throat, we have no alternative but to watch this moment speech-interrupted.

The narrator builds a specific framework for himself: his prison (the camp), his officer, his prisoner; people who are not –none of them, nowhere- talkative. Even during playing domino they play in silence. The narrator does not summarize the incidents. He portrays the transportation of Gerbier from the manager’s office to the camp lengthy and not by one cut, unhurriedly and calmly because in portraying the incident, he considers not the story but the feeling of stillness inside of it. And from this stilly feeling he creates comfort. When the framework is stabilized it is available to give identity to the violation of it. Like when the picture is being cut off at the moment of the catholic teacher’s death. Or when the editing is full of cuts at the moment of taking Philippe out of the camp and he says that sentence to the old man. Here, violation of the framework has the virulence of death; and not for example the nectar of delight.

The Middle
Philippe successfully escapes. Him, that Legrain thinks is an important person and is needed. And it seems like his escape opens a new chapter in the film which in it, he is not the one who narrates the story anymore. We leave his point of view and without his presence, we follow the story from someone else’s point view; by Felix’s voice, which arrives on the picture and describes what is happening. In the beginning of the film, for about a minute, the subjective voice of the camp’s manager also has arrived on the picture, but it didn’t turn him in to the one who is narrating the story and it just reveals the mentality of him as the probable opponent of Philippe. Also in that point of the film, although the subjective voice of Philippe has not started to talk so that it turns him in to the one who narrates what is happening, by his presence, he is the Common Denominator of the scenes. But here, at first he is not even present and when he shows up, he is one of the people who are there. And that’s how the narrator himself violates the dominating framework that he has built for the film in our mind. The middle part of Army of Shadows is full of minor plots that through them, it is available to “not to see” the main character. By resorting to these minor plots, the narrator slowly turns Philippe in to “one of” the main characters. But not quite. Seems like in a way, it makes us unfamiliar to him. The unfamiliarity that by disconnection of the communication between two people, enters into their relationship. And the narrator achieves this impact by not seeing Philippe and bringing the point of view of other characters into the film, which among them, gives a considerable weight to the character of the pilot (Jean-François – Jean-Pierre Cassel). A character who does not stand in the same place with Philippe from the moment of entry to the end, except two scenes and talks to him only once. And in this way, on one hand, the narrator decreases the intensity of Philippe being the main character all the more, and on the other hand increases it and uses it, thus attracts our attention to this subject matter. The pilot is not even a member of the army at first. After introducing him in the scene of him and Felix’s encounter, the narrator jumps, takes his time and in a detailed way shows him, who is now a member of the army, in “another” assignment; an assignment which the showing of it, easily could have been dropped, because by showing it what is being narrated other than “the dangerousness of circumstances for members of the army”? We are aware of the dangerousness and we have tasted it to some extent, and when it is not being specified that by what kind of actions members of the army are combating and the transmitter which the pilot is transferring is being degraded to the degree of a “Macgufin”, it was possible to let go of the benefit of showing the stages which this mission is being executed and actualize the taste of the dangerousness of circumstances in another way. But this is the strategy of the narrator to make the point of view of a character the focus of attention; he Makes the audience to spend time with a character. A bit further he does the same thing with Philippe, when step by step he shows his return from England. The return which the quality of it could have been “resolved” by a sentence. And after Philippe’s return, the first time we see the pilot, a long time has passed since the last time we have seen him, and this, again makes that unfamiliarity feeling that has been mentioned before, this time in relation to the pilot, and it shows how the emotional and time investment on the point of view of him and other characters and the elimination of the point of view of Philippe, challenges Philippe being the main character. And in this scene, at first we are not aware of the pilot’s presence. He is in a corner and not in the frame. Philippe and Mathilde (Simon Signoret), two people from the important people of the army are having a conversation about breaking Felix out, because he is an important person, he won’t talk and he will be tortured. But the pilot is the brother of the whole army’s commander-in-chief but neither his brother knows nor him, because he is not an important person. But in this very scene –which is the second and last scene that he is in the same place with Philippe- although the camera is following Philippe and Mathilde and is inattentive toward the pilot, when it arrives to the pilot he becomes the focus point of the frame and the frame, abandons Philippe and Mathilde and stay on him and for him. Him, that in this moment is occupied with the obstacle of Mathilde’s plan that she needs to find a way to inform Felix that they are coming to rescue him. It cuts to the pilot while he is writing a letter and tells his fellow soldiers that he has gave in, in order to leave the army and by another letter impersonate an important person, so that they arrest him and then he would be able to inform Felix. And the narrator does not emphasize on the oldness of their friendship (which he will do by showing the picture of them together), because doing such a thing turns this sacrifice in to the sacrifice of a friend for another friend whereas it isn’t. Here an unimportant person sacrifice himself to rescue an important person. When they arrest him, they warn him that if he doesn’t talk he will be buried nameless and without informing his family members. He doesn’t give in, he is being tortured and arrives to the prison when it is already too late. His friend is in a bad condition, so much that it is not even possible to move him and the only thing he can do for him is to accelerate his death with an acid pill, while his friend’s fate is a fate that is awaiting him too, but without an acid pill. He makes himself nonexistent, notorious and nameless and also doesn’t succeed in breaking his friend out.

For an audience who is watching the film for the first time and in going through the path, is not aware of the end of it, the middle part of Army of Shadows has a considerable potential for becoming boring because of its story wise aimlessness. The aimlessness which comes from the indetermination of the combat. It is not clear that where this army is in the path to victory. So close that they are dealing with their excitement and arrogance or so far away that they are dealing with their despair? Mainly, what actions form their combat? What is the next step, what was the previous step? Englishmen do not consider the army’s combat much effective and do not give them the arms they have requested. What about they themselves? Do they consider their combat as a kind of ensemble suicide? Or maybe they don’t pay any attention to the outcome of the combat? They must combat, and they do? The narrator openly avoids being explicit in regard to these subjects and draws our attention to short term goals in minor adventures that however, for the main characters are matters of life and death. And that’s how he makes us go along with the routine life of these combatants. The life and the routine that is consciously associated with death and at the same time is not empty of small opportunities of daydreaming; a dream of the young English girl who wears military uniform. Also, it is not empty of small opportunities of comfort; the comfort of having a picnic with fellow soldiers and equivocal strolling with Mathilde which the narrator, mildly stresses on these strolls being equivocal once. The story-wise situation provides this opportunity of life and death’s effortless juxtaposition and the narrator realizes it by his treatment and appreciates the opportunity of having a personal encounter with it.

The End
In the restaurant at the table, Mathilde who has realized that the police have identified Philippe tells him “you’d better lie low for a while” and he replies “no one can replace me for now” which makes Mathilde to reply like this “if you’re caught, then we’d have to replace you” and immediately she stands up leaves the table and the restaurant and the police enters! Philippe is being arrested and Mathilde… leaves? runs away? When “the matter-of-fact compassion” of Mathilde is being juxtaposed with her leaving in a hurry, and the immediate entry of the police from the same direction of the street that she has gone toward, it brutally affects and it turns in to an imitation of a betrayal which in it Mathilde, simultaneously makes Philippe unimportant and hands him over to the police. This is a taste which the director gives to the moment. Philippe’s arrestment  is being substantiated by a cut from the restaurant to the prison and the movement of the camera in the corridor of the prison; a true prison; unlike the camp in the beginning of the film. Philippe and us –with the ring of Mathilde’s sentence in our ears- are incarcerated in a prison with a handful of anonymous people. Philippe’s face hasn’t been shaved; so it’s been a while since the arrestment and the people who are hear has been picked out. Philippe takes out his cigarette pack but he doesn’t take one from it; he tosses the pack over to another person. And the another person to another person to another person until the end. Philippe offers cigarette, the same way he was offering to Legrain. Is he still performing the role of a mentoring leader unconsciously? Or merely his appetite for smoking cigarette is the cause of this incident? This moment has a breath of life and the mysteriousness of it. The last person before Philippe takes the last cigarette of Philippe’s pack and crumples the pack. He is thinking about himself not Philippe. We don’t see others’ reaction to this action. Seems like despite the tininess of the place, no one but Philippe notices this action. By tossing around the pack, It seemed like that Philippe had connected everyone by something like a rope but this selfishness of the last person and others being reactionless to his action… it’s like all of a sudden everything becomes unimportant. And the camera zooms in on the face of every single one of them with no difference, in separate shots; from here on, they are each occupied with themselves and their deaths. And Philippe becomes only one of them. The zoom-in shot makes them similar. The guard calls “smoke quickly. They’re coming for you. I can get in trouble”. One blesses himself the other says “this is it” and the music also has started, which sounds like it is the voice of mental anxiety of the prisoners. They are off to the execution site and they themselves know it. On the contrary to the beginning of the film, there is nothing to indicate stillness and comfort. There is no subjective voice. Philippe proceeds speech-interrupted. He has no other choice. On the way to the execution site, all of a sudden the dream of the young girl who had worn a military uniform is being revived for Philippe, also the memory of strolling with Mathilde, then the memory of killing the young traitor, and then a book; the book of his “chief” and “love” Luc Jardie “love has meaning for me only as it applies to the chief” it’s like with his love of the chief, he wants to leave behind the girl with the uniform, Mathilde and the act of killing and faces what is in front of him –death. “He means more to me than anything. More than anything but less than life. If Luc Jardie would die, I’d still want to live, but I’m going to die” he arrives at a dead-end. “And I’m not afraid. It’s impossible not to be afraid of dying. But I’m too stubborn, too much of an animal to believe it. If I don’t believe it to the very last moment, the last split second. I’ll never die. What a revelation! The chief would love it” the subjective voice is philosophizing! A philosophy for combating “I’ve got to look into this more deeply” the subjective voice and the subconscious of Philippe haven’t yet accepted that the combat is over and he is going to die. They haven’t accepted that him being important in leading the combat does not matter. But when they arrive to the execution site and he sees the machine gun (with a fast zoom which is the manifestation of his terror) he believes it and both the subjective voice and the music are being cut off. The prisoners have been lined up in front of the machine gun. It is being announced that if anyone survives this round of machine gun firing, in the next round is going to being put in front of it again. The camera shows everyone –including Philippe- again with no difference, by a left to right track shot, waiting for the call to run. The call is being made. Every one runs except Philippe. He wants to show strength; him with his importance and all of his philosophizations. But he is too weak to tolerate this exhebition of strength. He also runs, with no difference. On the contrary to the pilot who actively gets himself killed, they put him in front of the machine gun and he passively gives in to the flow of events and runs. The narrator defines the activeness in dying for the pilot by him being unimportant; the unimportance which is being completed with his worthless and non-prestigious death; and passiveness in dying for Philippe by him being important. And Philippe at the utmost degree of humiliation, runs. And at the utmost degree of disbelief, he is being rescued. In the car where he is sitting beside Mathilde and they are going away, he says “what if I hadn’t run?” and for him, staying alive becomes attached to the humiliation of running; running away from death. While he is exposed in front of the others, he is there sitting and confessing, like he is not able to tolerate the presence of others and their awareness of his weakness/ humiliation. And with anger, he humiliates himself; by comparing his act of running to the act of “a scared rabbit” running. And with this confession, with both hands –which the wedding ring glitters on one of them- Mathilde grabs his hand rapidly and intensely with –maybe- a feminine tendency toward easiness, which welcomes the exposure of weakness. Philippe is being stunned by it and in response, he looks at Mathilde in a way that she withdraws her hands. A look which reveals their equivocal relationship.

Totally pitiless, the narrator humiliates Philippe and reveals his weakness, but does not let him die in that condition. He rescues him and after rescuing, seats him beside Mathilde; one of the four pictures which has invaded his mind while he was moving toward death; one of the four hidden in his inner self pictures. The narrator pitilessly reveals this matter, humiliates Phillippe again, takes Mathilde out of the car. One of the four subjective pictures is being crossed off. But yet, in the last moment while she is smiling, she waves to him and Philippe in response, gives her a halfway smile. It seems like the narrator wants to make up a small portion of this humiliation to Philippe (and also prevent the misunderstanding at the end of the film). And here is the place where the narrator gives Philippe a break to be alone; “isn’t safety great?”. We arrive at the hiding place; it’s stillness, silence and colorlessness. And the low-light images which do not have a sign of the three-week passage of time that the subjective voice of Philippe mentions. Without change, with no ups and downs, that after what Philippe has survived, appetite and capacity doesn’t support more than just to be. Not the brightness of day, nor the gloom of night, but the greyness. With that small sunset sun ray which emerges from behind the building, when the car arrives at the hiding place, by the enough distance that the car has from the building so that the sun becomes hidden but not quite. The narrator gives this break to Philippe. But the break ends; by a new mission: him and others must kill Mathilde. “The chief” and “the love” of Philippe –Luc Jardie- also accompanies them. Philippe says to the chief “you in a car full of killers! Nothing is sacred anymore” for Philippe and his mentalities, another picture from the four subjective pictures is being crossed off. And it seems like by killing Mathilde who has committed the same crime as the young traitor, another picture from the four subjective pictures also is being crossed off. The narrator pitilessly brings Philippe to the execution site, humiliates him in the encounter with death, but gives him another chance and brings him out of there alive, but he doesn’t end his pitiless treatment; he confronts Philippe with the hidden pictures in his inner self. The narrator makes these subjective pictures blemished; he is making these pictures blemished in order to make them objective. But in the path toward this blemishing, compassionately gives him a break to breath and to be alive by hiding him in the hiding place. And the narrator, in the scene of assassinating Mathilde, after Mathilde’s death, directly interferes, rightly and on time, and by cutting off the image of each one of this assassination’s crew members and informing us about the way which they are going to die, makes their death and dying inevitable. And he leaves the information about Philippe’s death to be the last one and by informing us about the matter that “Philippe Gerbier decided this time he wouldn’t run” gives us a hope and an enthusiasm for Deliverance. But he does not end with him; the last shot is a silhouette shot of these four condemned to death men, moving toward the monument which the film has started by showing it is conquered by Nazis; a silhouette which has turned them into four black shadows –army of shadows- that by the command of a soldier in the uniform of the agents of death, change their direction and the monument goes out of their sight. The narrator finishes with the awe of death, not with Philippe’s will. But it’s not over yet; the end credits, with that music and the images from the condemned to death members of the army, which in them, a few seconds of their smile has been framed like a photograph, is a sorrowing for the departed ones who are dear to the narrator. Army of shadows is a great film and the narrator has a dear will and sorrow; would it be possible to blame him for this sorrow? But it is possible to point out to him a dream which cannot be blemished; a dream which is going to be a necessitation besides the renunciation; for realizing his will, making peace with the awe of death and a delivery from sorrow.