Vive la Army of Shadows!

A large poster at the E-Street theater advertises Army of Shadows as “the best reviewed movie of the year.” This is true, in a sense, though the movie was actually released in 1969. Metacritic places its average review score at a whopping 99; it’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a unanimous critical vote for perfection. I won’t rock the boat too much here. Army of Shadows is masterful, a patient, carefully paced tale of deception, murder, and hidden love during a time of war. The photography is rapturous, as gorgeous and painterly as anything in Citizen Kane—but in soft, elegant color. It is a grand film indeed.

But I wonder: Could it be that most movie critics, tired of slogging through the pre-summer mush that fills the theaters every May, are so enamored with this solemn, old, French film that they are lavishing praise on it simply because it is such a relief after all the obnoxious offerings of the American box office? Delicate, slow, refined, immaculately filmed--yet not above a good chase scene, harrowing escape or bloody murder--it is exactly the sort of classy genre picture that many critics love most. It seems to me that while the film is clearly excellent, part of why it is getting such unbelievable marks is because it panders perfectly to what critics pine for but rarely get to see: slow, old, foreign films with a dash of action.