No Depravity of a Child’s Imagination Can Exceed the Worst of the Real Adult World
Written: May 26 '04 (Updated Feb 03 '06)
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Pros: Likely the best child performance ever; strong and cleverly rendered theme; great musical score
Cons: Some may find the ending excessively abrupt
The Bottom Line: Highly recommended for its heart-rending contrast of the foibles of war and adult religious rituals with the beauty and innocence of childhood
Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
If you haven’t seen this film, Les Jeux Interdits (Forbidden Games), by all means, go out and rent it or purchase it – however you prefer to obtain films. There is so much that is wonderful about this film, but first and foremost is the simple fact that it includes the single best performance by a child actor or actress I have ever encountered. And from a mere five-year-old actress at that! The adorable little wide-eyed blond Brigitte Fossey is absolutely magnetic as Paulette. In fact, I don’t recall a more fully expressive performance from an actor or actress of any age. What Fossey delivers is way beyond the insufferable cuddly cuteness that we’ve come to expect from children in films. There is a depth of emotion that totally belies her age. Fossey went on, by the way, to have a long and successful career as an actress in both movies (e.g., Going Places (1974) and The Man Who Loved Women (1977)) and French television.
The musical score is utterly haunting as well. It consists of heart-rending solo guitar music performed by the great Narcisco Yepes. Some of the themes will flit through your cranium for days after watching this film. The black-and-white cinematography is gorgeous and the direction by Rene Clément is genius itself, especially the skill with which he elicited such great performances from his two child leads.
What about substance? Forbidden Games has been described as one of the strongest anti-war films ever made, though war activities intrude overtly into the film only in the opening minutes. Five-year-old Paulette (Brigette Fossey) and her parents are among the Parisians fleeing the city in 1940 in advance of a Nazi air-raid. When their car conks out, they are left walking and are caught on a bridge just as a Nazi plane undertakes a strafing run. Paulette’s parents are killed as well as Paulette’s dog, Jock. Paulette, though not hit by the gunfire, has been instantly rendered alone in the world. When a passerby discards the corpse of Jock in a brook, Paulette runs downstream to extract it from the water. Meanwhile, on a nearby farm, eleven-year-old Michel Dolle (Georges Poujouly) has let the cow get away and while pursuing it encounters Paulette. He takes immediate pity on her circumstances and brings her home, where she is taken in.
The adults of the Dolle family are busy with both livelihood and their personal intrigues and have little time to involve themselves with either Michel or Paulette. The two youngsters therefore spend a lot of time together and begin to create their own unique version of reality. Building on various snippets that each has acquired from their respective experiences with religion, ceremonial practices, and life in general, they create their own distinctive view of life which, though different, is only marginally more fanciful and ridiculous than what passes for “normal” behavior and practices among the adults. Michel assumes the role of both friend and emotional healer for Paulette. When Paulette wonders what has happened to the bodies of her mother and father, Michel explains that they have been put in a hole and is pleased to confirm Paulette’s speculation that it is to keep them from getting wet in the rain. Michel explains to Paulette that people are buried in cemeteries with other dead people so that they won’t be alone. Paulette buries Jock, her dog, with Michel’s help, but becomes concerned that Jock will be lonely. Together, they begin to construct an elaborate animal cemetery, burying the corpses of rats, cockroaches, worms, chicks, and the like, alongside Jock. It is imperative, they imagine (from their observations of human burial rituals) that these graves be marked with crosses. In order to please Paulette, Michel begins initially to make crosses from sticks but later turns to stealing more elaborate crosses – from his brother’s funeral hearse, the church altar, and finally even from the town cemetery. Despite the superficial “weirdness” of these activities, all of the relationship between Michel and Paulette is permeated by the pure innocence of childhood and a genuine affection between the two lonely and confused youngsters. The “forbidden games” referred to in the title are, of course, the ceremonial animal burial rituals developed by the children and not sexual games as some unwitting viewers might be anticipating.
Throughout the movie, the activities of Michel and Paulette are juxtaposed between scenes involving the various adults in the Dolle family and their neighbors, the Gouards. The relationship between the two families is strained at best – except for the romance between the Gouard son, Francis (Amadee), and Michel’s older sister, Berthe (Laurence Badie). Compared to the absurdity of war, the ridiculous rivalry between the Gouard and Dolle families, and the silliness of the religious practices of the adults, the somewhat naturalistic and pagan-like approach to life dreamed up by Michel and Paulette seems downright harmless and even sensible. The genius of Forbidden Games is its juxtaposing the morbid imaginations of young children against the even more morbid reality of adult human existence. The adult world is seen mainly in comic relief while the world of the children is fraught with genuine emotional depth and poignancy.
Forbidden Games certainly warrants use of a term that I perhaps use to often – masterpiece. It has an emotional delicacy that makes it one of the finest French films of my experience. The ending of the film I will not divulge, except to comment that it is somewhat abrupt. I was surprised to see the appearance of the “Finis” sign. I have read reviews that praise the ending as the right one and others that call it “unsatisfying.” I felt it was fully appropriate even though sudden. Originally, a portion of the film footage that now comprises Forbidden Games was intended to be one of three vignettes in a more expansive film, but when the broader project fell through, Forbidden Games was fleshed out to feature length by some additional shooting. This may account for the unusual feel of the ending, though I am not convinced that another would be better.
This film evokes strong emotions, so you will want to save it for an evening when you’re prepared to shed a few tears. It may leave you feeling ashamed of being part of adult human society but it will surely leave you feeling great affection for our children. Forbidden Games won the Grand Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1952 and then took the Academy Award for Best Foreign film later in the same year. This is truly a film to be celebrated. It is in French with English subtitles and has a running time of 102 minutes.
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You might want to check out these other excellent films from France:
A young orphaned French girl is taken in by a peasant family during WWII. Becoming fast friends with the young son the two children begin playing game...More at Family Video
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