Jeux interdits
| Forbidden Games | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | René Clément |
| Produced by | Robert Dorfmann |
| Written by |
Jean Aurenche Pierre Bost |
| Based on |
Jeux interdits by François Boyer |
| Starring |
Georges Poujouly Brigitte Fossey Amédée |
| Music by | Narciso Yepes |
| Cinematography | Robert Juillard |
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Production
company |
Silver Films
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| Distributed by | Les Films Corona Times Film Corporation (USA) |
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Release date
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Running time
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86 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Box office | $36.8 million |
Forbidden Games (French: Jeux interdits), is a 1952 French war drama film directed by René Clément and based on François Boyer's novel Jeux Interdits.
While not initially successful in France, the film was a hit elsewhere. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, a Special Award as Best Foreign Language Film in the United States, and a Best Film from any Source at the British Academy Film Awards.
It is June 1940, during the Battle of France. After five-year-old Paulette's parents and pet dog die in a German air attack on a column of refugees fleeing Paris, the traumatized child meets 10-year-old Michel Dollé whose peasant family takes her in. She quickly becomes attached to Michel. The two attempt to cope with the death and destruction that surrounds them by secretly building a small cemetery among the ruins of an abandoned watermill, where they bury her dog and start to bury other animals, marking their graves with crosses stolen from a local graveyard, including one belonging to Michel's brother. Michel's father first suspects that Michel's brother's cross was stolen from the graveyard by his neighbour. Eventually, the father finds out that Michel has stolen the cross.
Meanwhile, the French gendarmes come to the Dollé household in order to take Paulette. Michel cannot bear the thought of her leaving and tells his father that he would tell him where the stolen crosses are, but in return he should not give Paulette to the gendarmes. His father doesn't keep his promise: Michel destroys the crosses and Paulette ends up going to a Red Cross camp, but at the end of the movie is seen running away into a crowd of people in the Red Cross camp, crying for Michel and then for her mother.
The film was widely praised among critics, whose "howling protests" were heard at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival where it was not an "official entry of France"; instead, it was "screened on the fringe of the Competition."
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Wikipedia