Jeux Interdits (Forbidden Games) poster & wallpaper

Amédée, André Wasley, Brigitte Fossey

This is an unsentimental view of war through the eyes of two peasant children.

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93% liked it

2,375 ratings

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100% liked it

9 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 42 min.

Directed by: René Clément

Release Date: January 1, 1952

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Flixster Reviews (185)

  • flixsterman
    June 27, 2009
    flixsterman
    Director Rene Clement wanted to cast an eight or nine year old girl for the part of Paulette because he thought that anyone younger wouldn't be able to remember the lines or follow his direction. Thank God for Clement's insistent wife who recognized the talents of five year old ...( read more)Brigitte Fossey and ultimately managed to convince her husband to give the girl a second look. Let's face facts here, no matter how great the script or the director or the cinematography, if the kid isn't believable the film just doesn't work. Bravo Mrs. Clement and Bravo Brigitte!
  • bort16
    April 5, 2009
    bort16
    Movies revolving around children can be the most sinister of all. There is something about the idyllic innocence that we just assume to be inherent to childhood. As we get older, we're jaded and the cracking of our worlds are more acceptable. When childhoods are shattered, it jus...( read more)t seems so much more unbearable.
    Rene Clement's Forbidden Games, widely unappreciated and controversial upon release (as with so many great films), stands today as one of the best examples of children in wartime. A young girl, Paulette, loses her parents at the film's opening in a German air raid. Her dog is also killed. She carries the dead dog with her. When she's picked up by another couple, the man tells her the dog is dead and throws it in the river. She follows the dog down stream to get him back. She follows a horse and cart without a driver until she comes across a boy, Michel. His brother has just been kicked by the horse. He takes her home with him after she says her parents are dead. At first his father says no, but reminded that perhaps the neighbors - with whom they have a long standing rivalry over essentially nothing other than being neighbors - may take her, he changes his mind.
    During their time together, spurned on by the burial of her dead dog, they begin collecting dead animals and crosses. She's afraid her dog will be lonely. They collect animals - sometimes killing them - to make a cemetery in an old mill. Clement mixes humor and tenderness in a way that masks the sinisterness of their task. Michel becomes obsessed with collecting crosses for Paulette's appeasement. He begins making them, but then stealing them - from church, the cemetery. After his brother dies from the wounds suffered from the horse kick, he steals the crosses off his hearse, then even the cross from his grave. This leads to a humorous confrontation between their family and the neighbors - who they simply assume are the culprits.
    The priest has already caught Michel trying to steal a crucifix from the church, and upon seeing the altercation, breaks it up and informs them about Michel's actions.
    Michel must return the crosses or Paulette will be given over to the orphanage. This leads to the film's heartbreaking finale.
    Forbidden games masks its darkness throughout with hope. It's subtle enough to creep up on you, through our own expectations for how a conventional story would play out. For instance, Clement teases us, for example with the possibility of a resolution between the feuding families when their daughter and son begin a relationship. He makes the film go from optimism to pessimism in a heartbeat. Some have accused Clement of manipulation and exploitation for the situations he put his actors in and the story he tells with them, but what really would have been exploitative would have been to sentimentalize the story. There was a separate ending and opening that Clement shot that made the story more optimistic. It's unknown if this ending was ever shown theatrically, but it was fully edited and prepped for the film. I'm sure for studios and publcists this ending was more in suit for their liking. Nevertheless Clement kept in the more pessimistic ending. Rarely has a film ended with such a heavy punch to the guts. It's almost too much, and I can see how it would have upset. But it is exactly that unsentimentality which makes the film so great.
    Bergman once said that to get a good performance from a child, you just don't direct them. Clement directed his children through other means - for example, he told Brigette Fossey that she wouldn't get the bike she was promised to get her to cry. Whatever his methods, he got brilliant performances out of two very young children. Fossey of course went on to become a famous actress.
    Children in film mesmerize me. It's such a touchy subject to place children in scenes of turmoil, but the rewards are often the most satisfying (or crushing) - as long as the lines of exploitation for the sake of exploitation is not crossed.
    While this film is ultimately unsentimental, it's nevertheless an intriguing exploration of the endurance of youth, and of death. The children in Forbidden Games are too young to fully understand the magnitude of death. Their game is a testament to their inability to comprehend the destruction around them. It is fascinating that as the older and more jaded we become that we are able to accept hardships, yet are less able to actually deal with our pain, but as children, due to our ignorance, we simply accept and endure. Forbidden Games is one of the most affecting depictions of how the actions of adults can shatter our innocence.
  • hypathio7
    January 29, 2009
    hypathio7
    The opening sequence is very good. A little girl from the city is thrown into tragic circumstances. She befriends a boy a few years older than she is and is temporarily adopted by his farming family. There are funny moments dealing with the family's rivalry with the neighborin...( read more)g family, and with relationships within the Dolle family household. It is interesting how the children try to cope with the tragedy of war, but I was not overly impressed by the five year old actress. Her acting method did not seem particularly natural. What I mean is, you can tell the director was coaching her to bring the tears on at certain moments, instead of her being able to react naturally to the situations.
  • columbiatch
    February 14, 2007
    columbiatch
    Brigitte Fossey was amazing in this film. It's a story about a young girl who after witnessing her parents being killed by German planes is taken into a new family by an older boy who she forms a strong bond with. The two began a macabre game of ritualizing death. Their fascin...( read more)ation with death is disturbing because it is portrayed so naturally and realistically. One of the saddest movies ever.
  • smootysveen
    February 7, 2009
    smootysveen
    Tenderly presents a very disturbing, but important story about children and how they are influenced.
  • HuskersNC949597
    August 19, 2009
    HuskersNC949597
    A truly great story with surprisingly wry humorousness. The alternate endings are so cowardly, I'm surprised they weren't actually used in the original. HAHA France.
  • hossein13
    August 17, 2009
    hossein13
    Jul 09 - A masterpiece! The view of the war from the point of view of the children makes this one of the most humanist movie I have ever seen. It was also amazing to relive the incredible feelings I had 16 years ago watching the same movie.
  • ahhh1989
    May 6, 2009
    ahhh1989
    Such a simultaneously tragic and heartwarming piece of filmmaking.
  • xmkatx
    April 26, 2009
    xmkatx
    What a very sad, depressing opening. I like that they created a cemetary for animals but the kid was also killing animals just to bury them. Worth it to view the alternate opening and ending.
  • kurosawian
    April 22, 2009
    kurosawian
    What is it about seeing War through the eyes of children? Somehow it's endlessly fascinating. Especially when you have such an intriguing analogy as Clement comes up with in this stunning film. So unsentimental and disturbingly profound.

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Comments

  • jerswintgirl
    May 1, 2007
    jerswintgirl
    People should really see this film, it has really a nice story though
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