Forbidden Games [VHS]

Forbidden Games [VHS]
by Ren? Cl?ment

Forbidden Games [VHS]

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Category: VHS Video
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Product details

Actor: Am?d?e, Brigitte Fossey, Georges Poujouly, Laurence Badie, Madeleine Barbul?e
Director: Ren? Cl?ment
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Subtitled); French (Original Language), Analog
Format: Black & White, NTSC
Running Time: 105 minutes
Release Date: 2000-06-06
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: Homevision
Studio: Homevision

VHS Movie Reviews of Forbidden Games [VHS]

Movie Review: CLASSIC MASTERPIECE!!
Summary: 5 Stars

I won't write a review detailing the plot, that has already been done here. This movie is a masterpiece. The child actors are sensational, the directing superb. Even the musical score is hauntingly beautiful (Jeux Interdits by Narciso Yepes.....I bought the song off itunes for my ipod.)

I read a review by Roger Ebert (he gave it a stunning review, of course) and he said it is not a tear-jerker. I disagree, the last scene made me cry....that lovely little girl Paulette calling out for Micel, with tears welling in her eyes....how can you not break down watching that? I am getting emotional just writing about it now.

The DVD is loaded with wonderful extras, including an alternate ending, interviews, etc...

All I can say is that this is one of the greatest films OF ALL TIME. You simply must see it. a CLASSIC MASTERPIECE. BRAVO!!!!!

Movie Review: How Does a Child Interpret Profound Loss of a Parent
Summary: 5 Stars

Given the task of rating the 10 best movies of all time, I would include Rene Clements "Forbidden Games" along with "The Seventh Seal" and 'La Strada". I was knocked off my feet by the movie.

1940 France...the Parisians are fleeing the Nazi bombardment and the parents of a sensitive girl are both killed by the Nazi planes. Her dog is another victim. Wandering aimlessly, she is befriended by a country family and particularly by a slightly older boy who forges a "love" if not a real attachment to this little girl.

To give meaning to her loss, to mourn, to comfort her dead pet, to avoid confronting the enormity of the events, the girl buries her dog and then buries other animals next to the the dead animal...stealing bits and pieces of gravestones or crosses from a cemetery. Her accomplice is the young farm boy. Eventually, they are discovered and separated.

What are the "Forbidden Games". Of course, stealing from other graves is a forbidden game...but the war and intolerance and narrow mindedness of the adults is the "other forbidden game" After all the second "game" created the first.

Yes, this is an anti-war film...but it is far more than that. It's a piercing psychological examination of the effect of war and parental loss on a young child. I thought the film was exceptional in every way - the acting, the molding of music to events, the photography, the truth of the picture. It is the equal of Hitchcock, the equal of Kurosawa, the equal of Kubrick's best pictures. No film addict - particularly someone who values foreign films - can complete his or her collection without this masterpiece of cinema.

Brigitte Fossey - the young girl - gives one of the best child performances in film, as does the older boy, George Poujuly. The director (and his wife) who helped to shape the film are to be commended for their ability to get such exceptional performances from ones so young. In France, Brigitte Fossey was awarded "best actress" - an achievement unmatched by any other five year old - Oscars or otherwise.

5 stars, ten stars, this is a picture that changes the way we look at the world.

Movie Review: 3.5 stars out of 4
Summary: 5 Stars

The Bottom Line:

A wonderful, simple story of two children during wartime who become friends and attempt to understand war and death, Forbidden Games is an accessible and involving story that culls good performances from its young leads and ends on an appropriately downbeat note: it's quite a film.

Movie Review: Under the Eyes of the Owl
Summary: 4 Stars

Forbidden Games is a sad tale of war. A little girl (Brigitte Fossey) witnesses her family killed while fleeing the bombs of WWII. Even her dog is killed, but she carries him with her as she wanders away. She stumbles upon a rural family with a young boy named Michel (Georges Poujouly). The Dolle's take her in, and Michel becomes her closest friend. Paulette has an obsession with death, and when she buries her dog, she insists that other animals accompany him near his grave so that he will not be lonely. Michel does his best to oblige her but cannot easily find crosses to decorate the graves. Paulette becomes his eyes and requests every pretty cross that she sees.

A moving film with two wonderful child actors, Forbidden Games is depressing but very well done. It is a strong arguement against war and a plea for war orphans everywhere. Director Ren? Cl?ment utilizes an untraditional way of opening and closing his film. Although the story follows a logical progression, it opens abruptly and ends without the story being concluded. In this way, we are presented with a slice of life and are able to relate better to the story and to the characters.

In spite of the grim subject, there are a few moments of humor, even in spite of the seriousness of the actions. Laughter in times of crisis is often therapeutic, and Cl?ment gives us a few of those moments.

Movie Review: Sad
Summary: 5 Stars

When I was a kid in the sixties this movie appeared on TV; I was not allowed to watch it, I guess because of my parents' then traditional catholicism; I just saw at that time a glimpse of the two children with the crosses. Those images, the soundtrack which my much older sister listened to almost constantly, and the name of the movie have haunted me ever since, forty years ago.
I recently bought the DVD and I was not disappointed. The movie is so lyrical, the children's acting so heartfelt, the inevitability of loss so heartbreaking. All the rituals we invent to alleviate loss, the images seem to suggest, are an illusion at best. The somber cast of WWII in Europe is just a scratch beneath the buccolic setting, reminding me that that senseless evil is still as close to all of us as it ever has been.

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Summary of Forbidden Games [VHS]

One of France's greatest films, Forbidden Games is the searing masterpiece of Rene Clement (Gervaise). Like its predecessor Grand Illusion, this startling antiwar film is devastating without bloody battle scenes. Through the poignant story of an orphan girl befriended by a peasant boy, we witness war's cruel destruction of innocence.

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