Fantastic WWII movie about occupation-era France. Lucien Lacombe (Pierre Blaise) is a hulking teenage farmboy nobody. When he hears about the resistance, he tries to join up with it but is rejected by the school teacher who does the recruiting. A short while later, he inadvertently gives up the teacher to a group of Frenchmen working with the Nazis. He's slightly upset at his mistake, but when he is welcomed by these collaborators, he thinks he's found a place to fit in. Plus, as one of the few French people who is pretty much free to do whatever he likes, he begins to throw his weight around. This mostly takes the form of a "friendship" he forms with his tailor, a half-Jewish foreigner over whom he has absolute power. He intimidates the man (wonderfully played by Holger Löwenadler) and openly (and threateningly) hits on his daughter (Aurore Clément). Malle's film is best when it just observes the characters interacting. It's very slow moving, but the power struggle between the characters is fascinating. It is a film where you're pretty much always going to despise the protagonist, but one can also sense the humanity in him.
Review of Lacombe, Lucien
