'Sorrow, Pity' Gripping Tale of War in France

By Emerson Batdorff

When a picture has a running time of 44 hours, and I go willingly to see it twice, I have to give some thought to what makes it so good.

I do not believe that it is the fact that it deals with an interesting period that makes "The Sorrow and the Fity" so good; the years of German occupation of France in World War II could just as easily have been presented as dull history.

"The Sorrow and the Pity" had a showing at the Heights Theater last night in anticipation of beginning a run there. But an X-rated movie, "The All-American Giri," has been doing too well to pull it out under its exhibition contract. It resumes tonight. "The Sorrow and the Pity" will be shown after people get tired of “The All-American Girl.”

What makes "The SorroW and the Pity" gripping entertainment, although admittedly hard on the sitter, is the fact that it shows people, great and small, as they reacted to a horrid situation. It is the human element that attracts.

While you may have to shift from time to time in your seat to restore circulation, the mind never tires.

The picture is a long, splendid probe into French mentality and actions under German occupation.

The picture was directed by Marcel Ophuls, and I essume it was he who phrased the excellent questions. For example, when Anthony Eden is being interviewed, Eden explains why De Gaulle held a rather anomalous position in England: He didn't represent the French government.

There were in England the governments of Norway, Denmark, Netherlands and Eden went on to name more. But the government of France was in occupied France.

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"Doesn't that say a lot in

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'The Sorrow

and the Pity'

Documentary directed by Marcel Ophuis. Depicted are persons connected with the fall and rise of France in World War II. Cinema V. Mature. 4 hours, 15 minutes plus intermission.

its way?" his questioner asked. Eden was taken briefly by surprise. "Yes," he said finally, nodding. "Yes."

What it meant was that while the other nations were opposed to Germany, the government of France was collaborationist.

Ophuls rounded up a cross-section of France to investigate what went on. From an aristocratic black sheep, he got the opinion that the best resistance fighters were people who couldn't adjust well to society even under the best of conditions.

"You join the resistance only if you are in some way maladjusted," he says, with a rather wolfish look on his face.

This does appear to have a grain of truth, but it is not entirely true. Peasants and young people also joined resistance. A couple of these former fighters are interviewed. They now are large, stolid, steady men. One got down to 89 pounds in Buchenwald. Does he have a picture of himself taken then? "No," he says.

Interestingly, he had been denounced by a neighbor. When he got out of the German prison he had to make a decision: Revenge or no? Live and let live, he decided, and did nothing.

The picture is studded with film clips of the occupation, including newsreels of the doddering Petain. who sent his country down the river in what I think was a fit of senility, and a propaganda film of a day in the life of Pierre Laval, who was premier under the Ger-

mans.

There alsc is an interview with Laval's son-in-law who has convinced himself that the old man was "really a resistance fighter."

This is not a view most Frenchmen take.

Some of the picture can move you almost to tears. One such occasion comes with the interview of an eld-

erly, cherubic man who looks and sounds like an Episcopal reverend. In an interview with his secret service boss it has been established that this man "is the bravest man I ever knew."

Why was he so brave in his spying career? "Well," he says softly, “because of my morals."

"Do you mean that because you are a homosexual you had to prove something?" "Yes," he says. "I felt I just had to."

The French treatment of Jews turns out to have been even more horrible than the German treatment of Jews. This is brought out strongly.

Not alone are the French and English interviewed. Former German soldiers have their say, including a former Wehrmacht captain, now fat and snaggle toothed, who complains about partisan fighting.

It seems that once a platoon of his marched down a road in France, all unsuspecting, and some 45 Frenchmen who were working in a field nearby downed their potato forks, picked up machine guns and killed 17 German soldiers.

"This isn't right," says the former captain. “Partisans should wear white or vellow armbands or a distinctive hat."

There are sparkling places like that throughout. It is the opposite of dreary history. It is a film that should be seen by everyone with a feeling for people.