The War Is Over

Resnais creates a similar hazy, poetic world as in Last Year at Marienbad and Hiroshima Mon Amour, but inside it is a fairly conventional, and rather dull, story. The flashes of memory (or in some cases, imagination), internal dialogue, and odd close-ups are somewhat intriguing, unfortunately it's not enough to elevate this film above average. Things do pick up at the end, however, it's just the first hour that's rough going.

Yves Montand is fascinating to watch, and I liked the look and feel of the film, its plot and the narration, too.

Repeats a lot of the same cool formal innovations from Resnais' other early films (i mean really, could Sacha Vierny ever be bad?), but to somewhat lesser effect. As a whole it's not unlike Muriel but not nearly as good, or even more so like Godard's Le Petit Soldat but, you know, sort of more cold and lifeless because obviously it's Resnais we're talking about.

After a head-achingly plot-laden first 30' -where it appeared I had stumbled upon the French version of "The Big Sleep"-, "La guerre est finie" takes a breath and grows into a nuanced essay on revolution and revolutionaries. Although his care for character and emotional substrate is inconsistent (challenging my attention span), Resnais' visual trickery cannot be underestimated in its vitality; neither can the script's finely written dialogue or the intelligent handling of its themes.

This seems to have completely disappeared, but my recollection is that it is a great film that captures the feeling of battles that are being waged (externally and internally) even after the war is, well, over.

87.500

Nicely shot and edited. Montand gives a good performance.