| Forbidden Games | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | René Clément |
| Written by | Jean Aurenche Pierre Bost |
| Based on | Les Jeux Interdits byFrançois Boyer |
| Produced by | Robert Dorfmann |
| Starring | Georges Poujouly Brigitte Fossey Amédée |
| Cinematography | Robert Juillard |
| Edited by | Roger Dwyre |
| Music by | Robert de Visée and anon, music performed by Narciso Yepes |
Production companies | Silver Films Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Distributed by | Les Films Corona Loew's Inc. (USA) |
Release dates | |
Running time | 86 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Box office | $36.8 million[3] |
Forbidden Games (French:Jeux Interdits) is a 1952 Frenchwardrama film directed byRené Clément and based onFrançois Boyer's novelLes Jeux Interdits.
While not initially successful in France, the film was a hit elsewhere. It won theGolden Lion at theVenice Film Festival, aSpecial Award asBest Foreign Language Film in the United States, and aBest Film from any Source at theBritish Academy Film Awards.
It is June 1940, during theBattle of France.[4] After five-year-old Paulette's parents and pet dog die in a German air attack on a column of refugees fleeingParis, the traumatized child meets 10-year-old Michel Dollé whose peasant family takes her in.[4] She quickly becomes attached to Michel. The two attempt to cope with the death and destruction that surrounds them by secretly building a small cemetery among the ruins of an abandoned watermill,[4] where they bury her dog and start to bury other animals, marking their graves with crosses stolen from a local graveyard, including one belonging to Michel's brother. Michel's father first suspects that Michel's brother's cross was stolen from the graveyard by his neighbour. Eventually, the father finds out that Michel has stolen the cross.
Meanwhile, the Frenchgendarmes come to the Dollé household in order to take Paulette. Michel cannot bear the thought of her leaving and tells his father that he would tell him where the stolen crosses are, but in return he should not give Paulette to the gendarmes. When his father doesn't keep his promise, Michel destroys the crosses by throwing them into the stream. Paulette ends up going to aRed Cross camp, but at the end of the film is seen running away into a crowd of people in the camp, crying for Michel and then for her mother.
The film was widely praised among critics, whose "howling protests" were heard at the1952 Cannes Film Festival where it was not an "official entry of France";[2] instead, it was "screened on the fringe of the Competition."[5]
The film was entered into competition at the13th Venice International Film Festival; festival organizers at first considered the film ineligible because it had been screened at Cannes;[2] it ended up receiving theGolden Lion, the Festival's highest prize.
Upon its release, it was lambasted by some, who said it was a "vicious and unfair picture of thepeasantry of France";[2] in France, 4,910,835 theater tickets were sold,[1] making it the most successful film at the French box office in 1952.[6] Following its December 1952 release in the United States,Bosley Crowther called it a film with "the irony of aGrand Illusion, the authenticity of aHarvest and the finesse of French films at their best"; according to Crowther, the film is a "brilliant and devastating drama of the tragic frailties of men, clear and uncorrupted by sentimentality or dogmatism in its candid view of life."[2]
At the25th Academy Awards,Forbidden Games won an out-of-competitionSpecial Award asBest Foreign Language Film.[4] In December 1952, at the24th National Board of Review Awards it was chosen as one of that year's five top foreign films. At the1952 New York Film Critics Circle Awards, it won for Best Foreign Language Film.
In 1954, it was BAFTA'sBest Film from any Source; in 1955, at the27th Academy Awards,François Boyer was nominated for anAcademy Award for Best Story;Philip Yordan won, for his work onBroken Lance.
Decades after its release,David Ehrenstein called it "deeply touching" and wrote: "Fossey's is quite simply one of the most uncanny pieces of acting ever attempted by a youngster. Clément’s sensitivity doubtless accounts for much of what we see here, but the rest is clearly Fossey’s own."[4]
Forbidden Games has an approval rating of 100% onreview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, based on 19 reviews, and an average rating of 8.8/10.[7]
Roger Ebert added the film to hisGreat Movies collection in 2005, writing: "Movies like Clement's "Forbidden Games" cannot work unless they are allowed to be completely simple, without guile, transparent. Despite the scenes I have described, it is never a tear-jerker. It doesn't try to create emotions, but to observe them."[8]
The main theme of the soundtrack is aguitar arrangement of themelody "Romance," performed byNarciso Yepes.
Forbidden Games was released on Laserdisc in 1988 byCriterion Collection (under license of Turner andMGM/UA Home Video), who later also released it on DVD in 2004 by license ofWarner Bros. andTurner Entertainment Co.
René Clément won awards in 1946 forLa Bataille du Rail, in 1949 forAu-Delà des Grilles and in 1954 forMonsieur Ripois (but oddly, not forJeux Interdits, which was screened on the fringe of the Competition, but went on to make the entire world weep);French:René Clément se voyait récompenser en 1946 pourLa Bataille du rail, en 1949 pourAu delà des grilles, en 1954 pourMonsieur Ripois (mais curieusement pas pourJeux interdits, projeté en marge de la compétition avant de faire pleurer le monde entier...)
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