Forbidden Games (1952) [The Criterion Collection] – DVD

Jeux interdits
***/**** Image A- Sound A Extras B
starring Brigitte Fossey, Georges Poujouly, Amédée, Laurence Badie
screenplay by Jean Aurenche, Pierre Bost, François Boyer, René Clément
directed by René Clément

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover René Clément's Forbidden Games is perhaps the best place to begin when comparing the Nouvelle Vague to its nemesis, the Tradition of Quality. As the director (and co-scenarists Pierre Bost and Georges Aurenche, regular CAHIERS DU CINEMA whipping boys) came in for abuse under Truffaut, there's no denying the film's connection to the ToQ and how that tradition represses so much of its more disturbing content. Indeed, one wonders how a movie that revolves around a WWII orphan named Paulette (Brigitte Fossey) who nicks grave markers can be this matter-of-fact and cute. Despite the astonishing morbidity of the subject matter, the film goes about it like Wally and the Beav setting barrel hoops for Lumpy Rutherford. Still, its total lack of shame is something that would be lost in the ensuing New Wave revolution, and though big claims for it are hard to make, it's remarkably fresh and open–if more than a little naïve.

You'd think that a child who a) loses her parents in an air raid trying to save her dog, b) loses the dog, too, and c) is taken in by a bunch of unsympathetic provincials would've been through enough to have her spirits shattered. But Clément is entirely too straight to handle the dark undertones; by the time Brigitte winds up in the company of young Michel (Georges Poujouly) and his family, we've taken a sun-dappled stroll through the woods as our heroine clutches her pet's corpse and wonders where it all went wrong. Once she's delivered to our supporting cast of farmers, we're treated to a battery of "hilarious" bumpkin humour involving Michel's adorably loudmouthed father (Lucien Hubert), trampy sister Berthe (Laurence Badie), and next-door neighbours viewed with completely unfounded suspicion. At the point where Brigitte and Michel start stealing crosses for their own private pet cemetery, you've lost the sense that anything truly devastating will come of it.

Despite material befitting of fellow Quality victim Henri-Georges Cluzot (or, better yet, the Luis Buñuel of Los Olvidados), Clément is determined to soft-pedal everything with a gentle literal-mindedness. This, of course, is the sort of mindset the New Wave sought to sweep away: the simple acceptance of narrative lines without editorializing or awareness of the cinematic apparatus. Clément is so beyond reading into the implications of the piece that he reads nothing into any of it–it's just a story. I can't honestly tell you what Paulette and Michel's morbid preoccupation is supposed to mean because the director doesn't particularly care, thus we have a bunch of standard comedy/pathos set-pieces simply dropped into graveyards and by deathbeds.

But this, strangely, doesn't invalidate the movie. Clément's unflappability in the face of devastation and pain is kind of a tonic: his normalizing of the narrative's more disturbing aspects is a refreshingly guilt-free approach to content that could easily be rendered shameful. This also separates it from the existential sucker punch of most Nouvelle Vague cinema: just as the liner notes mention Truffaut's attack on the film's "blasphemy," so, too, does the New Wave's early output have much to do with punitive fate and other bitter pills. Clément, at the very least, refuses to say die: he doesn't give in to the aestheticized masochism that was both the biggest strength and most maddening limitation of his replacements. It doesn't add up to a masterpiece, but considering the dubiousness of many of its ideas, Forbidden Games adds up to something altogether easy to watch–perhaps not to think about, but you can't have everything.

THE DVD
The Criterion Collection comes through again with a stellar transfer of Forbidden Games, albeit one whose windowboxing has stirred up controversy among those for whom overscan is not an issue and maximizing resolution is a priority. The full-frame image is otherwise crisp and clean, with defects limited to fine, negligible scratches in the source print; typical for a Criterion presentation of black-and-white elements, contrast is irreproachable. Similarly, the Dolby centre-channel mono audio pushes the envelope without actually opening it, though the subtitle translation (which contains the odd curse word, a peculiar sight in this context) is exemplary.

Extras begin with a trio of interviews. First up, a 1963 conversation with Clément (9 mins.) excerpted from the TV show "Cinepanorama". This is a kid-gloves interview all the way ("Did you realize that you were making a masterpiece?") and Clément reciprocates with fatuous responses about the difficulty of the job and the French cinema's "loss of momentum"…in 1963! A second, 1967 interview between Clément and Fossey (5 mins.), from "Magazin de la jeune fille", is even less edifying. The then-20-year-old Fossey reminisces with the director on the occasion of her return to the business, and they talk wistfully of their rapport and the young girl's ease in front of the camera.

The real nitty-gritty, however, arrives in the form of a 2001 interview with Fossey (16 mins.), who has near-total recall about her audition (where, with a little help from the auteur's wife, she swayed Clément from using an older actress), the film's shoot, and her shock at being punished for her fame by jealous schoolmates. That Fossey proves lively and animated on the subject almost half a century later makes the interview that much more amazing. Also find on board an alternate opening (3 mins.) and ending (3 mins.) in which Fossey and Poujouly open (and then close) a storybook and begin to "read" the movie. One can see why these bookends were excised: they're too cutesy for the rest of the story to maintain whatever gravity it has left. Still, they're fascinating from a what-if point of view.

The original theatrical trailer and liner notes courtesy scholar Peter Matthews round out the disc. Matthews is a tad hyperbolic, and though he delves into the origins of the project and touches on its later dismissal by theCAHIERS DU CINEMA critics, he's also way in denial about Forbidden Games' level of "perversity" and offers ridiculous contortions to turn it into an infernal masterpiece. Suffice it to say, it's a good read, just not a good reading.

85 minutes; NR; 1.33:1; French DD 1.0; English (optional) subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Criterion