Pierre Laval, the Prime Minister of France from 1942 to 1944, partnered with the President of France Philippe Petain to forge a virtual dictatorship after the Third French Republic fell rather than sign the surrender to Nazi Germany. Here he is in the dark coat on the far right, discussing collaboration with Hermann Goring, the President of the Riechstag and after Adolf Hitler, the most powerful man in Germany. Goring is holding his hat and Laval is focused on Goring’s translator. Under Laval’s dictatorship, he established concentration camps all over France, deported fleeing Jews to death camps in Poland, signed away millions of able bodied Frenchmen as forced slave labor in Germany, and hunted down the Free French Resistance that was formed for liberation. He did all of this with the support of the great majority of the French population, and used French cops and the French Army to keep himself in power with extra-judicial executions aligned with a healthy dose of Anglophobia and Anti-Semitism. His contribution to French history is bizarrely labeled as controversial.
First Screening. DVD. Probably the most nuanced documentary about this very controversial subject I have ever seen. I was afraid this would be slightly better than a history channel documentary circa 2002 but in fact, this is a very thoughtful and pondering film with no V.O. that largely lays the consequence of decisions into the minds of the audience. There were several times at which I was dumbfounded at the depth of the revelation of discussion, and points of view were covered that I never considered before. Some examples:
1. Shortly after the fall of France in June 1940, France (in which France was forced by the agreement to be divided into an occupied and unoccupied zone), the government under Petain requested, negotiated, and signed a treaty with Nazi Germany in which it became an ally of that nefarious monster. This was sold under the pretense of fighting Bolshevism (though the invasion of the Soviet Union was still a year away) and heavily pollutes the idea that Vichy had a so-called gun pointed at its head. While it is true the Nazis would have made quick work of any formal government resistance, this very public collaboration (a word which the government used in its' description of the event), exposes the fact Vichy could have just sat back and decided not to work with the Nazis. They did not. They consciously choose to work with the conquerors. This decision is separate from the decision to end the war.
2. The Battle of Mers-el-Kébir, in which the British sank the entire French Fleet of North Africa, has always been conveyed as a cold-blooded British decision to kick the French when they were down lest they be too powerful to challenge British might. As to most topics in this wonderful documentary, there are layers of nuance in this. The background is an intense amount of Anglophobia. While it is understandable why this had built up over centuries, the rivalry had cooled the previous seven or eight decades and leads observers scratching their heads as to why the Vichy Admirals choose to ignore with contempt Britain’s plea to accept three alternatives to turning over the French Fleet to the Nazis. The Collaborators actually thought their fleet, after signing a deal with the Nazis, was still their fleet and not subject to the whims of Berlin. Both of these mindsets in the middle of a world war are pure fantasy and shows you how out of depth both the Vichy political elite and the military hierocracy was. France had the largest army in the world and surrendered. They had the second largest navy in the world, and they expected Britain to just sit by and wait for it to be confiscated. This seems all academic until you realize over a thousand French sailors died at the hands of their former allies because their officers would rather be a colony under the Gestapo than a partner with Great Britain. At this point, my empathy for the French under occupation dramatically lessens.
3. Seven thousand Frenchman volunteered to join the Waffen-SS in the fall of 1944... after DDay, that is after the Allied invasion of France. Their mission was to help Germany fight off the Russians on the Eastern Front. They were sacrificed in a rout protecting the Heer in the run up to Berlin. Only about 300 to 700 men made it home. I think it is fair to ask if seven thousand Frenchman decided to help liberate France in the fall of 1944 rather than defend fascism... how would history look differently on them? This film asks questions that momentous and important. It seems trivial, but this greatly affects tens of thousands of lives.
4. For decades after the war, French Fascists were still complaining about how they were treated by their fellow Frenchman after liberation. “Oh, under Petain... the good ol’ days.” It’s enough to make you sick.
5. A great minority of very brave men and women fought tooth and nail in what essentially was a French Civil War against a great and powerful majority that spent the rest of the century complaining about being liberated. This is why the French truly distrust and are disgusted by Americans. Because we helped their enemies liberate their own country while they either did nothing or worse, helped the enemy.
The Sorrow and the Pity break down emotions and politics like I have never seen before. It exposes raw nerves and doesn’t tell you what to think about it. It lets you decide to empathize, sympathize, or damn the participants based on real and flawed decision making. It sometimes makes it easy to condemn the collaborators because, well, the collaborators made it easy.