Follows four characters - a couple of petty criminals, a prostitute who marries one of them, and a policeman - from the easy-going days of pre-war Paris through the traumas of the Nazi occupation to the ambiguities of liberation.
What was straightforward, when a crook was a crook, a whore was a whore and a cop was a cop, becomes increasingly cloudy as France first falls under a régime that is more crooked, more corrupt and more vicious than anything known or even imagined before and then has to rapidly bury much of the poisoned memory in order to live at peace again.
Lelouch gives us four believable characters who survive these turbulent years and also a fifth, the cop's charming but unfaithful wife who is sacrificed to save his life. Shot in sepia to distance the events from reality and enlivened by Francis Lai's haunting period music, the film is not overburdened by its portentous themes. Never dull or predictable, it entertains as well as instructs.
