'The Sorry And The Pity'

"Those guys in the French Resistance were really brave. To have to listen to Maurice Chevalier sing so much." -- Alvy Singer from Woody Allen's Annie Hall

In Allen's foremost film, Annie Hall, he and his girlfriend Allison go to the movies to see The Sorrow and the Pity. Must've been a pretty hot date.

It runs four hours, but it's probably the neatest four hours you'll spend watching a film. A much better investment than Das Boot.

It's a documentary with a ton of great interviews regarding the French Resistance, government, Nazi occupation, political dealings and attitudes during World War II.

France has always gotten a bad rap. Let's face it: If France was where Ghana, Sri Lanka or Jamaica are located, we'd think nothing of them except for some great art, fantastic books, groundbreaking cinema and the casino in Las Vegas.

Instead, by happenstance, they are located right next to stinkin' Germany. You don't see Sri Lanka, Ghana or Jamaica getting ridiculed because they're not having to deal with endless wars. France has been fighting a long time. From the Prussians, Russians, English, Spanish, Italians, Germans and themselves, it's been an endless ware after endless war.

The French have proven themselves on the battlefield and whatever lack of resistence they put up in 1939, it's tough for me to criticize or judge. They've seen more war in 100 years than the United States has in 250 and may ever see in the next 250 years.

Hell, maybe the French weren't so adverse to the Nazis. Since the French Revolution, the country hadn't been entirely that stable. From Napoleon through World War I, it was a country of upheaval. The Nazis probably represented quite a bit of stability. And if you're a country that is less than tolerable to the Jews, it probably didn't seem all bad.

I know I'm sounding like a Nazi sympathizer. I don't deny this. However, I'm trying to look at it through the eyes of the French, a country that's taken it in the shorts over and over since 1939 and nobody can truly judge them, especially Americans. Besides, where the English, Dutch, Polish, Swiss, Spanish, Scandanavians, Bulgarians or Belgians? Running and not fighting, too.

In The Sorrow and the Pity, things get real for the French people. It's part of the reason why it was never shown in France until the 1980s. It's the pockmark left over from the disfiguring time period through 1945. Through all the sorrow, I felt a little pity.