Drama · War
French
1974 · Directed by Louis Malle · 138 min
France, summer 1944. A teenage farm worker with no politics, no education and no particular plan drifts through a countryside where the Occupation is coming apart. Louis Malle watches him with cool, unhurried attention and refuses to tell the audience what to think.
Why it matters in cinema history
A defining film of the 1970s re-examination of France's wartime past, which dismantled the postwar comfort that most of the country had resisted. It also stands as one of cinema's most discussed portraits of a perpetrator who is not a monster.
Watch with intention
Watch Lucien the way Malle does: as a person to be observed, not judged, and notice how much the film withholds.
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