Film Forum

France, 1952
Directed by René Clément
With Georges Poujouly, Brigitte Fossey, Amédée
In French with English subtitles
Approx. 86 min. DCP.

“Michel! Michel! Michel!” France 1940, and as Parisian refugees flee along a country road, German fighters strike, killing a little girl’s parents and pet dog. Giving “a performance that rips the heart out” (The New York Times), 5-year-old Brigitte Fossey buries the dog, aided by 11-year-old peasant boy Georges Poujouly. And as they build a special, secret friendship, their pet cemetery steadily grows, topped by crosses stolen from graveyards.

A masterpiece of French post-war cinema by director René Clément (who'd make the classic thriller PURPLE NOON, starring Alain Delon, eight years later), with a haunting hit score played by guitar virtuoso Narciso Yepes, the ultimately beautiful, hilarious and disturbing FORBIDDEN GAMES became a worldwide arthouse sensation — winning the Venice Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion, and Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film Clément’s second, following the previous year’s THE WALLS OF MALAPAGA. 

Restored by Studiocanal.

Presented with support from the George Fasel Memorial Fund for Classic French Cinema

A RIALTO PICTURES RELEASE

Reviews

“SUBLIME! CLÉMENT’S MASTERPIECE!”
– Village Voice

“A remarkably unsentimental allegory of childhood innocence and adult ignorance… Straightforwardly simple but psychologically complex, the movie is sweet, sardonic, and ultimately…. shattering.” 
– J. Hoberman, The New York Times
Click here to read the full review.

“A series of harsh contrasts, with on the one side the intuitive, lyric understanding between the two children, and on the other the ludicrous comedy of the quarrelsome, ignorant peasant adults.”
– Pauline Kael

“DELICATE, BEAUTIFULLY PACED… DEEPLY MOVING AND DARKLY COMIC… Among the finest performances ever given by children.”
– Philip French, The Guardian

“Reminds all of us why we love cinema and why movies are the most powerful form of artistic expression ever devised by mankind… If there’s a more powerful moviegoing experience to be had in New York this weekend, I’m not sure I can handle it.”
– James Hancock, wrongreel.com
Click here to read the full review.

“Clément’s notorious eclecticism can surely never have been so marked within a single film as in this all-purpose allegory, anti-war tract and noirish morality… World War II, holocaust, and petty family feuds form a perverse backdrop to their ‘innocence’ — or perhaps, a mirror to the ‘perversion” of their forbidden games.”
– Paul Taylor, Time Out  (London)

“So subtle and thoughtful is Clément’s direction, and so insightful is the script, we don’t miss a single telling point… Fossey’s is quite simple one of the most uncanny pieces of acting ever attempted by a youngster… The war may be raging only a mile away, yet these peasants seem untouched by it — far more dedicated as they are to their own petty bickering… Only the children in their funeral games seem to be striving for some sense of true spiritual peace.”
– David Ehrenstein