Louie Malle's "Lacombe, Lucien"
A World War II Coming of Age Tale
Lacombe, Lucien, directed by French auteur Louis Malle in 1974, is set in the France of World War II, in the France torn by those who aligned themselves with Hitler (the French Gestapo) on one side, and those who fought in secret against him on the other. The principle character, Lucien (Pierre Blaise), is a young adolescent caught in a world between these two opposing forces while simultaneously discovering his own violent impulses fueled by a lack of direction.
Throughout the film there is a sense in which Lucien is not a true character at all, but is rather an amalgamation of every youth looking to fulfill some function within society without considering any consequences. Cruel from the beginning, Lucien's face reveals nearly no emotion throughout the entire course of the film, only breaking into a smile in the face of cruelty (the death of the bird at the film's start). Even love evades this youth, for it is not love which he feels for France (Aurore Clement), the Jewish girl he attaches himself to, but obsession.
The dangers of apathy are clearly expressed in this work. When Lucien, without intention, betrays the Resistance leader in his village, he feels (or, leastways, expresses) no guilt at seeing him handed over to the French Gestapo. He then joins their cause as readily as he previously sought to join the Resistance. In fact, his escalating obsession with the girl France becomes in itself his newest cause in his quest to find for himself a distinct identity. He imposes himself on the Jewish father (Holger Lowenadler) and his daughter with the same aimlmessnes and malaise that he battles and kills Resistance fighters - his fellow countrymen.
Lucien and Loyalty
Loyalty, too, is a feeling which evades Lucien. His own father and brother are Resistance fighters, and, though he never encounters them in combat, there is a sense that they would fail to alter Lucien's course. The girl's name, France, is also part of this question of Lucien's misguided loyalty. The shots that encompass the three principle characters (Lucien, France, and her father) are often staged with France in the middle, a metaphor for the country itself, fought over by both the oppressed citizens and those faithful to the Germans, leaving her torn and confused.
Lucien's Coming of Age
Just as in two other famous Malle films, Elevator to the Gallows (1958) and Murmur of the Heart (1971), Lacome, Lucien features a prominent adolescent male character dealing with (though not necessarily well) some kind of emotional void brought about by a confusing socio-cultural climate and the disenchantment which results. In Gallows, the young thug battles with his rebellious adolescence through senseless violence, resulting in the careless murder of an older couple. In Murmur, the youth of that film fills the vacuum of his confused, young feelings towards women with an unnatural love for his mother. Malle, it seems, enjoys dealing with male coming-of-age scenarios, but works out his characters' problems in drastically different ways. Lucien, however, is the cruelest by far, taking every young man's fascination with killing (more than one animal falls at Lucien's hands) to the extreme as he learns to take human life. When, at the film's end, the audience hears of Lucien's death, there is no pity in the viewer for him, despite his last-minute attempt to rescue France and her grandmother from Nazi hands (a gesture made with the same stone-faced apathy as all his previous endeavors). Lucien is a sad specimen, but sadder still is the confused environment that spawned him.
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