Figure 1.-- Here are the two main charcharters of 'Forbidden Games', the peasant boy Michele and the refugee girl he befriends, Paulette.

'Forbidden Games' won the best foreign film Academy Award. The French title is 'Jeux Interdits'. It is set in occupied France shortly after the Battle of France (May-June 1940). A family is fleeing Paris as the Germans approch. A little girl's parents are killed in an air raid. The Luftwaff attacked fleeing refugees as a way of clogging the roads and disrupting French military movements. A Focke-Wulf 190 is shown in this scene. This was one of the finest fighters of the War, but the Luftwaffe did not vhave it at the time. The German fighter should have been the ME-109. This kind of plane didn't exist at the moment of the "battle of France" in May and June 1940. She wanders away from the road and other refugees and is taken in by a poor peasant family with a 10-year old boy. He is the the youngest boy who wears a black beret which was still apparently common in rural France. It is a Sensitive film about the developing relationship between the girl and the boy who become great friends and turn to each other for understanding. Influenced by the death and devastation around them, they build and tend a cemetery for animals. This is an especiakly good film ilustrating how children struggle to understand wars in hich bthey are enveloped. The children give wonderful performances. There is a degree of honesty in their performancds thst is often lacking in Hollywood films. In French with English subtitles. Georges Poujouly plays Michel Dolle. Brigitte Fossey plays Paulette.

Created: 12:03 AM 11/28/2011
Last updated: 12:03 AM 11/28/2011