MovieChat Forums > Lacombe Lucien (1974) Discussion > Didn't care for it

Didn't care for it

posted 9 years ago by Besmircher
3 replies | jump to latest

I might be in the minority but I just finished watching it and felt this movie was slow and long. IMO that doesn't equate to a "thinking film". Lucien was a dickish piss-pot, nothing connectable for me about him at all, I liked Albert much better and he wasn't all that likable either. When a movie's main protagonist ends up being unlikable it makes for an unwatchable product.

Nor did Lucien have a lot of dialogue or emotion, and except for the laughing at the end I felt he was very stoic in everything. First part of the movie it was like he was just following everyone around and soaking it in, yet afterward little to no action out of the main character. Can't blame the actor really, it seemed to me the writing was just bad. My favorite characters were probably Albert and Lucien's mother.

Saw another film a few weeks ago set in WWII German-occupied France, "Au Revoir Les Enfants" (1987), and I felt this was so much better than "Lacombe, Lucien".

[–] ghtx 8 years ago

I really liked both "Au Revoir Les Enfants" and "Lacombe, Lucien." You know that they both share the same writer/director, Louis Malle, right?

[–] jingster6666 8 years ago

Posters like "Besmircher" give me an amazing superiority complex. Thank you!

[–] stevekaczynski 8 years ago

I also thought Malle's later film was better than this. Most of the time, Lucien was stoic and unresponsive and came across as borderline retarded. The film was rather bold in tackling the theme of collaboration, and by conveying that people like Lucien could have just as easily been in the Resistance as on the other side, but I don't think it is Malle's best work.

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