The Sorrow and the Pity (1969)

This is the movie Woody Allen compulsively rewatchs in Annie Hall. A French documentary on occupied France during World War II, it clocks in at 4 hours 11 minutes, fortunately its divided into two parts. The film focuses on the Clermont-Ferrand region and interviews subjects from all sides including Germans, Englishmen, French collaborators and resistance fighters. What’s most impressive about the film is how honest everyone seems to be, you don’t see people aggrandizing themselves in this film, nor doing a showy job of beating up on themselves. The film is very thorough and covers all aspects of occupied France, from the political situation, to the movies, the resistance, the dating scene, even the Tour de France. Solid documentary film making, and interestingly I found the second half more engrossing then the first, just when you’d have thought the subject matter should be getting tiresome you get into its grove. Impressive, see it.