The New York Times by A.O. Scott
The movie is full of juices that give it a healthy, pungent flow.
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
France, Germany, Spain · 2002
2h 50m
Director Bertrand Tavernier
Starring Jacques Gamblin, Denis Podalydès, Charlotte Kady, Marie Desgranges
Genre Drama, History, War
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A film about the French film industry during the Nazi occupation that focuses on assistant director and resistance fighter Jean Devaivre and screenwriter Jean Aurenche. It follows their respective attempts to risk their lives and fight back from within against the Nazi propaganda machine.
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
The movie is full of juices that give it a healthy, pungent flow.
New York Daily News by Jack Mathews
A remarkable and moving account of a part of the French experience that needs more remembering and less forgetting.
A sprawling, semi-biographical account of two real-life filmmakers who both found work during darkest days the German occupation.
Village Voice by Michael Atkinson
Safe Conduct -- a rangy, irreverent, episodic odyssey through French filmmaking during the Occupation -- is one of the very best movies ever made about the life of moviemaking.
Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington
This is one of those films that encapsulate most of its maker's key thoughts and feelings while also connecting us vividly to a fascinating past. No one who loves French film (or movies in general) should miss it.
San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle
The details feel authentic: The empty Paris streets, the profanation of German anti-aircraft guns atop belle epoque buildings. And Devaivre's adventures provide high tension.
New York Magazine (Vulture) by Peter Rainer
Spacious, headlong entertainment.
The New Republic by Stanley Kauffmann
The cast could not -- one could almost say need not -- be improved.
Essentially a dramatic reenactment of a generation's coping strategies.
Loving but overlong meditation on movies and the people who make them.
Close your eyes. Open your heart.
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Can a great man be a good man?
Why are they here?
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A poor family lies and schemes their way into the employ of a wealthy household — successfully, but with great consequences.
Let the festivities begin.