Rent Forbidden Games (1952)

Small Graves, Big Feelings - Forbidden Games review by griggs

Some films sneak up on you — this one just knocks you flat. Forbidden Games opens in June 1940, with Parisians fleeing under Nazi fire. In the chaos, little Paulette chases her puppy across a bridge and loses everything else instead. It’s brutal, but oddly calm, like war has just become another kind of weather — something you endure if you’re lucky.

What comes next isn’t about innocence lost so much as innocence hanging on for dear life. Paulette ends up in the countryside and meets Michel, a kid just as bewildered by it all. Together they start building a tiny graveyard for the things war leaves behind — pets, toys, bits of normal life — a strange but touching way to make sense of it all.

What comes next isn’t about innocence lost so much as innocence hanging on for dear life. Paulette ends up in the countryside and meets Michel, a kid just as bewildered by it all. Together they start building a tiny graveyard for the things war leaves behind — pets, toys, bits of normal life — a strange but touching way to make sense of it all.

Typical! - Forbidden Games review by CB

Typical French film....wonderful portrayal of rural life during the 2nd World War. The kids are excellent, and uneven casting of the adults doesn’t seem to undermine the film at all. 

As ever with old French films.......charming. 

Classic, bitter-sweet tragi-comedy - one of the best films ever made - Forbidden Games review by PV

This film is a classic and fully deserved its Oscar in 1952.

The script is superb, with family feud subplots mirroring the conflict all around, as is the acting. The multi-faceted story is driven by character - and how characters psychologies cope - against the awful backdrop of the war. But perhaps this film is mostly about class - and how a middle class little girl from Paris fares in a French peasant family.

The music too is excellent ('La Source', I think).

This film is far better than most French films today, for sure! The same child actor (the boy) starred in Les Diaboliques, another Gallic classic.

One thing that stands out these days: the treatment of children by their parents in this movie would probably count as child abuse today, though - which shows how silly our culture has become rather than how brutal they were 60 or 70 years ago!

And the ending (which I won't spoil) wouldn't be done today, especially in Hollywood, which follows the boring template of structure for every single movie.

But this is a real classic, and if you haven't yet seen it, you're in for a real treat. 5 stars.