A German air raid on Paris during the Second World War leaves a young girl named Paulette (Brigitte Fossey) orphaned and alone. When she realizes her best friend, her poor dog, has also been killed and is laying in the river, she goes to pull him out and in the process manages to get lost from the other survivors of the bombing.

Luckily for Paulette, a young boy named Michel (Georges Poujouly) is in the area trying to locate a young calf that his family has lost. He runs into Paulette and soon takes her back to his family farm. Once they're out of Paris and in the countryside where things are more peaceful, their relationship grows and strengthens and Michel almost becomes a parent to Paulette, despite his young age. Once this is established, the children are forced to deal with more death and more loss as things start to erode in Michel's family circle. The children find themselves enveloped in a game in which they swipe crosses from the nearby cemetery and take them out and make their own pet cemetery, which, upon discovery, brings down the wrath of the townspeople around them, shattering whatever glimpse of community that Paulette was able to salvage from her surroundings.

What makes Forbidden Games so interesting is how the two children are basically thrust into adult roles but deal with the challenges using child logic. This creates an interesting contrast by demonstrating alternate ways of dealing with death and the rituals that society has built up around the events that take place when a family member is lost. Adding to all of this is the fact that, as an adult audience, we can recognize how completely grim and hopeless the situation is for Paulette and Michel but as children, they're not able to understand the levity of what's happening to them and what is inevitably going to happen to them.

If it sounds tragic, it is – heart breakingly so. The film is incredibly sad and morose and the excellent performances from the two leads, Brigitte Fossey and Georges Poujouly, are so completely believable that it only serves to further that tragedy. Child actors usually falter in heavier roles such as this, particularly in North America (well, in Hollywood specifically) where it's still a bit of a taboo to put children in grim scenarios such as the ones we see them deal with in this film. The fact that not once is the suspension of disbelief broken by these two kids is a testament not only to their innate ability in front of the camera but also to the direction of Rene Clement.

Scenes such as the opening where we see Paulette witness the death of her parents, then fish her dead puppy out of the river only to have a callous old woman tell her to get rid of the nasty dead thing are completely tear jerking in nature, particularly when we see Paulette simply accept the way things have turned out for her.

In terms of the visuals in the film, Clement shoots the film in a very minimalist style. The movie is not fancy, there aren't a lot of camera tricks or fancy angles and everything is presented to the viewer very 'matter of factly.' It's quite effective in parlaying the narrative and it suits the tone of the story very well – simple visuals really complement a simple storyline quite appropriately.

While the narrative loses some of its impact towards the last half of the movie where things start to feel a bit rushed in contrast to the opening half hour of the film, Forbidden Games still packs quite a punch. It's a beautifully made, expertly acted film that makes you think about the world, how it sucks the innocence out of the young as soon as it can, and the impact one can have on your fellow man, particularly during times or war or strife. The film took home an Academy Award in 1953 for Best Foreign Film.

Video:

This brand-new 1.33.1 fullframe black and white transfer looks fantastic, though surprisingly, it is windowboxed. Black levels are strong and deep and don't bury the fine detail in the background of the image at all. The grays look nice and stay fairly strong, as do the whites and this is a very well balanced image. There is some mild print damage in a few spots that shows up in the form of the odd scratch or speck here and there but these instances are few and far between. An understandable amount of film grain is also present throughout but it never proves to be distracting at all. In terms of digital problems there aren't any mpeg compression artifacts to note and neither is there any serious edge enhancement. There's a minute amount of flicker in some scenes but again, it's such a non-issue that it's only mentioned here for the sake of being anal retentive. Criterion has done a bang up job in the visuals department on this release, though again, the reasoning behind the windowboxing is a mystery.