r-c-s Review of The Eye of Vichy

The Eye of Vichy (1993)

exceptional documentary, for once not spoiled by 'comments'

[9/10 · 14 December 2008]

This is an awesome collection of archive footage from the Vichy regime. What sets it apart from countless surrogates is that today's 'commentaries' is kept to a bare minimum. A caption forewarns that the footage depicts France NOT as it was, but as the Vichy regime wanted it to be seen... Oh really? Isn't what media are all about, serving the powerful? But I suppose the point they want to make is that there are 'good' puppeteers and 'evil' puppeteers...Vichy was evil, while England or USA were good... It is no hatred encyclopaedia, either. You watch infomercials peddling fabric made of human hair collected at hairdressers' and of 'alternative fuel' for vehicles (I don't know how effective, but it shows that was doable in the 1940s, while today we're told to wait while the next cheque from oil producers clears in the pockets of the 'good' ones ). There is a lot of propaganda hailing Pétain (voted into power by the legitimate French Parliament in Assemblée Nationale 569 votes for, 80 against and 17 abstentions ), but Pétain appears rather sad and trying to make the best with what he's got. After the war they said the above vote was a joke and none had ever wanted Pétain to take power. Now Pétain's motto was to distance France as much as possible from "l'affreuse aventure" and the institutions that had caused it. Priceless is the NIMBUS LIBERE' cartoon depicting the 'liberation' of France: French listeners to Radio Londres are forewarned the 'good ones' are coming...overjoyed by the news, a family awaits because 'they are coming'...what comes, though, are allied bombers that bomb their house into oblivion. It is also apparent how Vichy represented the French who never fully (or at all) endorsed the Jacobin legacy of the French Revolution, but were closer to clerical and royalist values. Recommended for collectors and history amateurs.