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Director Bertrand Tavernier initially presents occupied Paris as a bizarre but jaunty and jolly little city. If a hotel runs out of tea, residents simply order Champagne, and if aircraft roar overhead, interrupting two lovers' secret liaison, why worry? "Only the Germans have planes," one remarks, "(And) they won't bomb Paris. They're in it." But the British bombs fall, shattering buildings, lives and the misconception of normality.
Although based on actual events, the setting and narrative style prove similar to Alan Furst's immensely popular Jean Casson novels, and fans of The World at Midnight, in particular, will delight in this drama. The plot concerns two men - both real life figures - working in the French film industry which produced over 200 movies under Nazi occupation.
The writer, Jean Aurenche, emerges as a womanising firebrand, spitting contempt for everything which wrecks his world, including females, suitcases and the loss of liberty and pride under German rule. The second, more interesting central character, is the assistant director, Jean-Devaivre, who despises churning out second-rate movies for the Third Reich, but who bravely uses his position to work for the Resistance.
Both men struggle to remain true to their art, country and credos while resolving everyday domestic problems and fighting the evil which engulfs their nation and way of life. It's perhaps inevitable, therefore, that this essentially serious realisation of wartime Paris includes unpredictable moments of romantic comedy and even slapstick. The director's love of American cinema is displayed through his dynamic visual style and rejection of the New Wave's more abstract approach, although his shrewdest decision is to focus predominantly on people as opposed to polemics.
Laissez-Passer therefore sidesteps the trap of becoming a standard wartime drama. Instead it remains an honest account of ordinary people locked into an extraordinary situation, and as such their courage and heroism is movingly expressed, forming a fitting tribute to those who fought on, after their country surrendered.
Gavin Collinson
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The Judge and the Assassin (Bertrand Tavernier, 1976) 
