Jean-Pierre Melville’s somber look at the French resistance was ignored when first released in 1969. Unlike the typical Hollywood production full of thrilling adventure tales with daring escapes, patriotic oaths and beautiful spies; Melville presents resistance activities in the Occupied territory as a fearful grind leading to an unknown outcome. Melville’s tale of bleak heroism was in released at the height of anti-authoritarian student rebellion in Paris was at a high pitch. It was considered too old-fashioned and too pro- Charles de Gaulle. It didn't even get released in America until 2006.

Melville’s resistance operatives behave much like the criminals in his thrillers. Both are bound by rigid codes of conduct, but for the rebels any deviation from a safe pattern opens the possibility of Gestapo torture. Conditions force the resistance agents to be utterly ruthless with their own people as well. The perilous work is an existential trap. The movie is bookended by images of the Arc de Triomphe, a symbol of the that few of the resistance heroes will live to see liberated. The overall tone is neither heroic nor optimistic. The emotional and moral strain is almost too much to bear.