Written and directed by Natalie Schwan, when brutal violence shatters her sheltered world, a young woman joins a covert Belgian Resistance group and is drawn into a daring operation that could save lives, or cost her everything. Inspired by a true story. Starring: Ella-June Henrard, Cielke Bessemans, Felix Meyers and Michel Bauwens.
As the film opens, it introduces viewers quickly to its great cinematography (from Connor Bodell) and lighting work. The initial scenes have such a lovely warmth and texture to them which goes so well with attempting to recreate that era, it goes a long way to giving it an authentic feel. Natalie Schwan’s direction builds a solid foundation for this story, it’s patient and has a clean, smooth flow to it.
The style is respectful to the material, attempting to not add too much to let the story speak for itself. There are still so many stories like this from World War II which are inherently worth highlighting, celebrating moments of history where people stood up to injustice and violence, is always a great idea. However, it feels like Natalie Schwan doesn’t entirely consider the vast awareness and common knowledge of the war and use that to her advantage. There’s a lot of time spent building that basis of persecution, establishing the basis of the story, when that could have been fairly easily established even by just telling us what year it was and the location.
So, while the story itself, most of which happens in the final scenes, is inherently worthwhile, it isn’t being delivered in a way that does justice to how impactful it had the potential to be. The writing feels as though it oversimplifies things, as if it’s being aimed at a much younger audience. It doesn’t quite have the confidence to let viewers infer things on their own, which is disappointing. That bleeds into the dialogue which in turn impacts the performances, they’re still good work but there’s a slightly overt edge to them, needing a bit more subtlety.
The Resistance has a great story to tell but the filmmakers didn’t seem to trust that it can speak for itself. It feels as though they’re trying to spoon feed the details which is unnecessary, unless you’re creating it for a much younger audience. Especially when you’re working within the timeframe of a short, the runtime could be much more effective if it focused on the ending scenes, where the heart of the story lies. It’s shot well, the cinematography does well to tap into the era, and it does have sincerity and emotion, but it needed more confidence in its storytelling.
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