Just a quick reminder that the majority of us are perfectly capable of aligning with evil, oppressive powers and realizing that fact is the first step in not aligning with evil, oppressive powers.

Movie two in our Louis Malle boxset, Lacombe, Lucien is the story of a directionless young man who joins up with Nazi collaborators. He has a “complicated” (read: abusive) relationship with a Jewish woman literally named France because sometimes metaphor isn’t direct enough. As Renoir taught us, “Everyone has their reasons”, and as history has taught us mostly those reasons are self-interested retainment of power, be it small amounts of personal power, or large societal rule.

So empathize with Lucien because many of us could easily become him, perhaps not even noticing it, and many of us wanting some semblance of control, may be him already.

We talk about empathizing with evil in order to avoid being evil ourselves with Louis Malle’s Lacombe, Lucien. Listen via iTunes or LostInCriterion.com, and while you're at it, like us on Facebook or support us on Patreon.