Hard-boiled auteur Jean-Pierre Melville always treated the gangsters and gamblers in his films with existential understatement; in his magnum opus, Army of Shadows, he extends the same courtesy to WWII French Resistance fighters. The film is adapted from a Joseph Kessel novel, but Melville's own Maquis experiences also play a role in his uncompromising portrayal of civilians whose subversiveness carries a lethal risk. The film's elemental cinematography — all grays and washed-out color — underscores the bleakness of Nazi-occupied France.