Directed by Philippe Baron • Documentary • 2024 • 52 minutes
After the landing of the Allied forces in 1944, writer Louis Guilloux was recruited as an interpreter for the American army. He would soon be confronted with the dark side of liberation: the rapes and murders committed by American soldiers on civilians. Guilloux’s involvement in subsequent investigations and court martial trials would expose him to the army's system of racial segregation and the selective punishment of Black American soldiers. Haunted by what he witnessed, he went on to recount this little-known side of the Allied liberation in his 1976 novel “OK, Joe!”.
Sparked by the recent reissue of Guilloux’s novel, director Philippe Baron set out through the Breton countryside to retrace this suppressed history. As the memory of World War II receded and American cultural dominance rose, many victims continued to be haunted by the trauma inflicted by their ostensible liberators. Interspersing archival footage, interviews, and scenes from modern-day Breton countryside, in OK, JOE! Baron crafts a harrowing account of the forgotten tragedies of World War II.
Up Next in Crime & Punishment
-
Three Monkeys (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan • Drama • With Yavuz Bingöl, Hatice Aslan • 2008 • 106 minutes
Winner of the Best Director prize at Cannes, Three Monkeys is a moving, visually unforgettable triumph from the Turkish master Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Thear Tree)
An ambitious p...
-
Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery
Directed by Arne Birkenstock • Documentary • With Wolfgang Beltracchi, Henrik Hanstein, Sofia Komarova • 2015 • 93 minutes
For nearly 40 years, Wolfgang Beltracchi fooled the international art world and was responsible for the biggest art forgery scandal of the postwar era. An expert in art hist...
-
Obscene
Directed by Daniel O'Connor, Neil Ortenberg • Documentary • With Barney Rosset, Amiri Baraka, Lawrence Ferlinghetti • 2007 • 97 minutes
OBSCENE is the definitive film biography of Barney Rosset, the influential publisher of Grove Press and the Evergreen Review. He acquired the then fledgling Gro...
1 Comment