The Sorrow and the Pity

The Sorrow and the Pity French Le Chagrin et la Piti is a twopart 1969 documentary film by Marcel Ophls about the collaboration between the Vichy government and Nazi Germany during World War II. The film uses interviews with a German officer, collaborators, and resistance fighters from ClermontFerrand. They comment on the nature of and reasons for collaboration. The reasons include antisemitism, anglophobia, fear of Bolsheviks and Soviet invasion, the desire for power, and simple caution.

Part Two, The Choice, revolves around Christian de la Mazire, who is something of a counterpoint to Mends France. Whereas Mends France was a French Jewish political figure who joined the Resistance, de la Mazire, an aristocrat who embraced Fascism, was one of 7,000 French youth to fight on the Eastern Front wearing German uniforms.The film shows the French peoples response to occupation as heroic, pitiable, and monstrous, sometimes all at once. The postwar humiliation of the women who served or were married to Vichy men perhaps gives the strongest mix of all three. Maurice Chevaliers Sweepin the Clouds Away is the theme tune of the film. ........

Source: Wikipedia