Resistance, Book 1

Carla Jablonski and Leland Purvis

In Quentin Tarantino’s film, Inglourious Basterds (2009), the resistance effort against the Nazis during World War II was a colourful and violent campaign which involved double-crossing agents, scalping and blowing things up.

The resistance recorded here is at the other end of the spectrum, with ordinary folks risking their lives with acts of quiet heroism.

Paul Tessier and his sister Marie are living in a village in the “free” zone in the south of France, carved out after an armistice agreement between the French and the Germans on June 22, 1940.

The shadow of the war looms large over their childhood and encroaches directly on their lives when the parents of their Jewish friend Henri Levy disappear without warning one day.

The Tessiers come up with a plan to keep Henri safe from the Germans and this leads to Paul and Marie’s eventual involvement in the underground resistance movement.

By looking at the horrors of war through a child’s point of view, writer Carla Jablonski brings added poignancy to a subject that can seem overly familiar.

The frame of reference is strengthened by a clever device, the incorporation of sketches by the fictional Paul into the narrative.

Ironically, those rough drawings end up being more evocative than the rest of the artwork by the self-taught Leland Purvis.

Faces, in particular the eyes, are not his strong suit and this distances one from the rather straightforward, if well- meaning, story.

Jablonski’s note at the end makes the point that hindsight is always perfect and terms such as resistor and collaborator were much less clear-cut then.

Instead of black and white, there were ambiguous shades of grey and it was by no means obvious what was the right thing to do.

If only the graphic novel had captured more of this moral complexity.

If you like this, read: The deeply personal and moving Alan’s War by Emmanuel Guibert, about a young American soldier’s experiences during World War II.

(ST)