De Gaulle: Resistance

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I saw this film earlier this evening, and it's nice to watch a major war movie that isn't coming from the Hollywood point of view. It's actually the first half of the story, I'm hoping to watch the sequel movie next week. This is the true story of General Charles De Gaulle, the leader of the Free French, telling his story from the fall of France and De Gaulle's move to London. It covers the beginning of De Gaulle's diffficult and apparently somewhat complex with Churchill, the formation of the Free French government in exile and the beginnings of resistance in occupied France, with student activists inspired by De Gaulle's broadcasts on the BBC. The film covers the attempts by the Free French to assert control of the French colonies in Africa, culminating with the battle of Bir Hakeim (where the French held the Germans off for two weeks, giving the British Army further North the chance to withdraw and reorganise) and an attempt by the Americans to replace De Gaulle with the Vichyist Admiral Darlan. I was unaware of most of this. I've never studied history formally, just read books and watched documentaries that interested me. Thinking about it, a lot of our understanding of history is shaped by popular culture. I'm British, so I've watched a lot of British war movies in the past, and also a lot of American ones (since we speak the same language). It's all too easy to get a distorted view of history. I don't know how accurate this film is, but it's very well made and holds the viewer's attention, even though it's quite a long film. It makes me want to get hold of a couple of good books about De Gaull and the history of the Free French.