Plot
It is June 1940, during the Battle of France. After five-year-old Paulette's parents and pet dog die in a Nazi air attack on a column of refugees fleeing Paris, the traumatized child meets 10-year-old Michel Dollé whose peasant family takes her in. She quickly becomes attached to Michel. The two attempt to cope with the death and destruction that surrounds them by secretly building a small cemetery among the ruins of an abandoned barn, where they bury her dog and start to bury other animals, marking their graves with crosses stolen from a local graveyard, including one belonging to Michel's brother. Michel's father first suspects that Michel's brother's cross was stolen from the graveyard by his neighbour. Eventually, the father finds out that Michel has stolen the cross.
Meanwhile, the French police come to the Dollé household in order to take Paulette. Michel cannot bear the thought of her leaving and tells his father that he would tell him where the stolen crosses are, but in return he should not give Paulette to the police looking for her. His father doesn't keep his promise: Michel destroys the crosses and Paulette ends up going to a Red Cross camp, but at the end of the movie is seen running away into a crowd of people at a train station, crying for Michel and then for her mother.
Read more about this topic: Forbidden Games
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