Joyeux Noel (2005, French)
Director: Christian Carion
Cast: Diane Kruger, Benno Fürmann Guillaume Canet, Gary Lewis
Genre: History, War
Plot: Christmas ceases fire!
Based on some true WWI events / stories, Joyeux Noel simply leaves you speechless with his in-depth showcase and impeccable script. Music plays a vital role throughout the film, especially the Scottish piper and German opera.
It begins with a gruesome scene of French, German, and Scottish youth reciting their bold and cold anti-enemy lines. You witness this horrendous murder of innocence (nothing graphic, it’s pure vibe) and the tone is set for the remaining movie.
The next scene features the dreaded trenches of WWI and begins bloody as “Paths of Glory,” but from there the movie takes a completely different turn.
Now, the film revolves around the confrontation between Germany, France and Scotland in no man’s land and this confrontation remains in the background throughout the film. Christmas is just around the corner and soldiers everywhere on the Western Front want the bloody war to end.
There is a French lieutenant who left his pregnant wife in occupied France to attend the war call, the lieutenant’s aide / aide who misses his mother and coffee, a Scottish priest who, oblivious to the politics of faith, he actually preaches on humanity and two Scottish Brothers. Two German opera singers lost in love separated by war: Anna, Sprink. These and a few others form the core of the movie. Their stories are interwoven, not literally, on an emotional level and on Christmas Eve the combined feelings of all three sides reach the threshold of something spectacular. What is happening now completely defies the purpose / necessity of war and, to this day, is a lesson in morality for all of us.
The three warring sides call a truce and rejoice together. This joy is not just about having fun, you can feel some of the most complex human emotions elaborately captured on screen.
Some sequences leave you spellbound, for example, Sprink comes out singing from the German trenches, ignoring orders and probable enemy bullets, and being chanted by the bagpipes, Father Palmer’s sermon delivered in a language (Latin) that most do not understand, the Anna’s soul fills song that leaves everyone too shaken by the applause, Jonathan writing to his mother on behalf of his dead brother.
There are also some really funny moments, like the football game, the exchange of chocolates and wines, the alarm clock that mysteriously rings at a certain time and to top it off, there is a cat (Felix / Nestor) who is addressed by different names. between all sides.
A piece of the movie:
“General Audebert: You and your men will join the Verdun sector. You are right about one thing. I don’t understand this war. My body was the cavalry. You should have made a career out of it, like I said. Today, I am asked to fight in a way where the shovel weighs more than the rifle. In which people exchange addresses with the enemy to meet when everything is over. Besides the cat we found with a note from the Germans, “Good luck, comrades!” I was ordered to arrest the cat for high treason … until further notice. “
Of course, the personnel involved in this fraternization were ultimately punished.
And if all this wasn’t enough, Diane Kruger, beautiful as ever, casts a Donna Reedesque glow!
In fact, a must see.
8/10