I saw this film at the screening in Cannes this year. It is a very interesting take on the sometimes over-exploited themes of war so apparent in modern cinema, and calls up memories of "Life is Beautiful". Here you find three lines of soldiers - Germans, French and Scotts - forced to fight a war they don't understand and finally giving in to their own human feelings of friendship and well-being when German singers start to perform Christmas carols between the trenches. It is nice to know that human nature is described here not as a nature of war, but through the immediate aim for peace in these soldiers who all suffer the consequences of their respectively "destructive" acts of fraternization as seen by their own governments.
There are many bittersweet and undeniably brilliant scenes here, but there was one problem I had with this film. It is told in three languages (French, German and English) with subtitles and It was sometimes clear to me, being fluent in German and English and understanding French enough, that the director had problem with these foreign languages himself. In fact, he does not speak either German or English sufficiently to be able to direct certain ways of speaking correctly, having to rely on his assistants to help him and therefore the German and English dialoques sound extremely wooden and unnatural. Even the usually great Daniel Brühl has trouble convincing me with his performance and Diane Kruger proves once more that she is simply not made for acting. The scenes where she performs songs are sometimes so badly dubbed (and therefore it is clear that she is not really performing herself) and performed with such lack of emotion that it was becoming ridiculous.
Anyway, a nice movie with some language and acting issues, but worth seeing.
There are many bittersweet and undeniably brilliant scenes here, but there was one problem I had with this film. It is told in three languages (French, German and English) with subtitles and It was sometimes clear to me, being fluent in German and English and understanding French enough, that the director had problem with these foreign languages himself. In fact, he does not speak either German or English sufficiently to be able to direct certain ways of speaking correctly, having to rely on his assistants to help him and therefore the German and English dialoques sound extremely wooden and unnatural. Even the usually great Daniel Brühl has trouble convincing me with his performance and Diane Kruger proves once more that she is simply not made for acting. The scenes where she performs songs are sometimes so badly dubbed (and therefore it is clear that she is not really performing herself) and performed with such lack of emotion that it was becoming ridiculous.
Anyway, a nice movie with some language and acting issues, but worth seeing.