Any film based on this subject matter is, by definition, destined to wind up as something of a Curate's egg. The Christmas 'truce' of 1914 has been well documented and even mentioned in passing in several films set in the same period but until now it has never been the centrepiece of a complete film. Given that almost everyone knows ABOUT the truce, albeit vaguely but very few are in possession of any concrete facts the writer-director probably felt it safe to graft his own fictions onto a factual situation probably figuring that 91 years after the event any actual survivors would be well over one hundred years old and hardly in a position to let out a squawk at the odd anomaly. With so many targets - the church, the generals, the propagandists etc - to aim at the scattergun approach is not a bad option on the grounds that SOMETHING is bound to be hit or, to put it another way, some 'ideas' are bound to find favor with SOME viewers. When shooting a film in which three languages figure prominently it's a good idea if the director is reasonably fluent in all three lest any 'message' gets lost in the shuffle. Alas, THIS director is fluent in only one of the three which is all too apparent. The only reason I can think of for top-billing the non-actress Diane Kruger and allowing her to demonstrate that she's also a non-singer and even, ludicrously, a non-MIMER, was to secure finance; to the best of my knowledge feminine lieder singers were conspicuous by their absence at the truce as were, if it comes to that, celebrity Male lieder singers although, in the interests of fairness, SINGING on both sides did feature strongly. For an 'anti-war' tract the horrors of trench warfare are strangely absent and what we get is an almost anti-septic environment which is probably no worse than a camping expedition when the weather turned nasty. On the other hand it is a genuine pleasure to see Suzanne Flon in what may have been her last film sharing the screen with Michel Serrault. One is left with the awkward question What Was It All For; okay the rank-and-file demonstrated that common humanity has it over political machinations every time but lessons WEREN'T learned and within 24 hours half the participants had either killed each other, been killed by their own Generals or shipped out in disgrace. Those who wish to see a message here will do so others will just wonder what it hopes to achieve.
Review of Joyeux Noel
