Joyeux Noel (Widescreen)
by Christian Carion
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Actor: Benno Fürmann, Diane Kruger, Guillaume Canet, Natalie Dessay, Rolando VillazónDirector: Christian Carion
Brand: GANET,GUILLAUME
Writer: Christian Carion
Producer: Alexandre Lippens
Producer: Andrei Boncea
Producer: Benjamin Herrmann
Producer: Bertrand Faivre
Producer: Christophe Rossignon
Producer: Christopher Borgmann
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; German (Original Language); Latin (Original Language); English (Dubbed), Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 116 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-11-14
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
DVD Reviews of Joyeux Noel (Widescreen)
DVD Review: An important story
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a very thoughtful and moving portrayal of one of the lesser-known events of WWI, the Christmas Truce of 1914. I first learnt about it in my tenth grade European History AP class, and that the reason they never did anything like that again in wartime was because the soldiers just couldn't go back to shooting one another after they'd fraternised like that and gotten to know one another as human beings, friends, and not the one-dimensional monsters they'd been taught to hate. Although fraternising took place in numerous spots along the front lines in France that Christmas, this film focuses on three specific units--one from France, one from Germany, and one from Scotland. We get to know the men in all of these units before their three intersecting stories are finally all brought together for the holiday; it's not a simplistic portrayal of good guys vs. bad guys the way some other war movies do it. And as it pointed out in the commentary by director Christian Carion, when the film was shown in Germany, many people were incredibly happy and grateful that for once they weren't shown as the bad guys and were shown very sympathetically, particularly with the story of the tenor Sprink and his Danish girlfriend Anna. (And indeed, one of the reasons why so few people believed or took seriously the reports of Nazi atrocities during WWII was because all of those stories about marauding Huns hiding behind old women and children, bayoneting nuns, and crucifying babies during WWI turned out to be nothing but propaganda and outright fantasies.)
The film opens with three different schoolboys, one British, one French, and one German, reciting actual propaganda that was used during WWI, in which they demonise the enemy and urge their compatriots to make war on them and show no mercy. However, this prejudice quickly begins to fall away when the three units come together on Christmas Eve, moved by the beauty of Sprink's rendition of "Stille Nacht," a song that would have been very familiar to the French and the Scots because the tune is the same even if the words are different in other languages. They drink champagne together, hear Mass by the Scottish priest (though I was a bit surprised at how the Scottish regiment was Catholic, since the majority of Scots are Anglican or Presbyterian), and look at pictures of one another's families, all while discovering that they're more alike than they are different. It's hard to hate someone and to believe in racist canards and jingoistic propaganda when one actually meets these people face to face and gets to know them as people, not stereotypes. One can no longer separate people into self and other. Though the truce was only to have been for Xmas Eve, it ends up extending into Xmas Day as well, when the three units come together again to bury their dead comrades who have been lying out in the open for weeks. They play a soccer match and talk and get to know one another even more. This truce worked so well, in fact, that it was hard for them to have to go back to the business of war again, which greatly displeases the higher-ups back at headquarters. They were angry that all of these soldiers had fraternised with the enemy and didn't want to go back to shooting at one another. If only the decisions about the war had been made by the ordinary soldiers experiencing the horror of the trenches and the camaraderie with the other side, in the true spirit of the holiday, peace might have come then instead of almost four whole years later. Instead these life and death decisions were made by a bunch of officers who conducted the war from headquarters and a bunch of bureaucrats and monarchs far from the front lines, people who weren't exposed to combat, people who were in their comfortable homes and not experiencing the true reality of war.
More than just a film about WWI or a Christmas-themed film, it also contains a powerful message about peace, love, and understanding. Perhaps there would never be a need for war and hatred if only more people got to know those whom they considered different or evil, and found out they had the same hopes, fears, and life experiences, that they missed their families too, that they were heartbroken to lose their friends on the battlefield. The only real difference between them was that they were wearing different uniforms. World peace isn't an impossible dream; it's as simple as enough people deciding that they want it and no longer viewing those who are different as enemies.
Description of Joyeux Noel (Widescreen)
Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominee for Best Foreign Film, Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas) tells the true-life story of the spontaneous Christmas Eve truce declared by Scottish, French and German troops in the trenches of World War I. Enemies leave their weapons behind for one night as they band together in brotherhood and forget about the brutalities of war. Diane Krüger (Troy), Daniel Brühl (Good Bye Lenin!) and Benno Fürmann (The Princess and the Warrior) head a first-rate international cast in a truly powerful, must-see film.Bestsellers in DVD
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