JOYEUX NOËL (MERRY CHRISTMAS)
Directed & Written by: Christian Carion.
Produced by: Christophe Rossignon.
Director of Photography: Walther Vanden Ende.
Edited by: Andrea Sedlackova.
Music by: Philippe Rombi.
Released by: Sony Pictures Classics.
Language: English, French & German with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: France/Germany/UK/Belgium/Romania. 116 min. Rated: PG-13 (originally rated R).
With: Diane Krüger, Guillaume Canet, Gary Lewis, Danny Boon, Daniel Brühl, Alex Ferns, Steven Robertson & Lucas Belvaux.

On Christmas Eve, 1914, soldiers from both sides on the Western Front spontaneously laid down their arms, momentarily inciting music, carousing, and soccer instead of killing. This temporary truce is the inspiration for director Christian Carion’s sophomore film.

In a recent Q and A, Carion recounted an anecdote he had discovered in his research that he thought would be too incredulous to include in his film. A wandering cat, shared between two factions, was tried and executed for treason by the French after the Germans sent back the cat with a note tucked in its collar. But this handsomely-produced film is hardly more believable. Beautiful soprano Anna Sörensen (Diane Krüger) visits the German troops that evening and spends the night with her boyfriend, a tenor. A French officer runs off disguised as a German soldier in order to visit his mother in the occupied territory. The trenches are like an open-air Grand Hotel; people come, people go. The snow looks like asbestos, and the trenches are far from muddy with not a single rat in sight.

Two things give away Joyeux Noël’s Francophile point of view. All but two are observant Catholics, even those from predominantly Protestant Scotland, Germany and Denmark. And while the film’s overtones of universal brotherhood would strongly appeal to those who flocked to The Passion of the Christ or End of the Spear, a gratuitous love scene between the war-torn singers instantly throws a roadblock to that potential core audience. Make love and not war is fine for France, but tell that to the American ratings board.

Surprisingly, the understatement of Carion’s debut film, The Girl from Paris, is missing in action. One broadly portrayed character is the villainous Kronprinz – less regal and more like a Rigoletto, one from the old school of opera performance. And when Anna sings “Ave Maria” for the boys, a reaction shot of wild adoration breaks the tenuous spell. (And if you’re going to have non-singers play supposedly world famous opera singers, don’t film them close up, unless the lip-synching is excellent.) More moving and less sentimental World War I dramas include the BBC’s mini-series Testament of Youth (1979, available on VHS only) or François Dupeyron’s La Chambre Des Officiers (Officer’s Ward) from 2001. Kent Turner
March 3, 2006