War Issues in the Joyeux Noel Film - Movie Review Example

Joyeux Noel – Merry Christmas (2005) – A Critical Review War, violence, death, decay, all these tragedies come together hand in hand. It was thousands years ago when King Ashoka, one of the bravest kings in Indian history, after playing a lot of wars and killing innumerable people came to know the futility of war and realized the righteousness of non-violence. He left the war and spent his remaining life in promoting the principles of non-violence which had been taught by Lord Buddha. It means that you have to give up path of violence if you want to form peace and harmony. In case of King Ashoka It is the fraternity that came after the dreadful consequences of the war. But here there is one opposite situation and that is the fraternity and brotherhood which was established before the war for some time. The series is totally vise versa i.e. from war to fraternity and again from fraternity to war. The soldiers from two opposite troops have already prepared for the war, yet celebrating the Christmas with the genuine feelings of fraternity. It seems to be weird and unbelievable yet it had happened during the First World War. This amazing true story was pictured by Christian Carion in his film “Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas)” Keywords: war, fraternity, Christmas truce. Introduction One very beautiful line quoted by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each mans life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” Hostility is there among the countries, among the leaders but what about the common soldiers? As a part of the duties they might be fighting with each other but their fight is not at all due to their personal abhorrence. These soldiers are also the human beings and they have their family, friends. War is for the politics and not for human beings. Apart from being and enemy of each other the soldiers have created some emotional tie ups with the soldiers from their enemy country. In war stories we can see many incredible things. Here also we can see the love and hatred dwell under one single roof. This movie explains about the ceasefire took place in the regiments of three major countries on the Christmas Eve of 1914 during the First World War near Prussian occupied France. At that time the soldiers urging for peaceful family life put down their ammunitions and began to establish fraternity among each other. Though this film is a war film, the approach is individual and sentimental. It gives prominence to the emotions of the individual rather than the war and the political scenario. Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas) Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas) is an amazing and a very touching antiwar movie released on 15thDecember 2005. This beautiful drama and romance in genre and depicts the story of a Christmas truce during the First World War. The film is directed by Christian Carion. He got the inspiration for this film from a book titled ‘Battles of Flanders and Artois 1914-1918, by Yves Buffetaut. While writing the fantastic book Carion was engrossed by a passage, ‘The incredible winter 1914,’ in which the author had written about the temporary fraternity between the two enemies. Caron was much captivated by the passage. It grabbed his attention and he had an idea of making a movie on this extraordinary appealing subject. The story is a peculiar blend of poignant and contented feeling. The sentiments of war are immaculately didactic. The film was nominated for the category of the best foreign film in Oscar. It can be described as a classy mannered drama. The marvelous tale of cohesion found reverberation at the Cannes Film Festival, It was then screened out of competition. While describing the moment Caron tells his memories that the scene in which the soldiers left their trenches to wish each other Merry Christmas was highly applauded by the audience at Cannes. The co-president of Sony Pictures Classics Michael Barker appreciated it. While expressing his opinion he says, “I am buying your movie because it touches me – and because we are at war.” Joyeux Noel is a very emotive story about courage and dignity of the soldiers of three different nations involved in the First World War. The story in brief The story is written on the background of the 1st world war one of the bloodiest wars played on this planet. It is based on actual events. During the Christmas truce of 1914 the soldiers from different countries came together on the ‘no man’s land,’ put down their weapons and enjoyed the Christmas together. The opera singer Anna with her lover and a popular opera singer recite the Christmas song at the front. When it takes place all the soldiers start popping up from the trenches and assuring about their safety, they pull themselves to the view. They pour the Champagne, share gift packs, chocolates, exchange the photos of their family members and also share the memories of their loved ones. The next day they have a coffee together. They greet each other in their languages, ‘Merry Christmas,’ ‘Joyeux Noël,’ and ‘Frohe Weihnachten.’ They play the soccer and bury their dead whose bodies have been rotting between the lines. Thus on the arrival of the Christmas, all of these soldiers come together and celebrate the Christmas apart from the enmity of their countries. After these joyful moments they have to face the dismal aftermaths. The priest who celebrates the mass on ‘No Man’s Land’ was savagely condemned by the bishop. He defines the patriotic duty of a clergy is to push for the troops into the battle and square them to death. These soldiers are reprimanded and punished for their deeds. The Scottish soldiers were ordered to kill the French soldiers who are in disguise of German soldiers. Characterization: According to David Thomas, “All of the characters are cast and depicted as being likeable, regardless of their national identity. There are no intrinsic cues for us to know who to root for.” (Christian Ethics Today, updated Jan 06, 2006). The characters are mainly belonging to different countries with different cultural background. There are ten major characters in the movie. Anna Sorensen is a popular Danish Soprano who is trying her best to grasp her lover i.e. Nikolaus Sprinkm from the war. Anna is brought to sing for German officers and the Crown Prince. She expresses her desire to sing for the ordinary troop. Her major purpose to sing for the ordinary troop was to meet her lover, Nisolaus Sprink. The second character is Nokolaus Sprink who is tenor with magnificent voice and a popular opera singer, now fighting in the war for his country. Then we are introduced with Audebert who is a French Lieutenant. He hides his grief and fear from his men who expect everything from him. The next character is Palmer who is an Anglican priest who gives his mass on Christmas Eve1914, on ‘No Man’s Land.’ The character of Ponchel who was aide-de-camp was the evocation of the French soldier. His house was located behind the German lines and he had to cross that zone every evening through a breach to sleep with his family members and he went back to the French trenches early in the morning to fight the war. Then there is a German Lieutenant named Horstmayor. Then Lieutenant Audebert’s father, the French general is there whose profession is war and has to deal with those men who have erred, including his son. Then there is an officer named Gordon who tries to control and justifies the fraternizing. Though outwardly he is opposing the fraternity there is a fascination for humanity and peace deep in his heart. There is a French soldier whose name is Guesselin. He is afraid of nothing and has nothing to lose from fighting. Then we are introduced with the two Scott brothers, Jonathan and William. One scene in this film is very interesting about these brothers who are bored with their common life and want a change and they think that the war will change their lives. when they show their eagerness, “At last something’s happening in our lives!” Palmer is astounded to see the two brothers’ eagerness and enthusiasm to leave the life in their small village of Scotland and go to fight in the war. The political leaders have promised all the members of the troop to end the war before the Christmas. We see here is when the girlfriend of Nikolaus Sprink, and an Opera singer Anna Sorensen is performing an opera which was interrupted by some soldiers as they wanted to announce that Germany had announced the war. Nikolaus Sprink was swept into battle. The concept of fraternity: In the movie it is not directly mentioned whether the war is futile but the fraternity has become the highlight on the background of terrible war and the deaths. The soldiers who came together to celebrate Christmas were different from each other as far as language culture and nationality are concerned. But one common thing was there among all of them and that is the deep faith and love for their savior, Jesus Christ. These homesick and weary soldiers established the strong bondage among them by exchanging the gifts sharing their homesickness with each other. Willingly or without their will all of them were connected with the war. The scene where the soldiers from all side slowly come and approach each other was an appealing. We can imagine how these soldiers are willing to keep them away from the harsh reality for some moment. The reality that they are enemy of each other was in a very close distance to them. But still they want to be brothers of each other at least for few hours. After all they will have to face the reality next day. Deep in their mind they want to restore the peace and fraternity and not willing to fight each other. The idea of fraternity appealed the mind of Christian Carion. He states, "I am very touched by this idea, because on the Earth there is no monument to fraternization. There is always a monument for victory. And where there is a victory there is a defeat. But a monument about fraternization - there is not one anywhere.”The story is about ninety years back but the situation is relevant to 2007. We can say that being a war film status this is not actually a war film because it stresses mainly on the human relationship. War is not the subject of this film but the real subject is the fraternity which was cherished in a very critical and crucial situation like war and the values of humanity and brotherhood are promoted on the background of the war. Religion as a tool of war Use of religion for the purpose of violence and destruction was quite common thing in the human history. No religion and its teachings are negative and harmful. But the people defame the religion by their erroneous deeds. They take the meaning of religious teaching and principles according to their own convenience and use it for their selfish violent purposes. In one scene Palmer, the father of the church who had conducted a mass for everyone including the Germans, on the Christmas Eve was condemned by the bishop. But according to the Palmer he conducted the sermon service on the will of Lord Jesus Christ. But the Bishop retorted in his blistering sermon, “Jesus came to bring a sword, and he commands you to kill all of the enemy’s people, good or bad,” He in his sermon connected the Germans with evil. He further instructed that the French would kill all the Germans whether young or old. Thus the religion was used as a tool for playing the war. Here one man is genuinely promoting the principles of Jesus Christ while one man is making issue of the pious religious deeds done by a genuine person and making religion as a tool of violence. The paradox is that on the name of religion the religious authority was promoting violence. In fact divine soul like Jesus Christ sacrificed himself for the sake of non violence and salvation of mankind but his followers were adopting the way of violence which is very contradictory to the religious idealism. The religious hypocrisy of the Bishop is revealed here. Caron along with the whole production team has presented poetic images of the daze and confused soldiers who are wondering how they will manage to fight and kill each other after spending the moments of merriment with each other. After all it was a truce and not the peace or end of the war. It is on the other hand going to follow by a dreadful misery, decay and degradation. It is dreadful because after the end of the First World War the number of dead people were horrible and shocking. Innumerable human loss took place. Among them were 1million soldiers from British Empire, 2million German soldiers, 1.7 million French, 460,000 Italian, 50,000 American and number of Turks. The critical review This movie was acclaimed by many critics. While praising the film one of the critics named Pete Hammond says, “...a richly entertaining and remarkable film that manages to reveal the humanity in all of us.” (Cin-o-matic). Still it is controversial as far as critical review is concerned. Some critics have appreciated the movie while some have criticized it. According to some critics this movie goes far away from reality. Even if the story is claimed to be the real story it is hard to believe that the soldiers on the battlefield can establish fraternity with their enemies. This film is also criticized for being over-dramatized. There are many events which feel unnecessarily contrived. The pretty concert singer Anna and her lover slip of to the Western Front to sing the Christmas Carols. This idea according to some critics just reeks of sentimentality and thus fails to maintain the realism and truth of the circumstances. Though the film is well-acted and well filmed it is standing apart from the reality. Some critics while analyzing the film compare it with somewhat similar film titled “La Grande Illusion,” a black and white film which was released in 1937. According to them this film is more authentic than “Joyeux Noel. La Grand is a powerful war escape film. This is the story which take place in 1916 in actual wartime when Lieutenant Marechal and Captaine de Boeldieu the two combat pilots were shot down by the Germans. They were taken to the prisoners’ camp where they fraternize with a Jew lieutenant Rosenthal who shares the delicious food parcel with these prisoners. The film “Joyeux Noel” describes the idea of fraternity but in a different manner. This film tackles the anti-war theme from a very subtle angle. In both of this film it is war that brings the unknown people together and very close to each other. None of these men would have ever met each other in their life if the war had not taken place. While talking about “La Grande Illusion,” Carion says, “La Grande Illusion is a great film on the class system. Renoirs cinema is my family." (pg.2, ‘Silent Night in Wartime’ by Joan Dupont, published on 15th November 2005 ‘International Herald Tribune’) Both of these films allude the same point that to die on the battlefield is a tragedy for common man and it is a solution for the aristocrats. The irony The troops of both sides lay down their weapons and there is a spontaneous ceasefire to observe the birth of the savior in whose name they were killing each other. The irony is that in the very first scene of the movie the schoolchildren appear before the audience. They belong to the three nations sing with angelic fervor in their own languages about the necessity of wiping the enemy from the face of the earth (Joyeux Noel by Roger Ebert, March 10, 2006) The irony behind this is that who is the enemy in the children’s song. Whom they are referring to as an enemy? No enmity exist among the soldiers as they have already built the strong emotional tie ups with each other. The Music – soul of the film. Music has played a very significant role to compete the film. It has been the heart of this film and without music this film can never be completed, because the idea of fraternity can be seen only through music. So music plays an important role in this film. Nikolaus and Anna are seen singing the song. Not only Anna and Nikolaus but the other soldiers also are singing the popular song. The bagpipe and the harmonica join nicely on the sound track. The music is composed by Philippe Rombi. The playback singer for Anna is NATALIE DESSAY, the leading French international soprano. She is most popular in France as well as highly acclaimed in Vienna, New York, and London. The playback male singer for Nilolaus is Rolando Villazon who is very popular in the world of opera. Fact and Fiction Only three countries have been described here in the film but actually there are more than three countries involved in the First World War. But for creating the dramatic effect Christian Caron had mentioned only three countries. The incidents are historically true of course but the characters are fictionalized. And for enhancing the dramatic effects some events are presented in highly dramatized manners. While talking about the story Christian Carron explains that it was intimidating for him to write the story based on the facts. It was necessary to create the real as well as fictitious people. Christian Caron, the director of the film Joyeux Noel has chosen the countries like France, UK, and Romania. He wanted to shoot the film in the locations of France and for that he had observed many sites suitable for the movie. First the permission was given but later on it was rejected to shoot the film on the French land so he finally decided to shoot his movie in Romania. Conclusion This film is really amazing and high status film. Its greatness cannot be avoided. It is the director’s great skill to visualize the historical facts in a very effective manner. This was really a great film from all angles including picturization, casting, story, special effects and music. It deserves the acclaim it got from all over the world. Sources: 1. Christian Ethics Today - “Christmas Ethics and the Movies,” an article by David A. Thomas 2. International Movie Database - www.imdb.com 3. The New York Times– Movie Review by Stephen Holden published on March 3, 2006. 4. www.cin-o-matic.com/m.php?MID=1230 5. A review by Vince Leo http://www.qwipster.net/joyeux.htm 6. A film review by James Beradinelli http://tc2tc.mojolingo.xuite.net/m2m-0000/www.reelviews.net/movies/j/joyeux_noel.html 7. Silent Night in Wartime, an article by Joan Dupont, published “Herald Tribune Culture.” Read More