How do you do,
Merry Christmas to the readers where ever they may be. In this festive season of the year, I am willing to do what was overdue back in 2014 and look into the movie about the Christmas Truce. Joyeux Noel is the film, which is French for "Merry Christmas", released in 2005. As the title suggests, the movie is foreign to Americans. It's a French film, mostly, directed by a Frenchman, Christian Carion, and starring French actors supported by British and German stars that most Americans have never heard of (those of us in the States are familiar with Diane Krueger from Troy and few others). It is sad I will say that we are now a century since the United States entered the war and there is no apparent similar one to happen between the German Army and the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) as far as I could find. I will say that it provides an interesting story.
The movie condenses the whole truce, which happened in isolated or sporadic locations along the Western Front into a fictional account without any actual officers or enlisted men involved, though the German Crown Prince appears in two scenes. It's something to remind me of the way The Battle of the Bulge (1965) did where the entire battle along the Ardennes is reduced to a small, limited action in one place (and climaxes, strangely, in a barren desert with low rolling hills) while fictional characters meet without ever involving Generals Eisenhower, Patton, Peiper, or van Rundstedt. In a way, the action makes it more allegorical and allows each nation to be represented.
The movie opens with images of tranquil scenes from the Edwardian period, sort of giving the modern viewer a snap shot of a world long forgotten. This is later replaced by a school room setting where a lone boy recites a poem to empty desks, sort of implying they are the voice of the nation they represent (France, Great Britain, and Germany, in that order). The French child gives a speech that is very poetic, yet subtly xenophobic, as it talks of the people calling for relief in Alsaac, the place France lost in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The British boy is more blunt and sounds like someone calling for genocide. The German lad is more defensive and puts blame on England as the natural enemy. The innocent voices of the boys reciting this war like poem is indeed tragic and has to be heard to be believed. Then we see the war begin.
One thing I note on how things are tied up in book ends in the movie is illustrated by how the main characters are in a setting. For example, the Anglican priest, Father Palmer, is introduced in a church with one of the two boys who knows and he is lighting candles that go out as the door they depart from is opened. He is then left looking at the candles that are now smoking and ponders on how the two could just run off into war. At the end of the movie, he hears a sermon by his bishop that ultimately makes him lose his faith, thus the candles become the symbol of it. In both his first and last scene, he is near a temple of worship and is puzzled by the conflicting nature of war and Christianity. When he tries to be the peace keeper in the situation, his superior makes him out to be unfit for leadership in spiritual matters. Rather or not Father Palmer would be able to keep up his stretcher duties as an unofficial priest is open to interpretation. Then there is the couple of opera stars, Sprink and Anna, who first appear on stage in what looks like a Wagner show. They are playing lovers who are apparently doomed by forbidden love and Anna is shown singing the "Ave Maria", which may make the opera be a Schubert one. Gradually, the movie has it where they are always separated by outside circumstances in real life as Sprink is called to active duty and is sent to the front. Eventually, Anna goes there and convinces the generals to let them sing a duet at the Crown Prince's party. From that point, she goes to the front and they sing to the troops. When the officer in charge finds out of their sneaking away, he tells Sprink he'll be arrested and sent away while Anna will be brought back to Berlin. Instead of letting that happen, they desert to the French who escort them to the rear. Where next is anyone's guess but I would like to think of them fleeing to the US as it was still neutral (until 1917) or they found their way to Denmark. Then there's Lieutenant Audebert starting out by arguing with his father, a major general, about being with his men. He departs from the story in the same manner. He would rather be with his men than take up being an artillery officer where he would be safer.
If there is one thing I catch from all this is that the movie contains alot of anti-authority themes in each plot thread. Audebert has his father to deal with. Then there is Sprink who is disillusioned from war. At the start, he walks the halls as the center of attention (he is the star of the opera, after all). He likes the attention and his willingness to sing for everyone puts him in a situation that should have gotten him killed in normal circumstances. Then he calls out his superior officer for being willing to return to business as usual after the truce and the fraternization. His officer, Lieutenant Horstmayer, deals with his own when meeting the Crown Prince near the end. The Crown Prince, who somehow is given command near Lens, even though he was actually in the Verdun sector, is shown as boorish, arrogant, vain, and pushy. He stumps out the harmonica of one soldier as part of their punishment in the box car, which he states they will never see their families as they are sent to the Eastern Front, and he sneers at the lieutenant's Iron Cross medal, "They give that to just about anyone." Since the character revealed to be Jewish, it would seem a casual Anti-Semitic remark, but in reality it's that the medal, used for acts of bravery, is worn by what he perceives to be a coward. A British major in command of the Highlanders is seen as the mean officer that no one likes, but can't do anything of it because of ranks. He never stays for the truce, only shows up after, never leads in battle, and chews out everyone in his line of vision. So, the best thing done is Father Palmer escorting the man out of the trench in his "short cut", similar to how General Weberly of White Christmas doing to his replacement, which turns out to be a hike through the latrine. A soldier fires in the air and makes them drop, getting the major covered in human waste. It's meant for laughs and the British lieutenant permits a little laugh for a while. Palmer gets his with the Bishop, thus bringing in the religious authority's authority into the mix.
The authority figures here are in the rear, mostly, and dictate how the war is to be fought and one. Neither will end until the other is defeated (the Bishop even says they must kill every German, lest their sons would have to do so again). Meanwhile, the protagonists are the grunts of the armies and their respected lower officers who are sent to do all the dirty work. In this period, most of the men had never been out of their country and the idea of multiculturalism was almost none existing at the time. So, it accurately shows the way the two sides greet and gradually warm up to each other. Even an atheist in the German Army tries to bring up the one Scotsman who mourns his brother for champagne while everyone else is attending a service. Needless to say, the man turns it down. Two soldiers encounter a cat who goes between them and they give the cat different names, which reminds one of battles having different names, or regions. As to the officers, they communicate in English, mostly, and talk of visiting places. Horstmayer had visited Paris, once, and he and Audebert even plan to meet again after the war. Then there is the shot of a soccer match held, which from accounts did happen. The Saxon regiment took on an opposing army, and plenty more where the games were held within their own. One could imagine several of the British Tommies cheering one team over another in the process, if he would like, though I can't find anything that would support that.
When the every-men of the group had met each other and learned how they are alike, it certainly made them question the war. One French letter suggested that Poincare take Lorraine himself. So, the authority figures crack down. The French are removed to the Verdun sector where they would later be fighting in one of the greatest battles of that war. If they came out of Verdun as heroes, all sins of the Truce washed away, I am sure Audebert and his men would later take part in the 1917 Mutinies as well. The Highlanders are disbanded and scattered while replacements take over. The Germans are sent to the east with replacements brought in. This prevents future fraternizing. So, the movie ends on a bitter note that the authorities have won by moving the little guy away from his new friends. Yet, with the way the Germans are heard singing "I'm Dreaming of Home", introduced to them by the Scots, it does present a kind of hopeful message that the underlings are not completely defeated (ironic, since Germany is defeated at the end of the First World War, but the British and the French are also destroyed in another way. One shot shows Audebert standing alone on the front where there is nothing but ruins, snow, shell holes, and graves, while his orderly, Ponchel, lies dead. That basically shows that while the Allies win, it was a hollow victory). In a symbolic sense, the war itself is the antagonist of the movie. It's impersonal, it's inhuman, and it kills all, destroys all, and feels nothing. Because it is an idea and not a person, war can be vilified like it does here, and it causes the leaders to become priests in a pagan religion who say the gods demand sacrifice and the common man becomes the sacrificial offerings. Yet, for one shining moment, from Belgium down through France to the Swiss border, over a million men in different uniforms, speaking different languages, made peace to celebrate the birth of one who took it on Himself to be the sacrifice and end such sorrows such as war. The Bishop gets it wrong in thinking the soldiers are on a holy crusade after reading that passage. When including the following verses, the reading goes:
The movie does leave out a few details. For example, the British suffragettes actually petitioned for peace in 1914 with a letter addressed to German and Austrian women. Also, on the eve of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Benedict XV, requested a ceasefire on Christmas between the fighting nations. As you would expect, no one heeded his call. The lack of such reference to the pope is the reason why I don't view Palmer and his bishop as Catholic, despite the Bishop crossing himself at the end of the sermon. While the aftermath is shown, the movie doesn't dwell too much on the consequences where future truces of that nature became rare and far from in between. In fact, after the great battles of 1916, a bitter sentiment had come upon the fighting men that prevented such. By the time the United States enter the war, all tries to a Christmas truce had ended and the closest thing came a year later with the 1918 Armistice. Considering that nothing like it seemed to have happened during World War II, it's a bet that the aftermath was also the death of that sort of chivalry. We have degraded to the point that we don't respect the sanctity of certain days or months that soldiers will fight regardless (and the irony is some of the recent examples have happened near the same part of the world where Jesus had walked the earth). We could go into debates on the differences, but it will detract from this review.
A few things to bring up include the content. For a war movie, very little of a war is shown. Just a raid on the trenches a la Saving Private Ryan (two minute warning, someone vomiting, a pep speech, all before they charge in to the machine gun fire) followed by everyone eying the other. There is an artillery bombardment near the end of the Truce where the two sides use each other's trenches for cover (ironic in a way that the Allies wanted to get into the German trenches and did so in a different way than planned). The profanity is minor, mostly something done by the English speakers, while despite the warning on the label the sex scene is brief. I like how Christian Carion artistically made it where Sprink and Anna simply kiss passionately, then black out, and then fade in to reveal them in bed, with Sprink baring Anna's backside, (though the male audience is denied seeing Diane Krueger's buttocks), they grunt in a position, and then are suddenly dressed for the duet. Of course, we do see two beetles copulating in the French trenches, something that Audebert later draws a picture of. Father Palmer, an Anglican, provides the religion in the movie, with most of the soldiers being Christian, of various denominations, besides the German lieutenant being Jewish. Anna sings the "Ave Maria", not once but twice in the movie, though neither the Bach or the Schubert versions. In accuracy, the movie gets it right to some degree and misses mark in others. For one, I can't figure out how Horstmayer, Audebert, and Lieutenant Gordon of the Scotsmen could be all well dressed with immaculate uniforms after weeks, or months, of trench warfare. If their orderlies found a way, it's plausible. But their enlisted men didn't have ways of cleaning and the washing machines of the time were primitive. Sprink would have done the cleaning and delousing before meeting Anna and it would have taken hours. It would be more accurate if actual smudge was shown. Then there is the fact the Bishop concludes his sermon with "The Lord be with you" to which the soldiers reply "And also with you." This use to be used among Catholics in the Mass, after Vatican II, and I have found that Episcopals and Anglicans had it in reserve while the more accurate "And with your spirit" ("Et cum spiritu tuo"). If they actually had "And also with you" at the time, I wouldn't know, but it has been said that Catholics wouldn't responded that way, which is why I wouldn't see the British clergy in the movie as Catholic, regardless of what TV tropes claims.
Though rated PG 13, Joyeux Noel is a good enough movie to be viewed on Christmas, even after the Centennial of the Truce has come and gone. It offers one a way of seeing peace being made. It reminds me of what He who we celebrate as being born on Christmas stated, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called Children of God." No doubt, the men who made that peace will be blessed, and the same to any of the leaders who have the conviction, be they Jew or Gentile, be they religious or none, to put aside their differences and break bread together. If more of that happened, we could actually have peace on earth and good will toward men.
^1. Matthew, chapter 10, verse 34-37. Douay-Rheims version.
If there is one thing I catch from all this is that the movie contains alot of anti-authority themes in each plot thread. Audebert has his father to deal with. Then there is Sprink who is disillusioned from war. At the start, he walks the halls as the center of attention (he is the star of the opera, after all). He likes the attention and his willingness to sing for everyone puts him in a situation that should have gotten him killed in normal circumstances. Then he calls out his superior officer for being willing to return to business as usual after the truce and the fraternization. His officer, Lieutenant Horstmayer, deals with his own when meeting the Crown Prince near the end. The Crown Prince, who somehow is given command near Lens, even though he was actually in the Verdun sector, is shown as boorish, arrogant, vain, and pushy. He stumps out the harmonica of one soldier as part of their punishment in the box car, which he states they will never see their families as they are sent to the Eastern Front, and he sneers at the lieutenant's Iron Cross medal, "They give that to just about anyone." Since the character revealed to be Jewish, it would seem a casual Anti-Semitic remark, but in reality it's that the medal, used for acts of bravery, is worn by what he perceives to be a coward. A British major in command of the Highlanders is seen as the mean officer that no one likes, but can't do anything of it because of ranks. He never stays for the truce, only shows up after, never leads in battle, and chews out everyone in his line of vision. So, the best thing done is Father Palmer escorting the man out of the trench in his "short cut", similar to how General Weberly of White Christmas doing to his replacement, which turns out to be a hike through the latrine. A soldier fires in the air and makes them drop, getting the major covered in human waste. It's meant for laughs and the British lieutenant permits a little laugh for a while. Palmer gets his with the Bishop, thus bringing in the religious authority's authority into the mix.
The authority figures here are in the rear, mostly, and dictate how the war is to be fought and one. Neither will end until the other is defeated (the Bishop even says they must kill every German, lest their sons would have to do so again). Meanwhile, the protagonists are the grunts of the armies and their respected lower officers who are sent to do all the dirty work. In this period, most of the men had never been out of their country and the idea of multiculturalism was almost none existing at the time. So, it accurately shows the way the two sides greet and gradually warm up to each other. Even an atheist in the German Army tries to bring up the one Scotsman who mourns his brother for champagne while everyone else is attending a service. Needless to say, the man turns it down. Two soldiers encounter a cat who goes between them and they give the cat different names, which reminds one of battles having different names, or regions. As to the officers, they communicate in English, mostly, and talk of visiting places. Horstmayer had visited Paris, once, and he and Audebert even plan to meet again after the war. Then there is the shot of a soccer match held, which from accounts did happen. The Saxon regiment took on an opposing army, and plenty more where the games were held within their own. One could imagine several of the British Tommies cheering one team over another in the process, if he would like, though I can't find anything that would support that.
When the every-men of the group had met each other and learned how they are alike, it certainly made them question the war. One French letter suggested that Poincare take Lorraine himself. So, the authority figures crack down. The French are removed to the Verdun sector where they would later be fighting in one of the greatest battles of that war. If they came out of Verdun as heroes, all sins of the Truce washed away, I am sure Audebert and his men would later take part in the 1917 Mutinies as well. The Highlanders are disbanded and scattered while replacements take over. The Germans are sent to the east with replacements brought in. This prevents future fraternizing. So, the movie ends on a bitter note that the authorities have won by moving the little guy away from his new friends. Yet, with the way the Germans are heard singing "I'm Dreaming of Home", introduced to them by the Scots, it does present a kind of hopeful message that the underlings are not completely defeated (ironic, since Germany is defeated at the end of the First World War, but the British and the French are also destroyed in another way. One shot shows Audebert standing alone on the front where there is nothing but ruins, snow, shell holes, and graves, while his orderly, Ponchel, lies dead. That basically shows that while the Allies win, it was a hollow victory). In a symbolic sense, the war itself is the antagonist of the movie. It's impersonal, it's inhuman, and it kills all, destroys all, and feels nothing. Because it is an idea and not a person, war can be vilified like it does here, and it causes the leaders to become priests in a pagan religion who say the gods demand sacrifice and the common man becomes the sacrificial offerings. Yet, for one shining moment, from Belgium down through France to the Swiss border, over a million men in different uniforms, speaking different languages, made peace to celebrate the birth of one who took it on Himself to be the sacrifice and end such sorrows such as war. The Bishop gets it wrong in thinking the soldiers are on a holy crusade after reading that passage. When including the following verses, the reading goes:
Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's enemies shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me.[1]What Christ was talking of was a spiritual war fought within us, where we place things before God and people before God. That last is something that is not brought up in the movie, but anyone who studies the passage will know it so. The Bishop thus is hypocritical in the fact he puts his country's hostility and war before his God's holy wish for peace and goodwill. His interpretation is also Old Testament, as though he were trying to be like Samuel to have the Israelites kill all the Amalekites so that their nation wouldn't be threatened in the future. No doubt, the atrocities committed in the war were alarming (excluding the baby bayoneting, as that was propaganda), that would pale compared to World War II with the Holocaust dwarfing them all. In a symbolic sense, the division comes true where Palmer is now opposite of his own bishop, and everyone else, at the end of the movie.
The movie does leave out a few details. For example, the British suffragettes actually petitioned for peace in 1914 with a letter addressed to German and Austrian women. Also, on the eve of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Benedict XV, requested a ceasefire on Christmas between the fighting nations. As you would expect, no one heeded his call. The lack of such reference to the pope is the reason why I don't view Palmer and his bishop as Catholic, despite the Bishop crossing himself at the end of the sermon. While the aftermath is shown, the movie doesn't dwell too much on the consequences where future truces of that nature became rare and far from in between. In fact, after the great battles of 1916, a bitter sentiment had come upon the fighting men that prevented such. By the time the United States enter the war, all tries to a Christmas truce had ended and the closest thing came a year later with the 1918 Armistice. Considering that nothing like it seemed to have happened during World War II, it's a bet that the aftermath was also the death of that sort of chivalry. We have degraded to the point that we don't respect the sanctity of certain days or months that soldiers will fight regardless (and the irony is some of the recent examples have happened near the same part of the world where Jesus had walked the earth). We could go into debates on the differences, but it will detract from this review.
A few things to bring up include the content. For a war movie, very little of a war is shown. Just a raid on the trenches a la Saving Private Ryan (two minute warning, someone vomiting, a pep speech, all before they charge in to the machine gun fire) followed by everyone eying the other. There is an artillery bombardment near the end of the Truce where the two sides use each other's trenches for cover (ironic in a way that the Allies wanted to get into the German trenches and did so in a different way than planned). The profanity is minor, mostly something done by the English speakers, while despite the warning on the label the sex scene is brief. I like how Christian Carion artistically made it where Sprink and Anna simply kiss passionately, then black out, and then fade in to reveal them in bed, with Sprink baring Anna's backside, (though the male audience is denied seeing Diane Krueger's buttocks), they grunt in a position, and then are suddenly dressed for the duet. Of course, we do see two beetles copulating in the French trenches, something that Audebert later draws a picture of. Father Palmer, an Anglican, provides the religion in the movie, with most of the soldiers being Christian, of various denominations, besides the German lieutenant being Jewish. Anna sings the "Ave Maria", not once but twice in the movie, though neither the Bach or the Schubert versions. In accuracy, the movie gets it right to some degree and misses mark in others. For one, I can't figure out how Horstmayer, Audebert, and Lieutenant Gordon of the Scotsmen could be all well dressed with immaculate uniforms after weeks, or months, of trench warfare. If their orderlies found a way, it's plausible. But their enlisted men didn't have ways of cleaning and the washing machines of the time were primitive. Sprink would have done the cleaning and delousing before meeting Anna and it would have taken hours. It would be more accurate if actual smudge was shown. Then there is the fact the Bishop concludes his sermon with "The Lord be with you" to which the soldiers reply "And also with you." This use to be used among Catholics in the Mass, after Vatican II, and I have found that Episcopals and Anglicans had it in reserve while the more accurate "And with your spirit" ("Et cum spiritu tuo"). If they actually had "And also with you" at the time, I wouldn't know, but it has been said that Catholics wouldn't responded that way, which is why I wouldn't see the British clergy in the movie as Catholic, regardless of what TV tropes claims.
Though rated PG 13, Joyeux Noel is a good enough movie to be viewed on Christmas, even after the Centennial of the Truce has come and gone. It offers one a way of seeing peace being made. It reminds me of what He who we celebrate as being born on Christmas stated, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called Children of God." No doubt, the men who made that peace will be blessed, and the same to any of the leaders who have the conviction, be they Jew or Gentile, be they religious or none, to put aside their differences and break bread together. If more of that happened, we could actually have peace on earth and good will toward men.
^1. Matthew, chapter 10, verse 34-37. Douay-Rheims version.
