Merry Christmas (2005, French)
Director: Christian Carion
Cast: Diane Kruger, Benno Furmann Guillaume Canet, Gary Lewis
Genre: History, War
Graphic: Christmas cease fire!
Based on some true events/stories from WWI, Merry Christmas simply blows your mind with its immaculately written and detailed display. Music plays a vital role throughout the film, especially the Scottish piper and German opera.
It opens with a gruesome scene of French, German and Scottish youths reciting their lines against the enemy in cold boldface. You witness this horrific murder of innocence (nothing graphic, just vibes) and it sets the tone for the rest of the movie.
The next scene features the dreaded Trenches of World War I and begins bloody as “Paths of Glory,” but from there the movie takes a completely different turn.
Now, the film revolves around the German, French and Scottish confrontation in no man’s land and this confrontation remains in the background throughout the film. Christmas is just around the corner and soldiers on all sides on the Western Front want the bloody war to end.
There’s a French lieutenant who left his pregnant wife behind in occupied France to attend the war call, the lieutenant’s mate/assistant who misses his mother and his coffee, a Scottish priest who, outside the politics of the Faith actually preaches about humanity and two Scottish brothers. Two German opera singers lost in love separated by war: Anna, Sprink. These and a few others form the core of the film. Their stories are intertwined, not literally, on an emotional level and on Christmas Eve, the combined feelings of all three sides reach the threshold of something spectacular. What is happening now completely defies the purpose/necessity of war and, to this day, is a morality lesson for all of us.
The three warring sides do a trick and have fun together. This revelry is not just about having fun, you can feel some of the most complex human emotions elaborately captured on screen.
Some sequences leave you spellbound, for example, Sprink comes out of the German trenches singing, ignoring orders and the probable enemy bullets, and being chanted by the bagpipes, Father Palmer’s sermon delivered in a language (Latin) that most do not understand , Anna’s soul filled song that leaves everyone emotional to applause, Jonathan writing to his mother on behalf of his dead brother.
There are also some really funny moments, like the football game, the sharing of chocolates and wines, the alarm clock mysteriously going off at a certain time, and to top it off, there’s a cat (Felix/Nestor) who goes by different names. between all sides.
A snippet from the movie:
“General Audebert: You and your men will rejoin the Verdun sector. You are right about one thing. I don’t understand this war. My body was the cavalry. You should have made a career out of it, like I said. Today, I am asked to fight in a way where the shovel beats the rifle. In which people exchange addresses with the enemy to meet up when it’s all over. As well as the cat we found with a note from the Germans, “Good luck, comrades!” I have been ordered to arrest the cat for high treason…until further notice.”
Of course, the personnel involved in this fraternization were ultimately punished.
And if all of this wasn’t enough, Diane Kruger, gorgeous as ever, gives off a Donna Reedesque glow!
In fact, a must see.
8/10
