Film Review: Joyeux Noel (2005)

I really wanted to review a warm, sappy, raindrops-on-roses-and-whiskers-on-kittens kind of Christmas film, but then I came across this one the other night and oohhhhh…. Like La Vie en Rose, it was just too powerful to ignore. (Not to mention the fact that it dawned on me pretty quickly that the French just don’t do warm, sappy, raindrops-on-roses-and-whiskers-on-kittens kind of films. Silly moi.)

Some of you will already be familiar with the basic premise: in World War I, many troops along the hundreds of miles of battlefields in Europe voluntarily lay down their arms on Christmas Eve on a so-called temporary “Christmas truce,” after which they resumed the task of annihilating each other to death. A number of stories have trickled down to the present generation, based on journals, letters, newspaper reports, and oral histories by survivors and their families. Not much is really known about what happened — most sides in the conflict employed strict censorship (save for the British) in all correspondence coming from the battlefields, and the idea of cross-fraternization between the enemies was understandably considered a threat to the morale of troops elsewhere, the folks back home, and their respective allies around the world.

However, enough stories and photographs did survive, and a few filmmakers and writers have tackled this fascinating event in a handful of books, documentaries, and now, a film.

Joyeux Noel is writer/director Christian Carion‘s interpretation of this almost-mythical event. In the excellent interview on the DVD, Carion explains that nearly all the events depicted in the film are indeed based on true stories he’d read or heard about in his research. While the film’s storyline isn’t based on one specific time and place, it matters not because the reality is that it did happen, on dozens of battlefields across Europe, all primarily independent of each other.

The film opens with individual introductions to various men, each of whose life will intersect with that of the others in a profound way as the story develops. A fresh-faced, jovial Scottish lad named Jonathan (Steven Robertson) and his older brother William (Robin Laing) surprise their their parish priest Palmer (Gary Lewis) by expressing unqualified joy when they learn that war has begun and that they will be sent to battle. Elsewhere in Germany, a professional opera singer and his wife Anna (Diane Kruger) learn of the impending was when a performance is interrupted by an unsmiling officer announcing the news to its shocked audience. And in France the handsome, impassive face of Lieutenant Audebert (Guillaume Canet), masks a deep ambivalence towards the horrors that he knows awaits him and his men.

They come to know each other very quickly on Christmas Eve, 1914, when Sprink (Benno Furmann) the opera singer sings Stille Nacht to his troops after the Germans overhear the Scots play I’m Dreaming of Home on the bagpipes. Anna, who had skillfully obtained a pass from the German Kronprinz in order to visit her husband on the battlefield, watches as curiosity overtakes the obviously anti-war Sprink, and he jumps out of the trench in which his comrades are spending a miserable holiday and serenades the entire battlefield. Eventually, shadowy figures emerge from each side, tentative and suspicious but genuinely moved by the sonorous voice floating from somewhere in the snow and mist.

The story revolves primarily around Audebert, Sprink and Anna, and Horstmayer (Daniel Bruhl), the German officer. Audebert and Horstmayer respect each other’s position as military officers, but that doesn’t mean that they’re about to break bread and share bawdy jokes over a crackling campfire. They circle each other like the wary enemies that they are, waiting for the other to make the first false move so that they can finally rid of him, as they’ve been trained to do. In contrast, of course, their men — weary of the fighting already (if only they knew that they had another five years ahead of them) — practically fall into each other’s arms, exchanging sips of wine and beer and photographs of their girlfriends and wives.

Blonde Scandinavian beauty Anna is a hit among the troops. Her presence transfixes the love-starved men and encourages them to let down their guard and share whatever scraps of Christmas spirit are left over following some pretty intense fighting. On the other hand, moody Horstmayer doesn’t quite know what to make of all this, and neither does Audebert. Nevertheless, the two men, along with the Scottish commander Gordon (Alex Ferns), gradually and grudgingly engage in awkward, even amusing conversations about their respective families and hometowns. At one point, Horstmayer learns that Audebert’s wife had given birth and that the French officer had yet to learn of the sex, much less the name of the baby, engulfed as he had been in the battlefield and unable to receive any correspondence from her. Horstmayer is visibly affected by the news, and you sense that their complex, mutually distrustful relationship shifts at just that moment as the heretofore officious German officer and the loyal but conflicted French lieutenant strike up a quiet, unlikely truce of their own.

The filmmaking is spare and — save for Sprink’s dramatic foray literally into the middle of the battlefield brandishing a brightly-lit Christmas tree — straightforward in its storytelling. A sub-plot involving the two Scottish brothers provides just enough of a dark undercurrent to remind the viewer that this is still a war, and these cheerful men playing cards and running around with a soccer ball are still officially considered enemies and had just the day before been attempting to kill each other. The knowledge in hindsight of how World War I had decimated an entire generation of young men in Europe — particularly in the British Empire — and how its controversial treaty had devastated Germany and inspired the eventual rise of the man who would lead the country again to yet another world war, lends greater poignancy to the story.

This is not It’s A Wonderful Life. It would be difficult to walk away from this film with an uplifted outlook on humanity and its destiny. The inevitable resumption of battle near the end of the film comes with some inspiring surprises, but the final outcome only underscores the reality of war as a cruel chess game played by cunning old men safe in their country houses while their young, promising “pawns” shed precious blood on the gray, dismal battlefield.

Still, considering that this is indeed based on a number of true stories (most of which are probably even more stunning in their demonstration of the human capacity for friendship and love than this otherwise exceptional fictional version could hope to achieve), Joyeux Noel is, in its own quiet way, the perfect Christmas movie. While some may speculate that the title is meant to be ironic, my own opinion is that it perfectly captures the spirit of the film’s fierce anti-war sentiment and the power of this ancient Christian story to literally bring down entire armies to its knees. There is little joy in war and suffering, and trench warfare reached its bloody, terrible peak during this particular war. For one snowy, quiet night, however, a few men defied their distant leaders and chose to regain whatever shred of humanity they had left and share it with their fellow man. If only for this one special night, they would be fathers, brothers, comrades, and friends, rather than soldiers programmed only to kill an unseen, unknown enemy.

As to be expected, the performances are superb, particularly by Canet and Horstmayer. Canet, his matinee-idol looks somewhat obscured by a thick moustache, delivers a sensitive interpretation of the brooding, conflicted French lieutenant. Horstmayer almost looks too young to play an autocratic German officer, but then one remembers that battlefields have always been populated by the young, those who’ve yet to taste the joys of life before succumbing to its horrific sorrows. He manages to make the shift from unlikable and untrustworthy to admirable and respectful with subtle grace. Kruger, of course, is billed as the star of the film, but thankfully doesn’t attempt to steal the limelight from the central story of the two men and their growing friendship. She serves as the beacon of hope and faith in an otherwise faithless time and place and does so with a calmness that only hints at the despair she obviously feels about the futility of war.

The DVD features the aforementioned interview with director and writer Carion, and it’s worth watching for the stories he shares about some of the actual men who were involved in the Christmas truce. Given the detached, anonymous nature of warfare as it’s practiced today, it’s a sad reminder that we’ve come such a long way to arrive at a place even further from lasting peace than when we began.

Joyeux Noel.

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