Discussing the war from the point of view of soldiers, this movie, follows the bloody World War I, when the British, French, and Scottish soldiers, have to spend Christmas with one another away from their homes, the thing that teaches them many lessons.
For all their friendship and yuletide charity, the men must return to battle, and the miracle of Christmas does little to alter the course of war. By the end of it, they must decide if they've witnessed their own grand illusion.
The horror of the war, and the startling dignity of these mud-spattered soldiers, will doubtless thaw stony hearts. But the drama is as conventional as a ham sandwich.
You can't watch this film without thinking about modern wars and about how much easier it is to demonize a foe when language and customs are more at odds.
Except for a few missteps, the movie is so beautifully and sensitively rendered in its particulars, in its characterizations of soldiers and officers, and in its dramatization of a nearly miraculous event, that the result is an affecting piece of cinema.
Well-photographed and acted, Joyeux Noël suffers most from the inevitable comparison with its betters, such films as Paths of Glory or All Quiet on the Western Front.
At the Movies (Australia)
December 14, 2014
It is such a wonderful story and I think it's a rather prosaic treatment that it's been given.
Some might castigate its unabashed sentimentality, but I found myself moved, especially when I recalled that this was supposedly the war to end all wars.
It's a respectful, sobering tribute to the flickering of humanitarian spirit amid the darkest days of conflict and, as such, surely a Christmas film for the ages.
