On Christmas Eve 1914, the trenches of a World War I battlefield fall silent. The French, Scottish and German troops grow tender at the sound of “Silent Night” wafting over the no man’s land between them. For a few hours, peace breaks out.
This episode, or something like it, really happened during the Great War. But that doesn’t mean “Joyeux Noel,” or “Merry Christmas,” deserves a free pass. This well-made but pasty movie has a cardboard ring to it.
The film, directed by Christian Carion, builds up to the moment of truce by introducing us to various principals. All are hunkered down in the trenches on a cold December night when a Scots bagpiper first offers a few musical notes for soldiers on all sides.
As it happens, a well-known tenor (Benno Furmann) is a soldier on the German side. He is visited that night by his lover and partner, a soprano (Diane Kruger, leading lady of “National Treasure”) who pulled strings with the Kaiser to visit the troops during the holiday. Needless to say, their voices are soon soaring over the night air.
The German commander (Daniel Bruhl, from “Goodbye, Lenin”) and the French lieutenant (Guillaume Canet, a French heartthrob and Kruger’s real-life husband) are skeptical. But when the white flags come out and the soldiers begin approaching each other, it’s a moment that hasn’t been seen since the heyday of late-’60s “everybody get together, try to love one another” cinema.
Since this movie’s heart is in the right place, I suppose it is tempting to cut it some slack. It is handsomely shot, with good actors, and it pulls off a handful of very well-executed moments.
| Simplistic: At Christmas Eve in 1914, troops on opposite sides of the trenches call their own truce and come together in peace for a few hours. (In French and German, with English subtitles.)
Rated: PG-13 rating is for subject matter Now showing: tkon |
But come on. The approach is so simplistic and forced, it seems less like a movie than a homily. Maybe the film’s theme wouldn’t feel like cookie dough if the characters were more than one-dimensional, but they remain types, each with a single distinguishing trait. If that.
See “Grand Illusion” for a tough-minded but hopeful portrait of how different people on different sides of a war might be closer in spirit than they think. Or see the Bosnian “No Man’s Land” for an absurdist take on the idea.
“No Man’s Land” won an Oscar for best foreign language film; “Joyeux Noel” was nominated in this year’s contest, but lost to “Tsotsi.” It would have been embarrassing if “Joyeux Noel” had beaten out superior nominees. The Academy dodged a bullet, as it were.
Diane Kruger stars in “Joyeux Noel.”
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