War and order
ONE WOULD HAVE to have a heart of steel not to be deeply touched by the rousing singing, the heartfelt portrayals and - most importantly - the true story presented in Joyeux Noel, the French entry for best foreign film in next year's Oscars and a finalist in the race for the same gong at the Golden Globes.
Recalling the events that took place on Christmas Eve in 1914, when the German, French and Scottish lieutenants spontaneously declared an armistice to celebrate Christmas, the film, which set box office records in France last month and is released in Hong Kong on Thursday, sends out a humanitarian message that could not be more pertinent today. That the story was long suppressed by the French and German governments makes it all the more poignant.
'I was very moved when I heard that this fraternisation took place,' director Christian Carion says, 'and I wanted to find a way to recreate this emotion when I came to make the movie. I wanted to have German, French and British actors; I didn't want to just make a French film. I wanted to respect everyone and their language and really follow through with the idea of their coming together.'
The legendary ceasefire Joyeux Noel recounts is brought to the fore through a famous Danish soprano (Diane Kruger) who in an effort to be with her German tenor boyfriend (Benno Furmann) at Christmas, accompanies him to the frontline, where he is fighting as a soldier in the German army. The truce is precipitated as they sing for the troops, and the soldiers go on to celebrate mass, to drink champagne and coffee, to exchange gifts, play football and to bury their dead.
A rare European co-production that truly works, Joyeux Noel, made for Euro18 million ($163 million), represents a mammoth achievement, and it was significant that 25 European cultural ministers attended the film's premiere at Cannes in May. Carion says the truce was only briefly mentioned in movies before, in the form of a football match in Richard Attenborough's Oh! What a Lovely War. The basic events, which included sharing champagne and exchanging gifts are true, he says, even if they happened at different locations - and they all involved music. It was a matter of stitching them together to create a cohesive narrative and taking a little creative licence. Kruger's soprano is the only invented principal character, and even the cat that lives in the trenches (and was executed for spying by the French) is real.
Scotsman Gary Lewis is the elder statesman of the cast and brings considerable gravitas to his role of an Anglican minister and bagpipe player who leads a mass binding the multinational troops.
'When I arrived on the set and saw the trenches and the men in uniform, it was very personal for me because that was the uniform worn by my grandfather, who was in this actual regiment,' says Lewis. 'My grandfather was one of the lucky ones who lived long enough to conceive my father, who allowed me to be here.'