Joeux Noel is a war drama shot in 2005 by Christian Carion. Being based on the real events during the World War I in 1914, the film reflects on how each side of the war participants has its own motives and vision of truth. The film got a critical acclaim and numerous nominations and awards in the cinematographic world.
The opening series of scenes lets the audience get the idea of what is going on to happen on the screen throughout the film. The three schoolboys reciting patriotic verses demonstrate the audience that they are from different countries and the text differs depending on the boy’s origin – the Scottish and French mention Germany as an enemy while the German boy states that the whole world is the enemy that his motherland is going to win over. Condemning the enemies in the verses, the boys have no idea that the other boys are considering them as their enemies as well while they all look the same – they are all young boys who did nothing wrong to each other and therefore, do not deserve such hatred.
The director demonstrates the difference in the religious expressions accordingly. Though the religions and their traditions differ it is still obvious that the main point is the same. The true faith stays the same together with the corruption and dishonesty of the majority of the clergy. One of the main characters, the Scottish priest, is the representative of the Catholic Church – he confesses Catholicism as well as the rest of the Scottish army. Audebert, the French Lieutenant, seems more of an agnostic or atheist. Horstmayer, the German Lieutenant, turns out to be Jewish whose faith makes him indifferent to the celebration of Christmas. Each representative of its nation is so different from another but still, there are moments which are able to unite people of all confessions. The director seems to particularly highlight the importance of such events or holidays as Christmas to show their phenomenal power to erase the conventionalities between people.
After the truce is over, the three Lieutenants gather to discuss the exchange of the dead bodies and all agree to pass them to each other. The Scottish Lieutenant states that burying the dead on Jesus’ birthday made sense. This expression was followed by the meaningful pause of all of them, and the audience must have felt the sacredness of this moment for the three armies. The dead soldiers were praised as martyrs just like Jesus, and the day randomly chosen for the burying got its symbolic meaning. The dialogue between the three is then followed by the joint religious service scene – each nation buries the soldiers in terms of its own traditions but the holiness of the moment is the same for every newly made tomb. The curious moment is when the German soldier call for the Scottish priest asking him to read a prayer for his dead comrade. This scene is another proof for the absence of borders between people of all nations in times of the mutual mourns.
At one point, German Lieutenant Horstmayer dismisses Private Sprink with the remark, “Artists like you are a dead loss”. By that, he means that he does not consider some singer a true soldier and does not believe he is able to do any good at war. Such attitude can be well understood due to the fact that the period implied the participation of all the men that were able to function in spite of their occupations in the civilian times. In fact, his contribution to the course of events of every soldier’s life in that time and that location carried weight. His singing anticipated the truce thus giving the soldiers a possibility to relax and share the mutual sacred moment. Even Horstmayer who stayed either stern or indifferent towards Sprink appraised this action – his “’toughness’ had melted like butter in the sun ()” (Arendt, 1963). He joined the rest spending the time as he would if he were with his family on Christmas. The warriors could also reminisce on their former lives and the beloved people who kept on waiting for them. The scene of Sprink singing for the soldiers on all sides is the most touching one in the film and it testifies of the art’s magic abilities to unite people of all nationalities and confessions. The Lieutenants drink champagne while the soldiers are singing, and it seems that there is no reason for the war.
Every war is based on the idea that a single person overrides diverse ethical viewpoints in order to do what he or she is convinced is “the right thing”. Whether it is really a single person or the political group or the whole nation, the scheme stays the same – war knows no compromises and each side is convinced that its truth is absolute and universal. The film successfully demonstrates this idea on the example of the lieutenants but then contradicts it by uniting them on Christmas. The film seems to want to convey the message that there exists no objective absolute truth and each side of the game will always believe in its righteousness. Still, there are occasions when people feel equal and do not want to fight and prove anything to another side because they understand how much they have in common and tend to share this commonness with each other.
The overall message of this film is the senselessness of the war as a phenomenon and the value of every person’s life. The director connects the life of one human being to the chain of others and demonstrates how important it may be in terms of the individual’s close people and how insignificant it looks in terms of the war that lasts for several years and involves several countries-participants. The film seems to doubt the grandeur of the war by inserting Christmas to show that people do not want to fight and the hatred between the nations is artificially created by the governments. Learning history and getting to know about such facts helps analyze the contemporary events and make the right conclusions and decisions.
References
Arendt, Hannah (1963). Deportations from Western Europe. Reporter at Large. The New Yorker.
