Movie Review
By David A. Thomas
Christmas Eve: Joyeux Noël (2005)
oyeux Noël is a foreign film made in France, UK, Germany, and Romania. It was nominated as Best Foreign Film for an Oscar and for a Golden Globe. It is unambiguously anti-war. More than that, it is a story of the transcendence of the spirit of Christ over war in a certain time and place in history. On Christmas Eve, 1914, at several points along the front, the field commanders on both sides declared a temporary cease-fire. They did so to celebrate Christmas together in the no-man’s land that lay between their trenches. A bloody, brutal, hand-to-hand battle previously raged between them for two months. (2) The movie fractures the standard war movie genre’s format of showing everything from one side’s perspective. Here, three armies are engaged in a barbaric trench war. (3) Thankfully, scenes of slaughter are shown only briefly. Joyeux Noël does not privilege one army over another, because the war per se is not the subject of the movie. The war is merely the setting for the personal story of the men caught in it. Each of the armies is represented in exactly identical ways. All of the characters are cast and depicted as being likeable, regardless of their national identity. There are no intrinsic cues for us to know who to root for. The movie does not explain or even mention the political issues.
When war breaks out in the beginning of the movie, we are introduced to a few representative characters from each of the three countries—Scotland, Germany, and France. We follow them through their enlistments into warfare in the trenches. Each nationality’s characters in the movie always speak their lines in their native tongues When they are not shooting at each other, they glare at each other—they are situated scant yards apart. They can hear their enemies shuffling their playing cards in the night.
On the German side, one of the soldiers is a famous operatic tenor. His singing co-star (and lover) before the war persuades the Kaiser to allow her to visit him during Christmas, so that they might provide a recital for the morale of the troops. Kaiser Wilhelm had already ordered 100,000 Christmas trees to be distributed to the troops along the front line. On Christmas Eve, with those candle-lit Christmas trees mounted atop their trenches, the Germans begin their musicale. As the beautiful music reverberates across the lines, first the Scots begin to accompany the tenor on their bagpipes. Then the French begin to sing along. The tenor emerges from his protected position and takes a stance in the midst of the killing zone. He holds aloft one of the trees as he sings. In a surreal way, one by one, troops from all sides come out from their trenches to surround him, listening reverently.
History declared that ninety percent of all of the known WWI “Christmas truces” occurred under the cover of music. (4)
The Scottish priest, Father Palmer, (serving with the troops from home in the capacity of a stretcher bearer) then steps forward to conduct a Christmas mass. He proceeds, using his poor Latin. (5) All the soldiers from either side, devout or not, stand shoulder to shoulder together in worship. The musical highlight of the film then transpires: his partner soprano is asked by the priest to sing Ave Maria. All listeners are transfixed by the moment, both in the scene, and in the theatre. The next day, the soldiers continue their truce. First they bury their dead who had been lying where they had fallen. Then a football is introduced and the games begin between the athletes from the opposing forces. The men share photos of their wives and families back home. Finally, headquarters begins artillery bombardments again. Only this time, each army’s commander informs their enemy counterparts when they are about to be shelled, and invites them to come over and wait together in safety until the salvos end.
Of course, this fraternization cannot be tolerated. Each army, in turn, has its top brass to come down and ship all their soldiers to other posts, replacing them with completely new units in their trenches. Even the Bishop comes to the front and orders Father Palmer back home to Scotland. Father Palmer protests that he conducted the Christmas service as he felt led by the Lord Christ to do. While the Bishop delivers a blistering sermon to the effect, “Jesus came to bring a sword, and he commands you to kill all of the enemy’s people, good or bad,” Father Palmer calmly removes the cross from his neck and hangs it on a bedpost. The soldiers on all sides were no more and no less than ordinary men. They were done with war, personally, after that unforgettable Christmas Eve together. Each nation’s war leaders cannot tolerate fraternization with the enemy, who must be demonized, dehumanized, and destroyed.
No man’s land was not that strip of frozen mud between the opposing trenches. It was the uncrossable gulf that yawned between the troops at the front and the old, fat general staffs at the rear who ordered them to mount the battlements and sacrifice themselves to enemy machine guns. It also separated the Church’s faithful servants from her leaders in the hierarchy, who were as jingoistic as the warmongers who started the war.
Footnotes
2 The events portrayed were real, though the characters in this story are fictionalized. The setting represents just one specific battlefield, but the “Christmas truce” of 1914 actually broke out spontaneously at several places along the front.
3 For dramatic effect, only three countries play a role in this story. However, it was World War I, and there might have been as many as six countries or more fighting at any given time and place in its history.
4 Production Notes.
5 It is unclear from his vestments and his incorrect Latin, whether he is Catholic or Anglican. Perhaps, like the sculpted servicemen of ambiguous military branch assignments gazing from afar at the Vietnam Memorial, this priest’s character is envisioned generically to represent a chaplain of any denomination
Note: Footnote one is part of Earthcare
