Rhapsodies

Tis the season so here I am again watching Christmas films for the rest of the month. Of course, the problem with having favorite genres is that you quickly go through all the films you want to see. After a while, you have to get creative.  So as the title, that is cynically designed to manipulate search engines ,may suggest, today’s movie selection is about Christmas stories that take place during wartime.

The first film on my list Christian Carion’s Joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas) is a multilingual dramatization of the Christmas truce of December 1914 from the point of view of French, German and Scottish troops. 

I’d been hearing people waxing poetically about the miracle of the Christmas truce for years. (Though I have to say, it becomes  slightly less impressive when I learned that it only happened once) 

When I first heard about this film, I honestly expected this to be another one of those very special stories created by Hallmark. I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was much more than that. We are introduced to multiple points of view, all of whom are horrified by the horrors of war and are desperately trying to stay alive. 

When the truce actually happens it’s a wonderful thing, including two opera singers accompanied by Scottish bagpipes. However, it still has a feeling of tragedy about it that it’s just a respite and even if you made friends in the past 24 hours you will be back to killing each other as soon as the sun rises. To make matters worse all of commanding officers are punished for their humanity in the end of the film. 

The next film on my list, Keith Gordon’s A Midnight Clear, moves us to World War II into the lives of a battered intelligence and reconnaissance troop led by Sgt. Will Knott (Ethan Hawke, and yes he’s heard all of the jokes) They’ve slowly been reduced to just six soldiers and if the PTSD doesn’t get them the Germans certainly will. 

They’re ordered by their self-important and incompetent commander, Maj. Griffin (John C. McGinley) to set up a monitoring station in an abandoned chateau. After a couple of days they become aware of a squad of Germans in their general vicinity. After a game of cat and mouse, it turns out that the Germans want to surrender under their very own Christmas truce! What could possibly go wrong?

While this film wasn’t bad, I’m afraid It didn’t really push my buttons. It’s almost a parody of all of the Christmas miracle films. Where instead of the happy ending you think is going to happen as soon as someone shows a Christmas tree and sings carols.  Instead, you have a bunch of kids way out of their depth trying to stay alive and sane and failing miserably.