About three years ago, I read about this story in a magazine. I instantly contacted a friend who is a film producer and told him about what I thought would have to be a wonderful movie. Although he told me that some others were already planning to do this, my hunch was right. Great story, great film, although I agree that both Führmann and Krüger aren't exactly doing a good job when they are dubbing the touching soprano's and tenor's voices. I wouldn't actually say that she's bad, but for a woman confronted at the same time with the horrors of the trenches and the human spirit's ability to overcome them, while trying to save her lover from this place, her performance is not, well, particularly emotional.
Bizarrely, even for Germany, the version released to cinemas across the country this week is almost entirely dubbed in German. This, I might say, adds some strange kind of comedy when ordinary soldiers from the trenches act like they don't understand the other while both speaking perfect German. On the other hand, it makes the German lieutenant, who actually speaks both English and French look overly ridiculous when he tries to utter "chouette".
There are so many memorable moments in this film it is hard to come up with them all, even immediately after leaving the theatre. But I particularly loved the opening scene in which three little boys, in Germany, France, and Britain respectively, are standing in front of a blackboard and are repeating the jingoist everyday rhetoric of the day, and the scene in which the church leader is preaching to new Scottish troops that they are on a crusade against evil, right after he "fired" the field priest for performing the Christmas mass with the soldiers who fraternised with each other.
In any other context, I would have said this is over the top, too open a reference to the religiously influenced jingoist rhetoric of certain world leaders of this day - but I'm pretty sure it's an accurate reflection of the indoctrination of 1914-1945. And that's even more scary.
Bizarrely, even for Germany, the version released to cinemas across the country this week is almost entirely dubbed in German. This, I might say, adds some strange kind of comedy when ordinary soldiers from the trenches act like they don't understand the other while both speaking perfect German. On the other hand, it makes the German lieutenant, who actually speaks both English and French look overly ridiculous when he tries to utter "chouette".
There are so many memorable moments in this film it is hard to come up with them all, even immediately after leaving the theatre. But I particularly loved the opening scene in which three little boys, in Germany, France, and Britain respectively, are standing in front of a blackboard and are repeating the jingoist everyday rhetoric of the day, and the scene in which the church leader is preaching to new Scottish troops that they are on a crusade against evil, right after he "fired" the field priest for performing the Christmas mass with the soldiers who fraternised with each other.
In any other context, I would have said this is over the top, too open a reference to the religiously influenced jingoist rhetoric of certain world leaders of this day - but I'm pretty sure it's an accurate reflection of the indoctrination of 1914-1945. And that's even more scary.