User Reviews

This peculiar musical war movie about a woman disguised as a man in search of her soldier husband in World War I France has the courage of its oddball convictions--or does it? It was disconcerting, at least, to hear from director Bozon that his original intention was a film about Arabs in the French-Algerian war of the Sixties. For a French art film you need public money, he said, and to get that the dialogue has to be in French--so voila!--no Arabs, and the dial was turned back to WWI.

'La France' is the kind of thing that truly delights some of the most ardent festival attendees: a film that's genuinely weird and original, that comes from left field, is quite sure of itself, and is sustained by some of the best actors in its country of origin, good cinematography, and unusual music used in an unexpected way. To others, this is likely to seem merely remote and inexplicable; a long slog even at only 102 minutes. To me, it evoked memories of Robert Bresson, or the Eric Rohmer of 'Percival,' while still seeming a cluster of missed opportunities. Opening in France last November, it received a respectful critical reception and the occasional rave. It also ran in Lincoln Center's New Directors/New Films series early this year and was singled out for special praise by the Village Voice's Nathan Lee.

Bozon and his scenarist, Axelle Ropert, deserve credit for following their own path in constructing what French reviewer Christine Haas called "a melancholy ballad and a humanistic fable."

Here's the premise: a young woman gets a strange letter from her loving husband at the front: "Stop writing me, you will never see me again." She cuts her hair, binds her breasts and, posing as a seventeen-year-old boy, joins a unit whose members she finds sleeping in a field. Of course they try to get rid of him/her, but "Camille" (Sylvie Testud)--she can use her real name, because it's a boy's as easily as a girl's--each time does something so risky and dramatic (gets shot in the hand, jumps off a bridge) that they have to rescue her and keep her in tow a while longer. Eventually her initiative saves them, and she's accepted, even though the Lieutenant (Pascal Greggory) has declared on her first appearance that he/she has the face of somebody who's "seeking death." The surprise is that the essential unmasking will be not of Camille but of the unit she joins. Guillaume Depardieu comes in for an appropriate cameo at the end looking suitably hopeless, pretty, and shattered.

Good use is made here of Testud's androgyny and Greggory's habitual hangdog look. This scrawny, determined "Camille" really resembles a boy, while the Lieutenant's soft, sad visage hints at something very wrong.

Every so often--and this is what the film will be remembered for--the soldiers take out a bunch of handmade junkyard musical instruments and in unprofessional but harmonized falsettos sing a Sixties-style ballad, which is always from a woman's viewpoint--and has, by intention, absolutely nothing to do with the action. Bozon claims that it's a Hollywood tradition and not purely his avantgardism to make war movies with songs that are anachronistic and not plot-related.

The resulting effect, anyhow, lacks any sense of the actual, without slipping over into a purely conceptual or fantastic framework that might have given the themes of loss, loneliness, failure of nerve, and sexual identity (or whatever all this is about) really free rein. Camille is an interesting character with rich picaresque possibilities that are insufficiently explored. Testud seems to give so much, yet get back so little from the film. Greggory's sick-soul character never develops or changes. The other soldiers never take on real personalities. The essential mechanism of most war movies--the sounds and effects of battle--is absent. Instead, violence comes from an unexpected quarter. The resolution is bitter-sweet.

Seen at the San Francisco International Film Festival 2008. It won the Prix Jean Vigo in France for independent spirit and originality of style.

I recently saw this at the 2007 Palm Springs International Film Festival. It's one of those films where I have to ask three questions. Why was this film made? Who was it made for? And why would a popular film festival choose to select it? I guess they chose it because they learned it had won the prestigious Prix Jean Vigo award for 2007 in France for feature film by director Serge Bozon. This film will certainly dramatically diminish the clout that such an award can bring. This is one of the worst films I have ever seen. Set in 1917 France as World War I rages, Camille (Sylvie Testud) is a young woman who receives a letter from her husband who is stationed at the front telling her is ending their love affair and she will never see him again. She cuts off her long hair and dons mens clothing to give her an appearance of a young man of maybe 17 years of age who is heading off to join the army so she can confront her husband in person. She immediately meets up with a platoon of a dozen men led by Lieutenant (Pascol Greggory). Lieutenant is referred to by no name other than his rank. He has only the clothes he wears and carries no backpack. The 11 other soldiers carry meager backpacks but suddenly out of nowhere they produce an array of musical instruments, some hand made, and break into a song. It's not in the style of songs of the early 20th century like French music hall songs but rather is in the style of music of the mid 1960's with harmonies like the Beach Boys or the Beatles. The instruments disappear at the conclusion of the song and it seems like a fun little sight gag and music spoof and I had had hopes this film may turn into a comedy but it never does and they repeat this gag several more times in the film and the amusement of it all kinds of wears off after the third time. The lyrics are bizarre too since they are meant to be sung from a woman's viewpoint but 12 men are singing them. The platoon are actually deserters on their way to the Dutch border. Serge Bozon directs this low budget mess and co-wrote the screenplay with Axelle Ropert. At least the music gave this movie something a little worthwhile as to not be a complete disaster and I would give this a very generous 3.5 out of 10.

Don't see this if there are no subtitles and your French is sketchy at best to non-existent otherwise you'll drive yourself crazy trying to figure out if it's a fantasy or what. It's 1917 and the war is in full spate. In the North East of the country Sylvie Testud gets a Dear Jean letter and instead of murmuring philosophically, c'est la vie, c'est l'amour she chops off her hair, finds a pair of pants and lights out for the front to ask the guy who done her wrong just what he thinks he's doing. Before long she runs across a raggle-taggle unit led by Pascal Greggory, tags along and winds up with a uniform - they just happened to have a spare in her size as you do - but no gun and becomes part of the group. They march, and march and march some more but strangely enough in the middle of a major war they never run into any actual fighting though they do hear gunfire on one occasion. Even more bizarrely they keep breaking into song, complete with an quintet/sextet of soldier/musicians at a time when one would have thought discretion would dictate silence. Eventually Testud's errant mate shows up, they put in some sack time - in pajamas yet, presumably from the same quartermaster's stores that laid the uniform on Testud - and the group moves on leaving them to it. It's actually a beautifully shot and engrossing film a sort of hybrid of Yentl, Victor Victoria and A Very Long Engagement. Sylvie Testud is clearly brave enough to play a role in which she is seen as androgynous whereas she is actually a very lovely and very feminine actress and she works well with Greggory although virtually all the actors turn in fine performances. Not really multiplex fodder but no worse for that so if there's an Art House near you lobby them to book this.

La France. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Fighting the war after the war. Symbolism is there, and it all makes sense as the soldiers of the past disappear, and a veteran emerges from the past after the struggle Camille takes part in to help him become present.

The musical component of the movie seems to pop up from nowhere, but does it? The poetry enveloped within these quirky lyrics probably are apt to be brushed aside as artistic, but tied in with the movies symbolism become a great story of struggle against something other than the enemy soldiers of World War I. Pay close attention as the movie moves on toward the finishing scene, because it is that point that the movie begins again anew once you realize the parallels of what happened on the battlefield, and in Camille's life after war.