Merry Christmas (Joyeux Noel)

“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility”.

Joyeux Noel (aka Merry Christmas), a heartwarming film set in the World War 1 trenches is a €19M joint production of France, Germany and the UK with star studded talented cast of Diane Krüger, Daniel Brühl, Brenno Fürmann, Guillame Canet, Garry Lewis and Danny Boon.

Merry Christmas is a very poignant film surrounded by beautiful Christmas carols and well written storyline. It is like the heartbreaking moments of Saving Private Ryan plus the uplifting energy of Love Actually combined together in a single package.

Christmas Eve of 1914, the English, French and Germans celebrated the Christmas Eve together in the war trenches singing, drinking and sharing their pictures from home. The film’s opening credit is pretty impressive; it begins with children of different nationalities talking about their understanding of war. Things like why they should get rid of one another to ease the danger and make this world a better place to live in, but the question is, do we really have defined or particular enemies?

In Merry Christmas, unbelievable but true, they have extended the fraternization for three more days to bury the victims of war in both sides. I found a very moving scene in the film where the officials are talking about Christmas, the day when Christ was born is the very same day when they are burying their comrades. In the end of the film, I have my teary eyes when they are all going back to war and forget about their so called “crime of fraternization” and then they sang the song “I’m Dreaming of Home”. History has kept this truth for years because on that time, they believed that it is a crime of disobedience and disloyalty for their countries. But I guess it is damn better to be loyal to the human race in general right? In one of the last scenes, an English bishop is telling the soldiers that the World War I is a crusade, a battle between good and evil, the English and French being the savior and the Germans are the evil ones. Well, I know it is pretty controversial but I never believe in the literal meaning of the word ‘Crusade’, the crusade that they are talking about that there are certain definite groups of people that would assume the word good and bad is just absurd.

Looking at Joyeux Noel, the most outstanding aspect of the film is probably the strong direction from Christian Carion, he is a very emotional director who can effectively show human reaction to the absurdity and hostility of war. The cast is also very powerful not only because of their acting skills (we know that already) but it features box office hit makers such as Diane Kruger. But the best performances from the movie came from Daniel Bruhl (not because I’m a fan), Guillame Canet (France’ answer to Tom Cruise) and Danny Boon, the one who played the role of the priest. The film score is fantastic, it features old recognizable Christmas carols and I just love the song I’m Dreaming of Home, it is so touching and nostalgic. This movie is definitely one of the best five movies of 2005.

Last night, there are just three people watching the last full show. But despite of this, I realized one thing, if it’s always Christmas everyday, may be those millions of people did not loose their lives in the series of senseless wars…

posted by basmayor @ 8:56 PM