Merry Christmas (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Merry Christmas |
| Original title | Merry Christmas (GBR) Joyeux Noël (FRA) |
| Country of production | France , Germany , United Kingdom , Belgium , Romania , Norway |
| original language | French , English , German |
| Publishing year | 2005 |
| length | 115 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 12 JMK 10 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Christian Carion |
| script | Christian Carion |
| production | Christophe Rossignon |
| music | Philippe Rombi |
| camera | Walther van den Ende |
| cut |
Judith Rivière Kawa , Andrea Sedláčková |
| occupation | |
| |
Merry Christmas (French title Joyeux Noël , in German : Merry Christmas) is an anti-war film about fraternization in World War I at Christmas 1914.
action
December 1914 in France . In the icy cold, French, Scottish and German combat units face one another in a confined space. On Christmas Eve , Christmas music is played in both camps ( Silent Night, Holy Night ). A Berlin opera tenor who is serving in the army of the German Crown Prince ( 5th Army ) decides to sing for his comrades. To the amazement of the opposing units, he climbs the edge of the trenches and strides singing into no man's land . Then there is applause from all parties and fraternization scenes. The three commanders from both sides decide to cease fighting for a short time in order to celebrate Christmas. Subsequently, all three battalions involved are punished by their superiors for their unauthorized actions.
background
The film is based on actual incidents in World War I, which became known as the Christmas Peace or Christmas Brotherhood. The chamber singer Walter Kirchhoff , who was assigned to the staff of the High Command of the Fifth Army as an orderly officer, had sung his Christmas carols in the foremost trench of Regiment 130 :
“[…] He reported to me the next day that some French people had climbed on their parapets and applauded until he added an encore. Here, in the midst of the bitter seriousness of the insidious trench war, the Christmas carol had worked a miracle and built a bridge from person to person. "
When the army command heard of the "fraternization with the enemy" from intercepted letters, the soldiers were transferred to other fronts and measures were taken to prevent further friendly rapprochements. In contrast to what is shown in the film, however, Crown Prince Wilhelm was approving of the incidents.
The director Christian Carion was so fascinated by reading the book Batailles de Flandres et d'Artois 1914–1918 by Yves Buffetaut that he made this film following the book.
Even the little peace in the Great War , a book by Michael Jürgs treated these incidents, however, partly historically inaccurate (see Bunnenberg, 2006).
Reviews
"[...] sometimes the dialogues are a bit wooden because the usual anti-war theses are dealt with here. Then the conversations stay on the surface. "
"Director Christian Carion [...] stages this fraternization with understatement and subterranean humor as the only possible human reaction and thereby reduces all bellicose rhetoric to absurdity."
"Magnificent, touching and inhumanly human"
"Merry Christmas is certainly a special kind of Christmas film, which, far from the usual candy floss kitsch, tells an authentic, sensitive story about a little peace in the great war."
Awards
The film was nominated for "Best Foreign Language Film" for both the Oscar and the Golden Globe Award in 2006, but received neither award. In addition to other nominations, the film was honored with the Audience Award of the Leeds International Film Festival (2005).
literature
- Yves Buffetaut: Batailles de Flandres et d'Artois 1914–1918. Tallandier, Paris 1992, ISBN 2-235-02090-9
- Christian Bunnenberg: December 1914: Silent night in the trenches - The memory of the Christmas peace in Flanders. In: Tobias Arand (Hrsg.): The “Urkatastrophe” as a memory - historical culture of the First World War. ZFL, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-934064-67-1 , (= history culture and war I) pp. 15–60
- Christian Carion: Joyeux noël. Perrin, Paris 2005 ISBN 2-262-02400-6 (French edition)
- Michael Jürgs: The little peace in the great war. Goldmann, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-442-15303-4
- Michael Jürgs: Merry Christmas. Goldmann, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-442-46226-6 (film tie-in )
Web links
- Merry Christmas in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Merry Christmas in the online movie database
- Merry Christmas at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Reference to the book the director was guided by
- Essay on the film: Great War and Small Peace. Thoughts on Merry Christmas (2005) by Josef Bordat
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for Merry Christmas . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , October 2005 (PDF; test number: 103 957 K).
- ↑ Age rating for Merry Christmas . Youth Media Commission .
- ^ Crown Prince Wilhelm: "My memories from Germany's heroic struggle" Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1923, page 115.
- ↑ Martin Zopick: Merry Christmas. In: Zelluloid.de. Archived from the original on December 29, 2016 ; accessed on August 22, 2018 .
- ↑ http://www.rp-online.de/kultur/film/kinokritiken/Merry-Christmas-Pause-vom-Krieg_aid_116496.html ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from August 25, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ http://www.filmstarts.de/kritiken/38042-Merry-Christmas.html
