562 - Wooden Crosses, France, 1932. Dir. Raymond Bernard.
A company of soldiers stands at attention in columns in the field.
Cross fade.
The soldiers transform into a cemetery of wooden crosses. Standing in columns in the field.
Twenty seconds in and the movie has been told.
Powerfully.
It is war time. (Ecclesiastes 3:8 says there is one.)
A General Conscription is on in the 8th Arrondissement.
The Recruiting Office is open at Bureau No. 6.
It is World War I and the French are fighting the Krauts, their name for the Germans, and they have a town to retake.
And people want to go.
Men are signing up. Flocking to the bureau. "We want to go! We want to go!"
Gilbert wants to go. Adjudent Gilbert Demachy, that is.
He enlists.
He goes.
He is introduced to the men in his company.
Bouffioux, our cook.
Fouillard, our very own dandy.
Hamel, the serious one, the grandfather.
Belin, crafty and sings like nightingale.
Cruchet IS meaner than he looks.
Vairon is from your hometown, a real gentleman.
Broucke does not know the meaning of the word fear.
Lagy is the Captain's liaison.
Sulphart is the company loudmouth.
Get to know them. Before this is all over, some of them will live. Some of them will die.
Director Raymond Bernard smartly spends the first half of the movie with the men in the barracks, in the trenches, on their day off, buying goods at the commissary, eating lunch together, watching their comrade Mourache get promoted to Lieutenant, drilling, washing clothes, cleaning them of lice, sending and receiving mail, receiving knives as they are handed out.
So that you get to know them. As individual men with hearts and minds and histories and personalities.
And not just numbers.
Not miscellaneous soldiers.
But real human beings.
Vairon dies early. Not in battle but on active duty in the trenches. On night patrol. By friendly fire. An artillery shell hits him. Lands on him. Explodes in his chest.
The off-screen-left light moves further left and down, making Vairon's shadow creep slowly long across the earth.
Two men on patrol hear a man singing at night. A German soldier. Across the way. Warm and tender. He is human too.
The cook brings soup to the men in the trenches.
The men stand in the trenches and hear someone digging still more deeply beneath them. It is the Germans. Laying mines. They are ordered to stay in their position. The mine goes off after they are sent on leave.
Mail call.
The postal clerk hands the mail to the commanding officer, and he distributes it. Each of the men has a letter from home.
Including Vairon. When the C.O. reads Vairon's name, there is a moment of silence.
He keeps the letter. He leaves the men and gets some fresh flowers. Goes to Vairon's grave. Marked by a wooden cross.
He puts the flowers on the grave. Tears up the letter and sprinkles it over the flowers. He removes his hat and stands at attention. Silently paying respect to his lost man.
The men attend the funeral in the cathedral.
Ave Maria.
Bernard lets us sit and watch the procession in the large sanctuary, and listen to the beautiful song.
Along with the cries of pain of the wounded. As the military has set up a hospital inside the cathedral. And the wounded are lying there. Moaning. With groanings that cannot be uttered.
We end the first half of the film with the sacred, the holy, touching upon the wounded and hurting.
And then--
The war.
A war that feels as real as any fictional war you have seen on film.
Raymond Bernard has done something indeed.
He filmed the film on the actual battlegrounds. With actual artillery. And he required that no man act in the film who had not already seen actual combat.
Our man Gilbert, for example, is played by the French movie star Pierre Blanchar. Who really fought in World War I. In Verdun. In 1916. And was personally exposed to chemical weapons. Poison gas. Mustard gas. Chlorine. Phosogene.
And then this happened:
As they were exploding real ordnance on the real battlefield, and the earth was ripped open again, they uncovered the corpses of men who had died and gone missing, now discovered for the first time since the war.
And then this happened:
As they were exploding real ordnance on the real battlefield, and the earth was ripped open again, they uncovered the corpses of men who had died and gone missing, now discovered for the first time since the war.
The sound is something to behold. Talkies are still in their infancy, yet Bernard utilizes sound design as well as anyone might hope to do today. He records real artillery, real Howitzers, real rifles, real pistols, real grenades. Up close. At a distance. Far away. When the men talk in the trenches, one still hears explosions in other places. The constant din of war.
This war feels real.
The camera work is complex and sophisticated. Sharp focus. Crisp lighting. Artistic compositions. Low angles. High angles. Dutch angles. Tracking shots. Sometimes long tracking shots. And handheld work, in 1932, in battle.
The men lie in the trenches, ducking behind the sand bags. Watching the artillery rain down upon them. Waiting their command to run out into the rain.
They are surrounded by explosions, fire, smoke, dust flying, netting, barbed wire.
The Captain watches his watch.
They are surrounded by explosions, fire, smoke, dust flying, netting, barbed wire.
The Captain watches his watch.
Ready?
They run forward, into the fire. Their bayonets tilted forward, their bodies leaning forward, clouds of smoke billowing overhead. New smoke, new fire. Men run. Bodies fall.
Somehow in all of this they make headway.
They approach the town. Take a position. Prepare to charge. The Captain leads the charge. Immediately he is hit. The Lieutenant takes over for him. Without hesitating. The men must move on.
Inside the town the men are walking and throwing grenades from their knapsacks.
They reach the cemetery.
And prepare for battle. Across the graves.
The irony is not lost on them.
The Germans take cover on one side of the cemetery. The French take cover on the other. They squat behind tombstones. Behind sepulchers. A few use a freshly dug grave as a trench.
They wait. Hours pass. They grow thirsty. Thirsty unto death. A French soldier runs to get water. The Germans see him and shoot. Another French soldier runs to get water. He lifts his wounded comrade and returns to the French side, in the midst of gunfire, a hero.
The wounded soldier is dying.
And we stop to take a moment to watch the spiritual life of a man about to enter eternity.
He tells his brothers in arms to tell his wife that he will not forgive her. For what she did with another man. Living it up back home while he was dying in battle. He hardens his heart. Chooses bitterness. Points a finger. Plays the accuser.
Satan is the accuser.
What occurs when a man takes up that mantle?
Imagine what might happen to him forever if he does not forgive.
Death is nothing compared to eternity.
A moment passes. The tension increases.
He changes his mind. He changes heart. He changes his confession.
He forgives.
For those who are spiritually attuned it is a powerful moment.
The man dies and passes into eternity. One can only imagine the consequences of his decision.
For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses. - Matthew 6:14-15.
The battle rages for
10 Days.
10 Days.
10 Days.
We get at least three titles telling us this fact. Interspersed with fighting. Driving home the point.
If you are a child of the 80s, you may remember Ni-ni-ni-ni-nineteen. Ni-ni-ni-ni-nineteen. That was Paul Hardcastle.
If you are a child of the 60s, you might remember Number 9, Number 9, Number 9, Number 9. That was, well, you know.
Now we have 10 Days. 10 Days. 10 Days.
After they capture the town, they hold a victory parade. Civilians line the streets, either residents who had been under occupation or citizens who have come home. A woman wipes her tears, denoting the feeling of freedom.
Bernard could end there, on a note of victory, and send the viewer out feeling great. After all, it would be historically accurate. The Allies defeated the Central Powers and won the war. Hooray.
But that is not Bernard's mission. He has other things to say.
Such as when a group of men in the trenches use the body of a fallen comrade as a parapet, to protect them from getting hit.
The fighting continues.
Gilbert is on patrol. Guard duty. And hears the cries of a soldier stuck in No Man's Land. Crying out for water. For a drop to drink.
Gilbert is hit.
And we watch
As he slowly
Painfully
Expires.
* * * *
Always the same necks on the line.
The complaint window's closed.
You're nuts to take your shoes off. We're on alert.
I'll go in my socks.
She hasn't written in two weeks. It's never been this long. It's driving me crazy.
They treat you well when you're on leave?
They don't poke us with pitchforks.
Smells like a barbershop. Our buddy here smells like a dame.
Not even half full for boys facing death.
How about some target practice.
How many of them were there?
Eleven. And four gunners.
If you want to make me a happy man
Marguerite! Marguerite!
If you want to make me a happy man
Marguerite, give me your heart.
It burns me up that they made Mourache a lieutenant.
You know, lice aren't all that bad. They suck out what ails you. Take my little brother. Lice cured his meningitis.
Monsieur Vairon
39 Regiment d'infanterie
5 Compagnie
2 Bataillon
Secteur Postal 34
Protect us, O Lady of the Dogfaces. We accept it all: guard duty in the rain, sleepless nights, days with no bread. At least let us live. That's all we ask: to go on living, or at least to never lose faith, to continue to hope despite everything, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Look at those curves.
Golden and sweet and good enough to eat.
Where are you going, little lambs?
To the slaughterhouse.
They say this is the last big push. Have you heard that?
That's only Artillery mouthing off.
This is for France, my friends. Make it good.
The village will be tough to capture. It's swarming with machine guns.
They're tough. They'll get through.
They've broken through the first line. They're continuing to advance.
Good work! You're brave men! My thanks, boys.
Let's break through their third line!
Third Squadron. On my command!
The Captain's dead.
That wasn't a battle; it was a massacre.
I'd call it a victory. Because I made it out alive.
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