Allons z’enfants (1981) - film review

In 1935, at the age of 13, Simon Chalumot is enrolled in a military school by his father.  His reluctance to become a soldier is apparent to all and he is bullied and abused by the military staff and his fellow pupils.  At 15, he runs away, but is captured and returned to the school by his father, a patriotic veteran of the last war.  Soon after, Chalumot graduates to a higher military school, but now the bullying is so brutal that he can take no more...

This is a painfully poignant film adaptation of Yves Gibeau’s controversial 1952 novel.  It explores with uncompromising frankness and lucidity one of the most troubling aspects of the French education system of the 1930s – the military school system into which survivors of the First World War were eager to fling their offspring, in so doing simply creating cannon fodder for the next war.   For many adolescent young men this must have been a harrowing ordeal, and this film manages to reflect this by depicting the struggle of teenager Simon Chalumot to survive this experience.

Despite the icily alluring photography, this is not an easy film to watch.  What is particularly upsetting is that whenever Chalumot appears to find tenderness or hope, that lifeline is soon wrenched out of his grasp.   Yet the character Chalumot is no cringing coward and he displays bravery which puts his military overlords to shame.

The slow destruction of a persecuted moral hero is a recurring theme in Boisset’s cinema and he is arguably the most competent French film director to bring this story to the big screen.  He shows an intense sensitivity for the subject and it is apparent in virtually every shot that he feels passionate about it.

The ending is perhaps the film’s weakest point – possibly a little too contrived, a little too hastily executed.  Yet, for that, it still has the power to shock.  These final images reinforce the film’s message and provides a sad and bitter indictment of a society that treated its children in such a cynical and misguided way.

© James Travers 2000

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