L’Honneur d’un capitaine (1982) - film review

In the course of a television debate on the Algerian War in the early 1980s, Professor Paulet denounces the use of torture by French troops during the conflict.  To support his thesis, he cites the case of Captain Caron, an officer who died in combat in 1957.  The captain’s widow, Patricia, is outraged and decides to sue Paulet for defamation, with her uncle, a distinguished lawyer, leading the prosecution.  As Paulet’s former comrades in arms are summoned to the witness stand it becomes apparent that the circumstances of Paulet’s last tour of duty in Algeria are complex and open to interpretation.  Whilst it is true that Algerian rebels were tortured and killed by the unit that was under Paulet’s command, it is unclear that the captain was directly responsible for the atrocities he is accused of...

The uglier aspects of France’s involvement in the Algerian War come under the spotlight in this compelling courtroom drama, masterfully directed by Pierre Schoendoerffer.  Prior to this, Schoendoerffer had won acclaim for two other notable films about similarly doomed colonial conflicts - La 317e Section (1965) and La Section Anderson (1967) - which powerfully evoked the trauma and sacrifices of the Indochina and Vietnam wars.  Even as late as the 1980s, the Algerian War was still pretty much a taboo subject in France.  In the previous decade, a number of film directors had attempted to broach the subject, but their efforts were frustrated by the government and the military and a barrage of silence prevailed.  It was not until 1999 that the French state finally recognised that its conflict with Algeria had actually been a war, and rightly so, as it claimed the lives of 30,000 French soldiers.
 
Schoendoerffer’s film was not the first to allude to torture being used by the French military in achieving its objectives in Algeria.  Five years previously, Laurent Heynemann’s La Question (1977) presented a firsthand account of torture and left not the slightest margin of doubt that electrocution and water torture had been routinely practiced by French paratroopers as a means of extracting information from FLN members and sympathisers.   Schoendoerffer’s film is somewhat less Manichean in its approach and, far from seeking to apportion blame or justify the use of torture, it shows how complex and muddled the Algerian situation was, with trivial errors leading to the most appalling of consequences (illustrated in the film by the misunderstanding of the term descendez-le!).  

In the film, what begins as a trial to restore the honour of one French officer soon turns into a trial of France’s handling of its painful process of decolonisation.  Unlike many of his contemporaries who have tackled the same subject, Schoendoerffer adopts an even-handed approach and has no political axe to grind.  L’Honneur d’un capitaine recognises simply that the Algerian War was a tragedy for both France and Algeria and that there is nothing to be gained by scapegoating soldiers who fought and died in the conflict.  War is an ugly business and, in the heat of battle and the struggle to survive, mistakes are bound to be made.  Whilst Schoendoerffer does not shirk from showing us the atrocities committed on both sides, he urges us not to rush to judgement.  The fault lies not with the soldiers (mostly boys) enduring the Hell of the combat zone, but with naive political leaders who, time and again, allow themselves to be duped into believing that war is a means to an end.  War is never an easy solution.

© James Travers 2012

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