La France is a French war film first released in 2007, directed by Serge Bozon.  The film stars Sylvie Testud, Guillaume Depardieu, Pascal Greggory, Guillaume Verdier and Jean-Christophe Bouvet.  Our overall rating for this film is: very poor.


In the autumn of 1917, Camille is anxious for news of her husband, who is away fighting in a seemingly interminable war.  Then, one day, she receives a short letter from her husband in which he calls an abrupt end to their marriage, without any explanation.  Bewildered, Camille sets off in search of her husband.  Disguised as a boy, she joins a battalion of French soldiers who are heading for the front...

One of the most depressing trends in French cinema recently is the one where relatively inexperienced film directors attempt to combine genres which are manifestly incompatible, thereby arousing a level of interest which is seldom merited.  La France is a sublime example of this – an eccentric synthesis of traditional wartime drama with musical comedy which is, depending on your tastes, either totally inspired or totally insane.  

Not surprisingly, the film has divided critics into two opposing camps - those who love it and those who hate it.  It is most definitely not a film that will appeal to everyone, and it is certainly a film that many down-to-earth cinemagoers will find hard to take seriously.  The problem with La France is not that it combines two very different genres.  The problem is the jarring mismatch between the film’s WWI setting and the choice of songs, which have absolutely nothing to do with the period in which the story takes place and totally undermine the drama.

Between the increasingly irksome bursts of song all the film has to offer are long, plodding intervals of uninspired narrative in which no cliché is overlooked and no real attempt is made, by either the script writers or actors, to give us characters that are in any way convincing or interesting.  The only element of the film that is beyond criticism is its stunning cinematography, which successfully evokes the era and experiences of ordinary WWI soldiers, bringing a moody, poetic sense which the rest of the film sorely lacks.   

Imagine a version of Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front in which the ill-fated soldiers in the trenches periodically break into renditions of Abba’s greatest hits and you will have some idea how mad and ill-conceived this film is.   Some critics may praise director Serge Bozon’s daring and make this out to be the most exciting development in French cinema since the New Wave, but most viewers will recognise the film for what it is: a rather silly stunt.

© filmsdefrance.com 2008

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