Les Carabiniers (1963) - film review

Two country peasants are recruited to join the army and serve in the war.  They are promised wealth, fulfilment and freedom to do whatever they wish whilst in active service.   In a crusade that takes in most of the world, the two new recruits indulge their passion for rape, killing and acquiring luxury cars.  Yet the victory they have been promised fails to arrive...

Jean-Luc Godard’s fifth film sees a radical departure from his earlier films and the emergence of a more politically antagonistic form of cinema.  At the same time, Les Carabiniers makes a strong anti-war statement and attacks the capitalist system in all its forms.  The film is less clearly targeted than Godard’s subsequent political films but its tone is nonetheless vociferous and angry, although the anger is tempered by Godard’s characteristic warped humour.

Through a combination of shocking and outrageously comical scenes, involving attempted rape, firing squads and pictures of rotting corpses, Godard evokes the grotesqueness and sheer mindless stupidity of war.  However, this is much more than an anti-war film.  Godard goes way beyond that and makes a virulent attack on the capitalist system, no doubt a response to the American war with Viet-Nam (a subject Godard returns to with greater passion in La Chinoise).  When the two war heroes return to their shack, they present their women with a suitcase full of postcards of objects they can never possess – a reminder that the capitalist system promises much yet ultimately delivers nothing of consequence.

As with most of Godard’s more experimental films, Les Carabiniers aroused more than its fair share of negative criticism.  On its first release, it was hastily withdrawn from cinemas when it failed to attract audiences, and the critics wrote the film of as a boring, incoherent mass of muddled concepts.

Although less well structured and focused than some of Godard’s subsequent films, Les Carabiniers is an intelligent film with a unique visual style.  To create the illusion of an old war film, it is shot in black and white on grainy film, with numerous inserts of stock footage of real wars.  It is probably this unusual cinematography and the director’s quirky black humour which gives the film its charm.  As ever, Godard is profound and witty at the same time, managing to deliver a topical statement with breathtaking originality.

© James Travers 2001

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