Week-end à Zuydcoote (1964) - film review

June 1940.  English and French troops fighting against the Germans in Northern France are forced to retreat to the coastal town of Dunkirk.  Their only hope of escape is to cross the channel to England – but there are few boats and all the time they are attacked from the air by German fighter planes.  Whilst waiting for his chance to escape, one French sergeant, Julien Maillat, befriends a young woman, Jeanne, who resolutely refuses to leave her home in Dunkirk.

Based on the award winning novel by Robert Merle, Week-end à Zuydcoote provides a harrowingly realistic account of one of the darker episodes in World War II – the retreat and decimation of the English and French troops at Dunkirk in 1940.  Whereas most war films ultimately conclude in glory and victory, this one is resolutely about defeat and loss, offering a sober reminder of the grim reality of war.

Week-end à Zuydcoote is director Henri Verneuil’s most ambitious and daring film, and should be considered one of his best works.  What makes this film so memorable is that it combines the epic scale of the traditional blockbuster war film with the intimacy of its protagonists’ day-to-day experiences.  The film is not concerned with battles between armies of nameless soldiers; instead, it shows how ordinary human beings feel about their predicament – depicting their boredom, frustration, fear and anger -  all compressed into a turbulent two day period.

Although he had only a fraction of the resources that would be available to a Hollywood director on a comparable film, Verneuil manages to concoct an astonishingly believable reconstruction of the period.  It is reported that he scoured most of France to find authentic-looking equipment for his film and recruited two thousand extras (mainly dockers and workers at a nearby factory) for the armies of British and French soldiers stranded on the Normandy beaches.

Henri Decaë’s sumptuous colour cinematography gives the film a lyrical quality which is superbly complemented by Maurice Jarre’s dramatic score - both heighten the audience’s involvement in the film and the intensity of the emotional experience.  With its stunning production values and sterling performances from Jean-Paul Belmondo, Catherine Spaak, Jean-Pierre Marielle and Pierre Mondy, Week-end à Zuydcoote is unequivocally one of French cinema’s greatest war films, and one of the few that bears comparison with comparable offerings from Hollywood.

© James Travers 2002-2010

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In 1940, a group of French soldiers are cut off from their unit and head for the coastal town of Dunkirk. Once there, they wait, and wait for evacuation. Their leader, (Belmondo) manages to spend the weekend romancing the only women left in town. He also fights deserters and a few Nazi paratroops, all within 48 hrs. That’s about it. Good photography and a fine musical score by the late Maurice Jarre help. An unofficial sequel to this film might be, Jean Renoir’s "Elusive Corporal".
J.Vernen (USA) 

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