Days of Glory/After the Wedding
After having already seen Pan's Labyrinth, The Lives of Others, and Water (all of which are reviewed on this site somewhere, if you're interested) I caught up with the last two nominees for Best Foreign Film for last year's Academy Awards. First up was an Algerian film, Days of Glory, which is the English-language title (the original title is Indigenes, which roughly translates from French as "Natives"). Directed by Rachid Bouchareb, the film details the action of a platoon of North African soldiers fighting for France in World War II.Days of Glory (which is a meaningless title) is as old-fashioned as a Victrola. It uses almost every cliche from the war film catalogue, with the modern spin being that we are supposed to see things from a different point of view; the man fighting for a country that has colonized his own country. The Arab troops, of course, are treated with a lot of disrespect (they are reluctantly promoted, they don't get as much leave time, etc.) They earn the grudging respect of their sergeant, and I don't think it's a big shock when we learn a secret about his past. We even get an epilogue straight out of Saving Private Ryan.
That being said, these templates are re-used because they work. There's a certain satisfaction in slowly getting to know the different members of the outfit, with the story leading to a final stand against the Germans when the Arab troops are all that are left to defend a town. The actors, who are all Frenchmen of Arab descent, and apparently popular actors back in France, are uniformly good (I was distracted by one of the actors, who always kept a hand in his pocket. I have learned that the actor who plays him is missing a hand, and this is quite distracting as it is never explained).
After the Wedding, from Denmark and Susanne Bier, is an entirely different kind of film. I knew nothing about this film going in, so I was surprised when the first few scenes are set in India. A Danish aid worker tends to children at an orphanage. He is called back to his home country to meet a billionaire who wants to meet him before committing to donating money. The billionaire's daughter happens to be getting married that weekend, so the aid worker is invited to attend. While there, he realizes he knows the billionaire's wife. Ominous organ chord!
This film is fascinating up until that moment, as one wonders where this all is going. After that, it's not quite as interesting. There are some standard, soap opera plot points, which I don't want to reveal here, but wouldn't be out of place on The Young and the Restless. Given these hoary twists, the film still manages to be a classy affair. Bier's directs this thing within an inch of its life, using jump cuts and odd closeups (particularly on eyes, whether of her actors or glass eyes of hunting trophies). Mads Mikkelsen, who was so good as the Bond villain in Casino Royale, is the aid worker, and his character is a puzzle, a formerly dissolute man who is repenting by giving up everything to work with poor children in India. In contrast, Rolf Lassgard gets a chance to chew some scenery as the mogul. He's very good, in one scene reading a story to his small children, in another ruthlessly manipulating those around him.
Both of these films are solid efforts, but it is no injustice that they lost to The Lives of Others.
Pretty much hated Days of Glory. I don't know why, exactly, but the whole thing seemed incredibly phony. Maybe I thought the Algerians were way too eager to go fight for mother France at the beginning.
ReplyDeleteI didn't have that problem, because I think conquered peoples have always fought for their conqueror throughout history. Each of them is given a fairly good reason for fighting, whether it's to get out of poverty or for the money. I just though the story creaked with the mechanisms of the war genre.
ReplyDeleteSure, but the way it was presented, the soldiers weren't running off to war for the money or to get out of poverty. They went to war because they really wanted to fight for France. I think it would be somewhat unusual for colonized citizens to be so eager to fight for their occupiers. Let's see if any Iraqis want to go fight China for us.
ReplyDeleteIt felt to me like the filmmakers started with the premise that the North African soldiers deserved more recognition, official and otherwise, than they've gotten. Almost certainly true and a noble impulse. But in going about it, whether intentionally or not, they ... manipulated the soldiers' motives in order to make them look more sympathetic.
Maybe I'm off base, but it felt wrong to me.
A few things:
ReplyDelete1. Two of the characters explicitly say why they are fighting: the little peasant guy a couple of time says joining the army was the only way to try to escape poverty. Another is a mercenary (one of the two brothers) and when his brother says Why are we doing this? he replies, For the money. The ambitious one, the one who becomes a corporal and reads army manuals, is clearly doing it because he likes being in the army and wants to better himself.
2. Your analogy is a bit off base, and here's why: France conquered Algeria in 1830. These guys grew up under French rule, and so did their fathers and grandfathers. They knew nothing else. Also, the Germans would have been the common enemy, as Germany had run roughshod all over Algeria (and Tunisia, Morocco [you've seen Casablanca] and Egypt. When they were booted by the Allies in 1943 I'm sure many North Africans wanted to kick some German tail in Europe, and the French army would have been the one to join.
After the war, of course, when there was no world crisis of that magnitude, the Algerians went about the business of trying to kick the French out, which they did finally in 1961.
I guess you're probably right on both counts.
ReplyDeleteI don't really remember the poverty motive being expressed, but I'll take your word for it. I do remember, though, that it felt like something out of All Quiet on the Western Front or Gone with the Wind, everyone rushing off to war in a patriotic fervor.
It felt wrong, but obviously my analogy above was still off base.
At any rate, I hated the movie anyway, so it won't make much difference to me. I wish I had written about it at the time.
And to add to what Jackrabbit said: Algeria wasn't just a French colony--it was a French department and Algerians enjoyed full French citizenship. It would be more akin to Puerto Rico--if Puerto Rico was a state, and even as a commonwealth now lots of Puerto Ricans are members of the US military.
ReplyDeleteSidenote: I think I saw more US flags on buildings and cars in Puerto Rico than I do here in NC, though the US flag was almost always accompanied by the Puerto Rican flag (in its correct shade of blue).