Joyeux Noel

[Michael Snow]

A great, true Christmas story. Excellent.

JOYEUX NOEL,made by a French movie company,[in ENGLISH] is the story of the Christmas truce. 116 minutes. Amazon.com: Joyeux Noel (Widescreen): Diane Kruger, Benno Fürmann, Guillaume Canet, Natalie Dessay, Rolando Villazón, Gary Lewis, Dany Boon, Daniel Brühl, Lucas Belvaux, Alex Ferns, Steven Robertson, Frank Witter, Christian Carion, Alexandre Lippens, Filmed in Romania.

Note: Not 'child safe' One 'mild' bedroom scene makes the movie 'R' rated in my book. But there is no profanity nor gross violence.

Two years ago, my son [college grad] and I watched this while we were snowed in for three days at Christmas. This is the story of the Christmas truce of WWI. Exceptionally well-done, it follows the historical event very welll. Of course, there is always the made up story-line of any movie.

One of the resources available for the producers was the letters which soldiers wrote to home describing the events. I included several of the letters in my book, Oh Holy Night: The Peace of 1914, Amazon.com: Oh Holy Night: The Peace of 1914 (9781616230807): Michael C. Snow, Annie Berzovan: Books which reflects on the truce in the light of the Gospel.


Joyeux Noel may move you to tears. There are excellent clips from it on Youtube and I am amazed how this story has moved many young folks. One of the clips has over three hundred thousand views and hundreds of comments.
Hymne des Fraternises- Joyeux Noel - YouTube

 

[Michael Snow]

Has anyone else here seen this?

 

[catzetier]

Yes - I've seen it. It was my favourite foreign film for perhaps four years... and then I saw The Lives of Others and it dropped to second place (where, incidentally, it still is). It is truly beautiful, I agree. What I really liked were the touches of painful irony - children from all three countries reciting propaganda, the German captain casually revealing that he was a Jew (because we all know what's going to happen a few years later, don't we?)...

Was there any part of it that you particularly appreciated?

 

[Zoooma]

Great World War I movie. I saw it a few years ago. I remember it for being more of a war story than a Christmas story. A few weeks ago I saw it on the shelf at the library and almost checked it out but did not. I may grab a download of it as soon as I type this. The bedroom scene you speak of was a bit of a disappointment but otherwise it's a marvelous film. The book is also worth reading. I bought a used copy of it right after seeing the film and looking up more info on the story. Now I really wanna see it again and add some more in depth comments. Glad this thread was started!