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Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominee for Best Foreign Film, Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas) tells the true-life story of the spontaneous Christmas Eve truce declared by Scottish, French and German troops in the trenches of World War I. Enemies leave their weapons behind for one night as they band together in brotherhood and forget about the brutalities of war. Diane Krüger (Troy), Daniel Brühl (Good Bye Lenin!) and Benno Fürmann (The Princess and the Warrior) head a first-rate international cast in a truly powerful, must-see film. more info
Amazing movie
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This movie is amazing I think everyone should watch it. It was a great copy I had no problems with it.
For those who believe that music can unify mankind.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This a beautiful film in three languages that tells a true story.
On Christmas eve 1914 French, German and English soldiers stopped battling with each other to give way to a night of peace and brotherhood.
Excellent performances from the cast and beautiful music sung by Natalie Dessay and Rolando Villazon.
This is not just a Christmas movie.. this is a film that tells a story that happened on the day Christ was born.
L.
Great!!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I just finished watching this movie, and I really liked it! It is very inspiring, and based on real events.
Excellent introduction to World War One themes
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This was the first film in which I saw Daniel Bruhl and Guillaume Canet, and this is also one of the first films (though not the very first) that introduced me to European cinema. While it is sentimental, it benefits from a good script, great cast, and stunning cinematography. While not as hard-hitting as “A Very Long Engagement” or “Behind the Lines”, the point to the whole thing is the very unexpected friendships that can grow between two sides during the fighting. It is a film that demonstrates the emotional impact war has on those who fight it, without driving that point home with a sledgehammer. I really enjoyed this film, and it did push me into a greater interest in World War One. While emotionally significant, the film does not make you crave an insulin shot afterwards. I must say this is one of my absolute favorite films, and I have already watched it many, many times .
Christmas Faith Prevails Over War
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This movie is the best “stocking stuffer” to come along in a long time! Open your presents and enjoy your Christmas dinner. Then, if you want to understand one reason we celebrate the day “God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son,” sit down and watch this movie.
Told in the three languages of the soldiers who fought and died in what was supposed to be The War to End All Wars, “Joyeux Noel” brilliantly shows how the desire to worship and celebrate the birth of Christ transcended their orders to fight.
The wonder of the true story of the Christmas Truce was as not so much the fact that the soldiers in the field took it upon themselves to call for the ceasefire, but how their common faith, inspired by the gift of music, motivated them to lay down their arms and observe “peace on earth and good will toward men.” It would be one thing if a brief truce happened in only an isolated location, but when we realize that this episode occurred all along the Western Front, one must recognize that this event was one of the world’s true Christmas Miracles.
While the movie plays against the carnage of the first world wide war, the story’s heart, humor and human drama are felt when we see the toll the fighting takes in the lives of the infantry, their officer’s, a godly priest and their loved ones. Even the irony found in the story of the (unfortunate) cat who trespassed enemy lines on a regular basis serves as a judgment upon the leaders who use God’s name to justify waging a political war of choice.
In addition to the movie itself, it is well worth taking the time to watch the special feature interview with writer/director Christian Carion. The only note of caution is that the stories of sensual love and real bloodshed in wartime are told sensitively, but realistically. Those aspects of the movie may not be suitable for younger teens and pre-teen viewers.
If only we could learn….
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
On Christmas Eve during World War I three nations at war took the time to see others as humans and not as the enemy. In all the years of history if we all followed the message expressed in this film we would have WORLD PEACE. The sad fact is their superiors punished them for seeing the so called enemy as humans. If humans would look beyond their differences and see our similiarites people of this world could live in peace and happiness.We should learn from our past. In the words of a great philosopher those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. This we do again and again.
This film is a must for all leaders, teachers, and families alike.
Affirming the best in our universal humanity
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
What soldiers are asked to endure during war breaks my heart more and more. I am so very tired of war and war mongering.
My father was called back in the Korean War and went so that his son would not have to take care of unfinished business.
What a horrible waste war is! What beautiful film this is not only in how it is artistically crafted but in the message it brings to life! We are so much more alike than different. We could build such glorious civilizations and monuments to human genius if we would only decide that every human life is precious and deserves to be preserved and nourished. To accomplish that we would all have to look at each other one on one – no nationality dividing us, no religion, no race, no ethnicity. All members on one race – the human race.
How stupid can men and their wartime bureaucracies be?
A cat really was charged with treason, and it was shot to death!
The officers allowing this truce and fraternization truly deserve the epithet “officers and gentlemen”. Personal honor meant something more then, I think.
Beautiful picture – stirring and lasting message to all. Thank you very much for this marvelous film. Please do watch it!
Tragically moving.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The true story of the trench warfare’s horror and death is broken by the most amazing power of the Christmas truce. How tragic that it was brief.
A deeply moving film.
What a Great Story.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Do not be frightened by the French title and the promise of subtitles. The story revolves around Scottish, German, and French soldiers, so there are going to be subtitles for the French and German dialogue. But this movie is well worth the “hassle” of reading. **I do not feel it’s a hassle, but I work in TV rental and that’s what I’m told when I suggest foreign films.**
The main actors give brilliant performances. Guillaume Canet is terrific as the French leader. He does a good job portraying his character as conflicted; torn between his duty as an officer, and his duty as a human being. Daniel Bruhl leads the German side as a compassionate man who tries to be a tough officer. The Scottish are…well…the Scottish. The acting is terrific, and the cinematography captures the essence of being a WWI soldier in the trenches. If you pass on this movie, you will be doing yourself a great injustice.
A Wonderful Look Back
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This film is a moving dramatization of the spontaneous Christmas truce of 1914, during which soldiers on both sides met in no-man’s land, sang hymns, played sports, and exchanged gifts. Needless to say, the generals, warm and well-fed in their far-from-the-front chateaux, were not happy about that and did their best to see it didn’t repeat the following three Christmases of the war.
The film is well-done and almost even-handed in its presentation of soldiers from France, Germany and Scotland, except that the French soldiers, for some reason, seem less interesting than the Scottish and German. That’s odd, since this 2005 film was apparently a French or Belgian production.
The film’s other oddity is that the Scottish officer who participates in and is punished for his role the unofficial cease fire is apparently a Catholic priest (note his use of Latin), as it appears were most of his men. The Scots of that day were mostly Scotch Presbyterian, so I can’t explain that little anomaly. Maybe the French/Belgian producers didn’t know that. The European intelligentsia of today know very little about religion, hence their instinctive pandering to militant Islam. Religion scares them, so a scary religion seems normal.
Sadly, the Great War in which these men fought has become the Forgotten War. That’s unfortunately, because all too many of our modern ills are rooted in that long-ago struggle over mere yards of blasted landscape. The years before the Great War represented the high-water mark in European influence on the world. Europe has never fully recovered from its enormous loses.
-Michael W. Perry, Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements That Led to Nazism and World War II