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Joyeux Noel [DVD] [2006]

Lucas Belvaux , Guillaume Canet , Christian Carion    Suitable for 12 years and over   DVD
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
Price: £6.43 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Product details

  • Actors: Lucas Belvaux, Guillaume Canet, Alex Ferns, Benno Furmann, Daniel Bruhl
  • Directors: Christian Carion
  • Producers: Christophe Rossignon
  • Format: Subtitled, PAL
  • Language: English
  • Subtitles: Hindi, Italian, English
  • Dubbed: Italian
  • Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired: English
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9 - 2.35:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 12
  • Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent.
  • DVD Release Date: 6 Nov 2006
  • Run Time: 116 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B000HWXQH0
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 25,205 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)

Reviews

From Amazon.co.uk

Joyeux Noel captures a rare moment of grace from one of the worst wars in the history of mankind, World War I. On Christmas Eve, 1914, as German, French, and Scottish regiments face each other from their respective trenches, a musical call-and-response turns into an impromptu cease-fire, trading chocolates and champagne, playing soccer, and comparing pictures of their wives. But when Christmas ends, the war returns...Joyeux Noel has been justly accused of sentimentality, but if any subject warrants such an earnest and hopeful treatment, it's the horrors of trench warfare. The largely unknown cast--the more familiar faces include Diane Kruger (Troy), Daniel Bruhl (Good Bye Lenin!), Benno Furmann (The Princess and the Warrior), and Gary Lewis (Billy Elliot)--deliver low-key but effective performances as the movie dwells on the everyday elements of life in the face of war. Based on a true incident (though considerably fictionalized). --Bret Fetzer

Product Description

Drama set during World War I. When the war machines began rolling in the summer of 1914, the devastation that it waged upon German, British, and French troops was palpable. But as the winter winds began to blow and the soldiers sat huddled in their trenches awaiting the generous Christmas care packages sent by the families, the sounds of warfare took a momentary backseat to the yearning for brotherhood among all of mankind. It is here that the fate of a French lieutenant, a Scottish priest, a German tenor, and a Danish soprano's lives were about to be changed forever.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
33 of 37 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars "O Come All Ye Faithful" 30 Nov 2006
By A Customer
Format:DVD
French, Scottish and German soldiers come together to celebrate Christmas in the trenches of World War 1 in a profoundly moving film about the humanist in all of us. It is music that draws these disparate enemies together on one cold and dark wintry night in 1914 when an unforeseen harmony between soldiers from three countries suddenly becomes one.

With a cast of Scottish, German and French actors all speaking their own language, writer-director Christian Carion has fashioned a deeply moving and uplifting piece. The film begins as one of the German soldiers Nikolaus Sprink (Benno Furmann), a famous tenor in civilian life, leaves the battle lines briefly to rejoin his lover and stage partner, soprano Anna Sorensen (Diane Kruger), for a small command performance away from the Western front.

Because their time together is so short, she insists on accompanying him back to the trenches; there, the two stage a concert for the German troops. What happens then is simple, beautiful, and believably spontaneous. In the midst of the concert, the bagpipes of the Scottish regiments join the couple across the divide.

As Sprink places Christmas trees onto the field, the three commanders, the French Audebert (Guillaume Canet), the German-Jewish Horstmayer (Daniel Bruhl) and the Scottish Gordon (Alex Ferns) meet and declare the truce that spreads to Christmas Day and includes a deeply moving service in Latin said by Rev. Palmer, an Anglican priest turned soldier (Gary Lewis).

Tired and battle-weary these soldiers who slaughtered each other from trenches put down their weapons to share wine and food, exchange photographs of their loved ones and memories, and even find time to play a game of soccer in the snow. Later the men's superior officers would regard it as fraternizing with the enemy and make them pay for it, each commanding officer is chastised in different ways.

Carion really manages to capture the horror of war while presenting the story so subtly that he avoids melodrama and at the same time shows the faintly goofy affinity between the various combatants. Joyeux Noël succeeds in portraying its men as contract players who see the ridiculousness of their situation and decide to do something about it, finding a cocooned, floating moment of cogent mutiny that has ultimately no place in the politics taking place around them. Mike Leonard November 06.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Trevor Willsmer HALL OF FAME TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:DVD
Charles Dickens knew the importance of establishing horror if you want to show moments of peace or redemption that have real impact. After all, he began A Christmas Carol by emphasising Jacob Marley's death because, without that knowledge, `nothing wonderful can come of this tale.' Sadly, Christian Carrion's Joyeux Noel/Merry Christmas seems oblivious to that lesson, and so without anything tangible in the way of the horrors of war or the psychologically draining nature of trench warfare by way of contrast, there's no sense of relief or wonder to the brief respite offered by the spontaneous 1914 Christmas Truce on the Western Front. As a result, the film carries no real weight. What's worse is just how horrifically bland it all is.

At its best it's well-intentioned pap, a woefully inaccurate retelling that gets practically nothing right, historically or artistically. The scant regard it has for history is bad enough when there are so many powerful true incidents from that period to draw on, but the sheer overpowering wrongness of many of the inventions and the complete lack of any emotional involvement with the barely drawn stereotypes is equally deadly. If you're going to invent, at least invent something better! Perhaps it's the preponderance of production companies involved in this Franco-German-Anglo-Romanian co-production (more than a dozen companies and tax shelter funds are credited) that left it so bland and lifeless - certainly there's a feeling that this is not the film anyone wanted to make, merely the one that everybody could more or less agree on

Most of the performances are weak to invisible, with Gary Lewis failing miserably to provide anything but an actor's extreme discomfort in a role that's meant to be the heart, soul and conscience of the film while Benno Furrman substitutes a look of stoic indigestion for characterisation as Diane Kruger's Danish opera singer in the trenches (no, seriously) mimes her way through the classics. Only Daniel Bruhle makes much of an impression out of his underwritten role, although even he is outshone by a blink-and-you-ll-miss-it cameo from Michel Serrault and Suzanne Flon that briefly wakes up the film.

Carrion's previous film, Une Hirondelle a Fait le Printemps/The Girl from Paris [DVD], was quite superb, for the most part avoiding cliché or whimsy and creating believably flawed characters, which makes his flat handling here seem all the worse. Easily the most desperately disappointing film of the year. You'd be much better off reading Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton's excellent Christmas Truce: The Western Front December 1914 (Pan Grand Strategy Series) instead.

Carrion does admit to the dubious accuracy in the film in the interview that is, along with his audio commentary, the main extra on this DVD (though for some bizarre reason the out-of-copyright WW1 photographs used in the interview are all shown out of focus at the behest of Columbia's over-zealous legal department). However, the deleted scenes from the French DVD and documentary on the Australian 2-disc DVD have not been included.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Enter the Christmas spirit 17 Nov 2006
Format:DVD
This movie a French-English-German language effort telling the story of true events that happened over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 1914 when the troops from these three countries stopped their hostilites and engaged in some good old fashioned human camaradarie is a well told and sweet movie that deserves to join the ranks of movie that warm even the coldest of hearts over the Christmas period.

Based on true events the movie starts with children fromn the 3 countries spouting propaganda that was said at the time and then leads into the stories of the various characters that are the main protaganists.On the German side you have an opera singer who joins up at as a private and his girlfriend who gets to see him by organising a concert for the brass afterwards he returns to the men as he has to sing for them,this starts the thawing of hositility and all three sets of soldiers are soon singing and carousing.

The next day the thaw continues as the soldiers bury their dead and the famous football match happens .

The ending is more downbeat the commanders of all three countries find out what happens and the soldiers from all the nations involved are transferred or their regiments are broken up.One shock is the speech made by the Bishop to the Scottish lads which is incredibly viscous but an actual true speech made in Westminster Abbey in 1915 .Good movie well made and well worth watching.,
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Joyeux Noel
set during the first world war the armies of the Germans,French and British decided too have a christmas truce and decided too stop fighting and celebrate christmas together going... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Alawes
5.0 out of 5 stars Joyeux Noel
This is one of the best films ever made. Not just the subject matter but the acting, which is superb.
Published 2 months ago by lorna wey
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice version of a true story.
Saw this on TV and liked it so much had to buy it. Very good story, based on real life events that I never knew about and little is ever mentioned of it. Well worth watching. Read more
Published 2 months ago by johan marks
5.0 out of 5 stars Required Viewing!
I took it to America, as a gift. I bought my own copy and I am buying another for my son. A wonderful evocation of a moment when Things might have changed and, without naming the... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Euphemia
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice Story
A nice story on the subject of the 1914 Christmas truce.
Not very factual, but a nice Christmas story.
Well acted, and interesting
Published 3 months ago by Mr. P. R. Carter
5.0 out of 5 stars Great
This is a great adaptation of what is probably one of the most iconic events to take place during the first world war that didn't involve the slaughter of thousands of men, the... Read more
Published 3 months ago by frontera23
5.0 out of 5 stars great movie
i enjoyed this movie very much i would recomend it to anybody who likes movies of that time , so enjoy
Published 3 months ago by michael m
5.0 out of 5 stars perfect
i did not watch the film myself, as i purchased it for
my wife, and she was very very pleased with it, and
thoroughly enjoyed it.
thank you.
Published 4 months ago by John G
5.0 out of 5 stars very good very emotional
i loved it as my family inthailand did when i sent it to them. dont understand why it did not get more exposure. Read more
Published 4 months ago by joan
4.0 out of 5 stars A very moving topic.
It's not often I watch moves more than once. But this one I have. And in the month I've owned it it has been doing the rounds of friends, family and ladies at my gym. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Cate
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