Semisonic Let's admit it, we're a rather conflict-loving and aggressive species, willing to spill the blood of our own about any kind of disagreement, however ridiculous. Yet sometimes the matters dividing us yield to the matters uniting.Apparently, that was the case on the Christmas Eve of 1914 somewhere along the front lines of the World War I. Only several months into the course of war, still not entirely broken with its horrors and each other's monstrosity, with the first chemical weapon attacks still to come, people could still view that war as a giant game their nations decided to play, without investing their personal hatred into it. Consider all that, the likelihood of cultural tastes and of religious background, and the Christmas spirit itself - and you would realize that the true events behind the story of Joyeux Noel are much more likely than it would seem at first.This film does avoid the sharp edges here and there, making the story of fraternization among the enemy troops almost inevitable. The officers conveniently know each other's language and have personal motives for softening up towards the enemy, the common soldiers have snacks and booze to exchange, there's even a cat that loves to cross the front line and is beloved on the both sides.But don't let yourself be fooled by this seeming easiness. This is still war, and at no time you might expect people to just drop their weapons and start dancing and singing and hippie loving each other. Even in the most peaceful moments there's some unspoken tension, and there are still people who take things personally and for whom the war has already taken its toll. And that shaky balance between the humanity of you as a person and the duty imposed on you as a soldier is something that Joyeux Noel conveys beautifully.Yet while you are watching this film, you can't help coming back to the same thought over and over again. If there were no orders from above, would those people actually fight each other? Do the common soldiers feel the need to do it, the need to destroy and to kill? And it makes you realize how different the world was a century ago, when Europe was still mostly monarchical and deeply connected from within, with the Kaiser and the Russian Emperor cousins, with no ever-reaching propaganda we have today. That was still the time when the ideological differences might be a major concern somewhere in the higher cabinets, but for the regular people the only major difference was the language - the rest was the same. That implicit unity was destroyed in the flames of two world wars, and then painfully rebuilt. So Europe's been lucky to become the place where wars don't make sense anymore. And that sentiment, "there's no reason to make war on someone who's exactly like you", is probably the most universally understood anti-military recipe our civilization ever created. And at times when war is such a profitable business for some, it's the films like Joyeux Noel that help us not to fall for the agenda of bloodthirstiness again.

Syl Joyeux Noel or Merry Christmas should be shown every year on television. It is beautiful movie about the true meaning of Christmas. The director does a brilliant job in depicting three military units like the Germans, French, and the Scottish who are fighting the first Christmas away from their loved ones and facing an invisible enemy. While they stop and have informal and unauthorized ceasefire on Christmas Eve. The soldiers whether German, Scottish, or French begin a platonic fraternization of brotherhood. It's nice to see a film about war that isn't. As they become friends, they share good times even for a brief time. Their leaders will face the consequences of resisting to continue battling in no mans land. Yet there are beautiful moments like when they start singing together and playing music. It's still a great film and should be viewed around the holiday season.

hall895 If war is futile the trench warfare style of fighting which defined World War I is the most futile of all. Men dug into trenches a few hundred yards apart waiting until the men of one side are ordered to come up out of the trenches and charge at the enemy. Ordered to their deaths as these men are inevitably slaughtered. In this movie the Germans on one side and the French and Scottish on the other are fighting over a tiny, inconsequential strip of land in eastern France. The war was never going to be won or lost here. But men would die here. And for what? The film begins, rather brilliantly, with scenes of children from each of the three countries reciting patriotic speeches about their country's superiority and the inherent evilness of the enemy. And then we meet the soldiers. These aren't evil men. These are young men who just want to survive. Young men ordered off to war by men who sit comfortably far away from the front lines, protected from the savagery and true cost of war. The men in the trenches have retained their humanity. Their leaders, as will become painfully obvious by the film's end, have lost theirs.The remarkable events depicted in this film actually did happen. Sure there are some things changed and embellished to make a true story into a movie but the heart of the story remains. And what a story it is. Soldiers stopping the senseless killing and laying down their arms to come together to celebrate Christmas. In doing so they come to realize they have more in common with the enemy than they would have imagined. Bonds are formed. Which will of course make going back to slaughtering one another somewhat difficult. But that is a concern that is reserved for the movie's end. How good is the movie that leads towards that inevitably uncomfortable ending? Pretty good indeed. It's a heartwarming story. Character development is rushed or, in some cases, nonexistent which is a little disappointing. More time spent getting to know these soldiers would make us so much more emotionally invested in their fate. But the movie still manages to pack a serious emotional punch. Once the story sets itself up there are times where things move a little slowly and the movie seems to get bogged down a little. But for whatever little quibbles you may have with the film the good far outweighs the bad. The performances are uniformly excellent, the cinematography is wonderful and the message is inspiring. There is so much more that can bring us together than there is that can tear us apart. The men in the trenches figured this out. If only their leaders had done the same.

Nigel Harris Had activists across Mega-Europe militated political reform from imperialism towards social liberalism during the Belle Epoque, the program of modernising weaponry in the Russian Empire would have been slowed, and the preemptive war stoked by the German Kaiser while Germany still stood a chance, could never have reached ignition point. We should celebrate the soldiers depicted in this film as heroes of our European Union, for they clutched at sanity in an insane war of Empire against Empire. The concessions to his own people granted by Tsar Nicholas II in 1917 should have been demanded before the July Crisis of 1914, so Russia could have presented a less bellicose posture to the German Empire, that need not then have feared inexorable deterioration of its security.