justbusinessthebook Another DVD movie that a friend suggested I watch, it is a movie that I would buy for its message. What is disappointing about a movie that I would otherwise rate nearer 10 for the acting, intrigue and drama is that this is yet another movie 'from Hollywood' that really twists the truth to sell a movie.One need only look up the history of one real character, Fritz Vincken. Vincken is portrayed as a young German boy who witnesses a surreal event that is sponsored by his German mother on Christmas Eve, 1944. Persuading American soldiers to make her temporary home a place of neutral refuge on Christmas Eve, she risks execution for treason. The truth is that a German patrol then arrives at the same isolated cabin, agrees to a night of no guns, and actually sups with and helps a wounded American soldier. Both factions then go off in opposite directions to resume the fighting while leaving the boy and mother to survive an incredibly stupid war.The 'based on facts' portrayal in this movie immediately falls apart IF we understand that neither the mother nor the boy understood English. One American soldier spoke French. The German mother also did. This helped in the real situation in the end. Frantic arm waving changed into some words of understanding.Knowing this base fact and the fact that the 'Hollywood' version goes to great extravagance to dramatize the situation may diminish the value of this movie as a record of history. Its value is in the dialogue and emotion. Once again, we have another movie that portrays why our world stumbles along in vast international murder because we have lost all common sense to what our moral duty to each other is.This movie is good in that it does not sell 'Jesus Christ' and Christmas as 'the reason for the season'. It simply illustrates what the bravery of one lady, without a gun, can do to end the senseless killing we seem bent on repeating despite these lessons from our human history.That small fact makes this not-so-fact-based movie still worth watching. I am not so certain that the surviving German son's 1997 interview (by a Honolulu high school student) as to what really happened would make a 'block buster movie'. Still, I will buy this DVD in the end for the compelling messages in the movie.We need to start to heed messages from movies like this to make this world a better place for generations to come.

Michael DeZubiria There is a scene early in Silent Night that I thought was indicative of a profoundly cheesy war film that was to follow. A couple American soldiers are passing through a snowy wood when they come across a young German boy. One soldier calls the kid "my friend," and the kid mutters a well-rehearsed line about how they are not friends and never will be, at which point the American soldier gives him a heartwarming speech about how the radio has been deceiving them, and that they are not his enemy, Hitler is. This is a level of preposterous cheesiness that almost reaches propaganda, but even though a German country woman talks some American and German soldiers into disarming and spending some quality time together, it turns out to be a lot better than I expected.Linda Hamilton plays Elisabeth Vincken, a German widow who lost one son and probably her husband (he's only a cook but has been missing for months), and is now living in a small cabin in the woods with her 12-year-old son Fritz, who she is protecting from compulsory military service. Two American and two German soldiers have a confrontation just outside her cabin, and she demands that they leave their weapons outside if they want to take shelter in her home.My initial reaction was that I was not going to be able to tolerate Linda Hamilton speaking German (followed by her German accent, after they switched to English), but the movie deals with many of the difficult realities of war, despite a feeling of being unrealistic. My understanding, however, is that it's based on a true story (which has already been brought to the screen multiple times), but either way, it deals with the fact that wars are fought by guys on both sides that just want to survive and go home safely to their families. One of my favorite scenes in the movie shows the soldiers on both sides compiling all the food they have on them in preparation for their first meal together. It's a perfect way to humanize a bunch of guys with guns, especially when one of the German soldiers has a small package of cookies that his wife made him. A doting wife baking cookies is not exactly the kind of image that Hollywood has taught us to associate with the soldiers of Nazi Germany, but it is undeniably true. Essentially the movie is the story of a small group of "enemies" in World War II who decided to make a temporary truce with each other in honor of Christmas Day. This is a premise fraught with potential pitfalls, but by staying away from confectionery clichés it manages to come across as a disarming analysis of the politicians that create wars and the young men that fight them.

p_a_talbot-1 For many years, I had heard this story, I mean, since I was a child. Who first told it to me, I don't remember. I had thought that it was one of those stories that had to be made up. Every now and then, I would hear it again. Kind of like just often enough to just not be allowed to forget it.This little German woman and her son are in a house in the mountains, and it's almost Christmas. The Americans find the house from one direction. The Germans find the house from the other direction. And they spend Christmas Day together.How this woman's strength of character and respect for the season come together in this little house, with this unlikely combination of people is amazing. Just thinking about this story has my eyes welling up! This is a movie that you will regret missing!!

jcarter-1 A true Christmas season treat, this story is compelling and powerful. The acting is wonderful! All the characters are believable and their interactions are subtle and always convincing. So often, TV uses sleazy situation comedy, me-too Mafia characters or yet another tale of crime, drugs and exaggerated family melodrama. This honest and unsparing look at real people caught in the last stages of a terrible war that has torn their lives apart uses no such cheap tricks.Yes, their personal circumstances are a tad difficult to believe here and there, and yes, a viewer does have to suspend disbelief. But I think most viewers would willingly accept these limitations because the story is so good.Especially in the Christmas season, a beautiful and uplifting drama like this about the best in human nature is a reminder that in expert hands, television drama can still be first-rate theater. Highly recommended!