Joyeux Noël (DVD, 2006)

If you have ever studied World War 1 (The Great War!), you have probably heard stories about how early in the war, when it was still a reasonably civilized affair, soldiers in the trenches on both sides, put aside their differences & hate & celebrated Christmas. This film is about one such sector of the trenched lines where British, French & German soldiers were overwhelmed by the spirit of Christmas & joined together to celebrate the holiday despite the horrible war they were all participating in. This is an absolutely wonderful story about how the power of Christmas can allow hated enemies to come together as friends at least for a short time. It starts out with a few hymns & carols being sung in both trench lines, followed by the Germans erecting Christmas trees all along their trenches, moves to an agreed armistice by the officers for all sides & culminates in a midnight mass with all participating in 'no man's land'. In real life, both sides resumed hostilities a few days later, but in this film, the soldiers find it impossible to fight each other anymore & are chastised & pulled from the lines by their superiors.

This is a wonderful heart warming Holiday story that you'll find yourself watching over & over, maybe even making it a Holiday tradition! Be warned, all soldiers speak their native language so get those English subtitles working, but I must admit, the 1st time I watched this, I didn't have the subtitles on & the message of this movie & it's power still came through loud & clear!

This movie is based on an even that actually happened during the First World War. At Christmas 1914, there was a unofficial truce between some units of the warring nations. The men forgot about killing each other for a time and came out into no man's land to exchange greetings, gifts and play even some soccer. The Generals on both sides were horrified and thought that if they could just stop by themselves would they all decide by themselves to go home and quit the war. That could not be tolerated and the offenders were harshly dealt with.

A moving story and well worth the watching. The details of the sets, costumes, script and props make it more than worth the effort. I originally saw this film while deployed to Afghanistan and recommend it highly. Enjoy :-)

I bought Joyeux Noel because there is not much media out there for the WWI period.

Joyeux Noel was a ‘nice’ though not ‘great’ subtitled movie. If you are a follower of WWI history, this fictional story about an actual event is worth while. There is very little else out there about this almost forgotten world war.

Like most Euro movies, Joyeux Noel devotes its attention to the subtleties of character development and leaves the special effects fireworks to Hollywood. That’s just as well since there is probably little even special effects could have done to illuminate the horrific carnage that took the lives of nine million combatants.

By the end of the movie you actually cared about what happened to the characters. You are introduced to the characters in their pre-war circumstances and the bigotry prevelant in their respective cultures. You learn to appreciate the predicament of these minor players in a global war whose individual need for human connection flew in the face of their superiors’ demand for hatred of their enemy. You understand the feeling that their little role in the larger war was unnatural to them and that those hosting the war cannot tolerate such feelings. It might have been a more satisfying ending if the story teller told you what happened to each of the main characters.

Uniforms, weapons and tactics seemed accurate to my understanding. The only detail that bothered me was the cleanliness of these people living in front line trenches. Occasional references to lice notwithstanding, most characters seemed presentable enough for parade rather than like they had been living among the dead in mud filled trenches. Maybe the Producers’ contract with the costume supplier required the return of the uniforms unsoiled. I don’t believe this detracts from the overall story.

Joyeux Noel is a nice movie worth watching more than once to see what you missed while reading the subtitles the first time.

I loved this movie because it was based on a true event that happened during world war 1. These soldiers wanted to be home to celebrate Christmas with their families but they ended up spending Christmas with their enemies who became "friends" on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
I bought this movie to show my students who are studying French. It is also a good movie for a history lesson about that war.

Joyeux Noel is a film about the "Christmas Truce" during the first year of World War I. I liked that the film looked at both sides of the war, Germans and Allies (Scots & French), without demonizing one or the other. It does get a little sappy in the middle, but it's a Christmas movie, a little sappiness should be expected. I have rented this film before to show portions of it to my social studies classes and figured that it would be better to own than rent.