Joyeux Noel (2006)

3/3/07

The international production Joyeux Noel tells the inspiring story of the famed 'Christmas Truce' of 1914. The movie uses three fictional storys to depect events from all sides, each presented in the language of the participents. In English we have the story of two Scottish brothers, and their parish priest who accompanys them to the front as a medic. The French story concerns the son of a career military officer, whose pregnant wife is traped behind enemy lines. The German storyline depicts a famous tenour, bound by a sense of deuty to serve the German people, despite the pledings of his Danish wife for them to leave the country. Kind of weak in the first half hour to fourty minutes, the film becomes truely inspirng from the moment the German tenor starts to sing along to the Scottish priests bagpipe music. Rated R for about 15 seconds of film that barley registers as nudity. Ian Richardson appears briefly in his second to last film role.