Wooden Crosses (1932)

In conjunction with the 100 anniversary of the Armistice the BYU International Cinema had a marathon of World War I movies last week, I went on Saturday and caught a couple. Wooden Crosses is a French film that follows a group of solders through The Great War, almost all of the characters we follow in the film die. It's a very nicely made film, however I could just never really bond with any of the characters. I think All Quite on the Western Front is a better movie that is going for basically the same kind of thing that the French are in this. The visual composition here is really quite sophisticated for an early sound film, in fact it is more reminiscent of late silent films in its look then it is of the "talkie" American counterparts of its time.

There are two shots that I want to make brief reference to as they are memorable. One opens on a Catholic mass in a beautiful old church sanctuary, the audience at first are not sure why they are seeing this and then the camera pans over to a barrier constructed on the side of the chapel, basically a fence, and then over the barrier to show an amputee ward making use of space in the church. The other is of French solders parading through a town after a battle, the men are shouting about how they "won the village" and in the sky behind them is superimposed another line of solders marching heaven word, they too one the village. There are certainly things in this film to recommend it, I just wish I'd been able to like it more. ***