Les carabiniers (1963)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Jean-Luc Godard

Writers:

Jean-Luc Godard (writer)
Jean Gruault (writer)

Release Date:

27 September 1967 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | War

Plot:

During a war in an imaginary country, unscrupulous soldiers recruit poor farmers with promises of an easy and happy life. Two of these farmers write to their wives of their exploits.

Plot Keywords:

Firing Squad | Treason | Black Comedy | Anti War | War Crimes

Cast

Marino Masé	...	Ulysses (as Marino Mase)
Patrice Moullet	...	Michel-Ange (as Albert Juross)
Geneviève Galéa	...	Venus
Catherine Ribeiro	...	Cleopatre
Barbet Schroeder	...	Car salesman
Jean-Louis Comolli	...	Soldier with fish
Gérard Poirot	...	Carabinier #1
Jean Brassat	...	Carabinier #2
Alvaro Gheri	...	Carabinier #3
Odile Geoffroy	...	Young Communist girl

Also Known As:

The Carabineers (International: English title)
The Soldiers (UK)

Runtime:

Argentina:85 min | USA:80 min | France:75 min

Country:

France | Italy

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Finland:K-16

Filming Locations:

Rungis, Val-de-Marne, France

Company:

Laetitia Film

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Godard in America (1970)

An Ugly Film on an Ugly Subject

While this is certainly not Godard's most enjoyable work some of the negative comments here are world-class examples of point-missing.

Godard had already shown with "A Bout de Soufflé" and "Vivre Sa Vie" that he knew how to make a film with style, romance and flair. Therefore it's clear that the crude editing and sound dubbing, continuity lapses, bad acting and overall cheapness on display here were deliberate.

What we seem to have here is "War for Dummies". Godard spells things out as if talking to backward children and absolutely refuses to invest his subject and his protagonists with any sort of spectacle or dignity, both by giving us moronic and unsympathetic characters and by refusing the audience any catharsis or vicarious pleasure.

Francois Truffaut once said that no war movie can be truly anti-war, since the camera automatically aestheticizes its subject. Godard here goes all-out to disprove that thesis.This does of course make the film hard to watch but it's a deliberate slap in the face, not the result of incompetence.

Incidents from many wars are parodied - for example scenes of the women having their hair cut off refer to the treatment of French women who had consorted with Germans during the Occupation. "America" is represented by a car with tail fins and some French tower blocks, in a prefiguring of "Alphaville"s approach to location. Apparently the letters used as intertitles are genuine letters home from French troops in various conflicts, although this does not seem to be made clear in the film.

I tend to agree that this is a film for Godard completists only and certainly not the best place to start with his work. The best comparison to make would be with Alfred Jarry's "Ubu Roi" which takes the same crude approach, and apparently the project started life as a stage play.

See "Weekend" for a similar approach to 'peace', only with a lot more fun and games.