La France

Camille, a young Frenchwoman, waits every day for news of her husband, who is serving far away on the front in the First World War. One day a letter arrives in which he states without any explanation that he is ending their relationship. Camille doesn’t leave it at that: she dresses up as a man and sets off. She finds herself with a regiment roaming no man’s land. It is the start of strange journey in the shadow of war. Just as it only very slowly gets through to the soldiers that Camille is a woman, similarly the reality of war, that we only hear in the distance, slowly gets through to the young woman. The regiment also has its secrets, which we shall not give away here, but which involve the desire to get to Atlantis, the neutral country under the sea, away from La France.
Bozon’s first full-length film won the Prix Jean Vigo for the best French debut. Not only is it an intense, spooky and fairytale film in its photography with an original look at the First World War; it is also a very amusing film, partly because the regiment bursts out in musical intermezzos at surprising moments. It’s as if the Beatles were to play French folk music on homemade instruments. The leading roles are played by the inescapable Sylvie Testud and Pascal Greggory and there is a beautiful cameo role for Guillaume Depardieu. (GT)

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