Customer Reviews

La Chambre Des Officiers (Original French Version)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For the first half an hour this film seems that follows the story of the famous "Johnny Got His Gun", but without been so depressive. The rest though is much different and has many nice things to say about the human psyche. A French officer is seriously wounded in the face by an enemy shell during the opening phases of World War I and then he is moved to a special hospital for treatment of disfigured persons. He is going to stay there for 1.640 days and make new friends who suffer from the same problems. Then, when the war has ended, he goes back home only to face rejection and annoying glimpses. Finally he manages to come to peace with his new looks and even make jokes of it. The finale is a triumph of hopefulness.

A young soldier is seriously wound in the War. He will be sent to a hospital to treat his facial damage. The slow and painful process of physical, mental and spiritual reconstruction will be depicted in this unusual and mature film with admirable realism.

And despite of being Francois Dupeyron a unknown filmmaker overseas, it would be very interesting to get close to this interesting director who has too much to say.

One of the best films of this year. Magnificent script and scorching performances.

No film in my memory has so vividly portrayed ,from the perspective of the war wounded ,the excrutiating inner and outer agony that one endures after being so maligned and disfigured on the "battlefield".This is a heartwrenching and extremely accurate indictment on the emotional and physical upheaval that the war wounded undergo,the insensitivity of National Pride to it all,and the mixed bag of reactions of those outside the patient's realm who either turn away in horror not knowing what to say or those who assure that "everything is alright" alerting the patient's sense that THAT is CERTAINLY not true.The story simply concerns one Lieutenant Adrien Fournier who,as he is leaving to go to "fight the krauts" (though we are never convinced that this is at all Fournier's intention),sees a young woman,Clemence, who is seeing a young man off to war.Fournier and Clemence console each other and make love.Next,we see Fournier being sent to the German line in order to construct a bridge.Upon arrival, mortar attack occurs and all that is shown are the remains of a body,who is thinking aloud and panicking,but cannot speak!This then really begins the story of Adrien Fournier who is housed and treated in ward for Officers only.Doctors,nurses,spurious people,even Government representatives come and go,and Fournier,unable to speak because his face has been blown away,must silently observe,write on a chalk slate and think inwardly.
This is a very unsettling film in the best of senses.We feel every ounce of pain that Fournier feels.We sympathize with him.We feel hopeless with him.We feel anger with him.(As very typical,a military rep visits and caustically proclaims "You'll be well in no time...Bet you can't wait to get back to The Front!")Fournier can only inwardly respond "he will have forgotten me by the time he leaves the building."In one scene,Fournier unwraps his face and leaves the quiet, exclusive and Grade -A-care Officer's Ward and slips down to the general ward below and sees horrors beyond horrors,chaos and decay that nearly drive him to suicide.This film does not so much glorify war as much as it simply shows the suffering that invariably occurs and how the afflicted are forced to respond.
The film is shot in black-and-white with very readable subtitles.The camera angles are always from the perspective of Fournier putting the viewer IN Fournier's body.The film is naturally and deliberately slow,as what else could recovery be but slow.This is a rare gem-an absolute gem of a film that is so sensitively filmed and constructed that the viewer will have actually lived and suffered AS Fournier through the ordeal!.As one of Fournier's fellow wounded exclaims,"Why aren't we dead yet?".This is a film that strives to possibly answer that question for anyone who survives the horrors of war.