Joyeux Noel (Widescreen) | 
| Actors: Lucas Belvaux, Suzanne Flon, Bernard Le Coq, Ian Richardson, Michel Serrault
Studio: Sony Pictures
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.94
Buy New: $5.68
You Save: $9.26 (62%)
New (48) Used (21) Collectible (3) from $4.99
Rating:  118 reviews
Sales Rank: 4544
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), German (Original Language), Latin (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled), English (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 99
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 116 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.4
MPN: 15099
UPC: 043396150997
EAN: 0043396150997
ASIN: B000I6BJ56
Theatrical Release Date: 2005
Release Date: November 14, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Academy Award Golden Globe and BAFTA nominee for Best Foreign Film JOYEUX NOEL (Merry Christmas) tells the true-life story of the spontaneous Christmas Eve truce declared by Scottish French and German troops in the trenches of World War I. Enemies leave their weapons behind for one night as they band together in brotherhood and forget about the brutalities of war. Diane Kr ger (Troy) Daniel Br hl (Good Bye Lenin!) and Benno F rmann (The Princess and the Warrior) head a first-rate international cast in a truly powerful must-see film.SPECIAL FEATURES:Interview with Writer/Director Christian CarionCommentary with Writer/Director Christian CarionSystem Requirements:Run Time: 116 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE/MILITARY & WAR UPC: 043396150997 Manufacturer No: 15099
Amazon.com
Joyeux Noel captures a rare moment of grace from one of the worst wars in the history of mankind, World War I. On Christmas Eve, 1914, as German, French, and Scottish regiments face each other from their respective trenches, a musical call-and-response turns into an impromptu cease-fire, trading chocolates and champagne, playing soccer, and comparing pictures of their wives. But when Christmas ends, the war returns...Joyeux Noel has been justly accused of sentimentality, but if any subject warrants such an earnest and hopeful treatment, it's the horrors of trench warfare. The largely unknown cast--the more familiar faces include Diane Kruger (Troy), Daniel Bruhl (Good Bye Lenin!), Benno Furmann (The Princess and the Warrior), and Gary Lewis (Billy Elliot)--deliver low-key but effective performances as the movie dwells on the everyday elements of life in the face of war. Based on a true incident (though considerably fictionalized). --Bret Fetzer
Stills from Joyeux Noel (click for larger image)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 113 more reviews...
 Excellent introduction to World War One themes June 2, 2009
Alessandra Vasyuta (Iowa, USA)
This was the first film in which I saw Daniel Bruhl and Guillaume Canet, and this is also one of the first films (though not the very first) that introduced me to European cinema. While it is sentimental, it benefits from a good script, great cast, and stunning cinematography. While not as hard-hitting as "A Very Long Engagement" or "Behind the Lines", the point to the whole thing is the very unexpected friendships that can grow between two sides during the fighting. It is a film that demonstrates the emotional impact war has on those who fight it, without driving that point home with a sledgehammer. I really enjoyed this film, and it did push me into a greater interest in World War One. While emotionally significant, the film does not make you crave an insulin shot afterwards. I must say this is one of my absolute favorite films, and I have already watched it many, many times .
Amazing movie May 4, 2009
Stephanie Schulthies
This movie is amazing I think everyone should watch it. It was a great copy I had no problems with it.
Tragically moving. April 3, 2009
Burdette R. Palmberg (Mercer Island, WA USA)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
The true story of the trench warfare's horror and death is broken by the most amazing power of the Christmas truce. How tragic that it was brief.
A deeply moving film.
A Wonderful Look Back March 7, 2009
Michael W. Perry (Author of Untangling Tolkien, Seattle, WA)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This film is a moving dramatization of the spontaneous Christmas truce of 1914, during which soldiers on both sides met in no-man's land, sang hymns, played sports, and exchanged gifts. Needless to say, the generals, warm and well-fed in their far-from-the-front chateaux, were not happy about that and did their best to see it didn't repeat the following three Christmases of the war.
The film is well-done and almost even-handed in its presentation of soldiers from France, Germany and Scotland, except that the French soldiers, for some reason, seem less interesting than the Scottish and German. That's odd, since this 2005 film was apparently a French or Belgian production.
The film's other oddity is that the Scottish officer who participates in and is punished for his role the unofficial cease fire is apparently a Catholic priest (note his use of Latin), as it appears were most of his men. The Scots of that day were mostly Scotch Presbyterian, so I can't explain that little anomaly. Maybe the French/Belgian producers didn't know that. The European intelligentsia of today know very little about religion, hence their instinctive pandering to militant Islam. Religion scares them, so a scary religion seems normal.
Sadly, the Great War in which these men fought has become the Forgotten War. That's unfortunately, because all too many of our modern ills are rooted in that long-ago struggle over mere yards of blasted landscape. The years before the Great War represented the high-water mark in European influence on the world. Europe has never fully recovered from its enormous loses.
-Michael W. Perry, Chesterton on War and Peace: Battling the Ideas and Movements That Led to Nazism and World War II
Christmas Faith Prevails Over War February 25, 2009
K. Jorde (Virginia, USA)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This movie is the best "stocking stuffer" to come along in a long time! Open your presents and enjoy your Christmas dinner. Then, if you want to understand one reason we celebrate the day "God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son," sit down and watch this movie.
Told in the three languages of the soldiers who fought and died in what was supposed to be The War to End All Wars, "Joyeux Noel" brilliantly shows how the desire to worship and celebrate the birth of Christ transcended their orders to fight.
The wonder of the true story of the Christmas Truce was as not so much the fact that the soldiers in the field took it upon themselves to call for the ceasefire, but how their common faith, inspired by the gift of music, motivated them to lay down their arms and observe "peace on earth and good will toward men." It would be one thing if a brief truce happened in only an isolated location, but when we realize that this episode occurred all along the Western Front, one must recognize that this event was one of the world's true Christmas Miracles.
While the movie plays against the carnage of the first world wide war, the story's heart, humor and human drama are felt when we see the toll the fighting takes in the lives of the infantry, their officer's, a godly priest and their loved ones. Even the irony found in the story of the (unfortunate) cat who trespassed enemy lines on a regular basis serves as a judgment upon the leaders who use God's name to justify waging a political war of choice.
In addition to the movie itself, it is well worth taking the time to watch the special feature interview with writer/director Christian Carion. The only note of caution is that the stories of sensual love and real bloodshed in wartime are told sensitively, but realistically. Those aspects of the movie may not be suitable for younger teens and pre-teen viewers.
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