Summary
June 1940. English and French troops fighting against the Germans in Northern France
are forced to retreat to the coastal town of Dunkirk. Their only hope of escape
is to cross the channel to England - but there are few boats and all the time they are
attacked from the air by German fighter planes. Whilst waiting for his chance to
escape, one French sergeant, Julien Maillat, befriends a young woman, Jeanne, who resolutely
refuses to leave her home in Dunkirk.
Review
Based on the award winning novel by Robert Merle, Week-end à Zuydcoote provides
a harrowingly realistic portrayal of one of the darker episodes in World War II - the
retreat and decimation of the English and French troops at Dunkirk in 1940. Whereas
most war films depict glory and victory, this one is about defeat and loss, offering a
sober reminder of the grim reality of war.
Week-end à Zuydcoote is director Henri Verneuil’s most ambitious - and daring
- film, and should be considered one of his best works. Although targeted at a mainstream
audience, the film has an artistic quality about it which most of Verneuil’s films lack
- it is remarkable that such a film is largely overlooked and forgotten today.
What makes this a great film is the way that it combines the grand scale of the traditional
blockbuster war film with the intimacy of its protagonists’ day-to-day experiences.
The film is not concerned with battles between armies of nameless soldiers; instead, it
shows how ordinary human beings feel about their predicament - depicting their boredom,
frustration, fear and anger - all compressed into a turbulent two day period.
Although he had only a fraction of the resources available to a Hollywood director on
a comparable film, Verneuil manages to construct an astonishingly believable reconstruction
of the period. It is reported that he scoured most of France to find authentic-looking
equipment for his film and recruited two thousand extras (mainly dockers and workers at
a nearby factory) for the armies of British and French soldiers stranded on the Normandy
beaches.
Henri Decaë’s magnificent cinematography gives the film an epic feel, capturing the
grand scale of a lavish war film at the same time as showing us the tiniest details which
give it meaning. This film provides ample evidence for why Decaë is regarded
as one of France’s best directors of photography - he seems to have a particular genius
for knowing how to draw the maximum impact from a scene, no matter how grand or how banal.
His work on Week-end à Zuydcoote is clearly amongst his finest.
Decaë’s photography is superbly complemented by Maurice Jarre’s music, which alternately
contrasts the hope of surviving a terrible war with the terrible reality. Like so
much of this film, the music directly engages the senses and instils in the spectator
a deeply emotional experience.
Because the film focuses on individual human experiences, its success depends heavily
on a strong cast. Verneuil is again fortunate here and he is rewarded with some
fine acting from such talented artists as Jean-Paul Belmondo, Catherine Spaak, Jean-Pierre
Marielle and Pierre Mondy, amongst others. Belmondo’s performance is particularly
noteworthy, showing a depth and range which is rarely seen in the actors glory years of
the 1970s and 1980s.
When it was first released in France, Week-end à Zuydcoote proved to be
a great commercial success, attracting just over three million cinema-goers. It
has since fallen into comparative obscurity, which is a pity because it is a captivating
film and it really does deserve to be considered as one of the best war films made in
France.
© James Travers 2002
|
