There was an interesting article in "Le Soir" last Wednesday about the release of "Dunkirk", here in Belgium.
A comparison with Henri Verneuil's
Weekend à Zuydcoote. It interested me because Henri Verneuil is easily my favourite director in French cinema, possibly my favourite director overall (very prolific in making good films) and actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, a legend of an actor. A stunt actor with irony and an ever so relaxed attitude, in my top5 favourite actors. However this was not my favourite Verneuil film but still the dialogues were there, as I recall them because it's been a long time since I last saw it.
The article does not say that Henri Verneuil was not French. He was Armenian. His real name was Achod Zakarian. His last two films
Mayrig and
588 rue Paradis (1992/3) are two partly autobiographical films about his precocious loss of innocence (consecutive to the Genocide), his own family value (going hand in hand with toleration for immigrants!!!)
The article also does not address the still unanswered question: Why did Hitler stop Heinz Guderian on his way to Dunkirk making the evacuation possible...
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Two Conflicting Views About Dunkirk
Christopher Nolan’s film about the 1940 evacuation is released on our screens.
More than half a century after Henri Verneuil, Christopher Nolan is depicting the Battle of Dunkirk of May 1940. Two film about one and the same topic but that clash in every possible way.
Weekend à Zuydcoote was a big production with 3,000 extras, military equipment of the time and Jean-Paul Belmondo. 3,000,000 admissions in France. A massive success.
Dunkirk was shot in Dunkirk and completed in Los Angeles. With a Hollywoodian budget. In Imax! It had 6,000 extras and ships that were used for the 1940 evacuation.
One side is General De Gaulle’s France and on the other side is Hollywood, its studios and its 11-figure industry. The topic is the same: the Battle of Dunkirk and the evacuation of the British (& French) troops to Britain after the allied disaster in May 1940. The setting is also Dunkirk and surroundings.
In 1964 Henri Verneuil adapts Robert Merle’s novel
Weekend à Zuydcoote [English version is
Weekend in Dunkirk, I think] (Goncourt Prize in 1949) starring young Jean-Paul Belmondo. The viewpoint is obviously French and a witness of its era. We are here 20 years after the war and the scars are still visible. No way is it possible to get back to it without any filter or even self-censorship.
57 years later Christopher Nolan, British director, adulated versatile genius in Hollywood is starting his first war film which he announces as an “almost experimental thriller”. Which it is! The viewpoint here is British and triple (young soldiers trying to get on board, RAF pilots and civilians on a merchant ship coming for help). Even if comparison is not reason, let us compare.
1 The opening scene Both films start with a similar scene: leaflets from German planes. They are announcing the annexation of Poland, Belgian & Dutch armies capitulation and the disaster of the French army. But there’s already a difference: Verneuil is saying what is written on these leaflets. With Nolan we have no time to know…
The genre
So you are getting away? Oh, but I’m gonna get bored without you!
With Verneuil the war is a pretext for social relationship.
Weekend à Zuydcoote is a film about a band of mates, a real “Franchouillard” comedy [that is a very common term in French cinema to describe such comedies] with blowouts and puns despite a tragedy in the background. Let us remember that the film was released in 1964. General De Gaulle is in power. You are not looking at the war in the eyes, at least not in cinema!
Chris Nolan obviously has a different approach. His film is a suffocating ‘huis-clos’ on the beach of Dunkirk, a sensorial thriller with only one question: are they going to survive?
3 The Rhythm It’s one of the key elements in the Nolan film.
Dunkirk is a time-trial in chaos. The rhythm is relentless and supported by a very tensed soundtrack. On the other hand,
Weekend à Zuydcoote, it’s as though there was no trouble. Life is beautiful in Dunkirk. Life is beautiful in France. The air is like a whistle worthy of the film “La chèvre” [very popular comedy by Francis Veber in the eighties starring Gérard Depardieu and Pierre Richard]. The soldiers are relaxed and reassuring. Belmondo is walking from one house to one regiment, casually, scruffy, drinks down a bottle of whiskard and then chooses to go and see the Brits in order to get on board as well which will take him out of this. He does not rejoice at leaving his country but living under these bombing is not pleasant.
4 The characters In
Weekend à Zuydcoote the soldiers are adults though young. Most of them with families and children. They are chatting, drinking, talking about home. To put it simply, they are friends! The film is talkative and even has time to place a romance between Belmondo and a young girl from Dunkirk played by Catherine Spaak [French actress with Belgian roots!]. The woman’s role is then to admire the protective and reassuring soldier and by the same token, offering herself to him.
Weekend à Zuydcoote is not exactly the feminist kind. The era was not either.
In
Dunkirk the only female character is a cook who is just passing by. The soldiers are young, most of them just teens. They don’t talk. You don’t know anything about them. They are living in the present time or rather surviving, alone or together with the first guy that they are encountering.
On the French side, it’s yapping all the way. There is verb with most beautiful effet.
Weekend à Zuydcoote is a literary film. No wonder it is based on a novel that won the Goncourt prize. Robert Merle even wrote the dialogues of the film. And like in every good French film of that era it’s gushing with sheared words which are making more effects than the bombings.
The abbey is f*cking you!
Oh Father, what is the problem?
I’m adapting.
5 The war and the historical viewpoint With Nolan, war is everywhere, almost physically palpable (the sound of German planes diving to the beach!). No flags, no morality, even less bravery. Just scare and survival instinct.
On the contrary with Verneuil, the French soldier is not afraid. He’s brave and courageous. He’s relaxed at home, in this sweet France. It’s interesting to note that the horrors of the war can only be felt when the ship with Belmondo on board is leaving Dunkirk and France. Then the war is exposed the way it is: frightening, destructive, real. It destroys friendships and loves. It is smearing France.
Another point which gathers both films together – the only one along with the opening scene – is the rivalry between French and Brits. While both countries are allied they are not one and the same army, one and the same team, one brotherhood. Far from it! Nation first! Nolan is offering a more positive note in placing some hints of empathy between French and Brits despite mistrust. Because at the end of the day both are swimming in the same blood bath…
Conclusion:
Weekend à Zuydcoote is depicting a courageous France, left to its own fate but which is after a victor, supporting the Gaullist assumption that all France (or almost) was in the resistance.
On the other hand
Dunkirk which is released today, in an era when patriotism is mixed with nationalism, is showing war as a destructive mudbath in which there’s nothing noble to save. Nolan’s film is a deaf shout, a “Never this again!” which can be felt deep in anyone’s flesh, still wounded 60 years after
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