Kubrick's greatest ever, and I mean it!

Rating: 10/10 (3 March 2001)

Nothing comes near this one. Kubrick was just a few films down when he stumbled onto that script (true story). He must have been inspired as he managed, within minutes, to recreate the muddy trenches, the staunch smell of the fear of men, the inhumanity of the French officer corps (excluding Dax of course)and the dichotomy between the Château living conditions and those of the enlisted men. The so-called trial should be shown at movie schools. But certainly the most moving scene of them all has got to be the closing scene with Kubrick's real wife on stage. The song she is forced to sing to a bunch of men transformed into wild animals happens to be a song from both the German and the French Folk music (Marjolaine in French). They realize that after all, they are not so different from their archenemy, the hated Germans (Les Boches). An American Director capable of capturing the essence of WWI has got to be a genius, which of course Stanley Kubrick was.