Sway
Posts: 8866
Joined: 30/9/2005
From: Albuquerque
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The unfortunate thing about the war genre, is that it can be very difficult to provide the film going public with something new. It's been drummed into us through countless films that 'War is Hell', that war produces impossibly strong bonds between the men in arms involved, and that those within the enemy side are just like our own boys, not simply faceless monsters. That's not to say that the countless number of films and series, old and new (Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket) that show all of this are worth any less simply because they're showing us what we already know. On the contrary, they're all excellent.
I just think it's refreshing to watch a war film with a slight twist. Perhaps that's why Tigerland is one of my all time favourite films - the concept of a film revolving round a soldier's training pre-war and stopping directly before he heads off into war could easily have come off as extremely boring and unengaging, but Schumacher does a remarkable job of it.
With Days of Glory, here's another war film with a slight twist. It's WWII, again, and it's the allies, again. But this time it's french-algerians fighting for their 'motherland' - a place hardly any of them had stepped foot inside of before. So straight away, you can tell the story is less 'war is hell' and more 'whose war is this anyway?' The majority of the story engages with the conflicts revolving round the blatant discrimination against and secondary treatment of the french-algerians. On various occasions it becomes obvious that these troops were regarded as largely expendable, thrown into serious front line and completely hopeless action as a first attack, (e.g one of the first action sequences shows them launching an attack uphill with barely any cover, with the hill having already been secured by Germans who were settled in nicely behind their defences, picking them off like ants.)
The film raises the themes of patriotism and loyalty, as many war films do, but seeing the french-algerian soldiers commit themselves 100% to defending and protecting their motherland whose commanders see them as little more than expendable, it doesn't so much celebrate the patriotism (as other jingoistic American war films may do), as question it's worth.
There was relatively little action within the film due to it concentrating more on such issues, but when there was action it was pretty gripping, particularly toward the end in Alsace which had me biting my nails.
The only two criticisms I have of the film, are that sometimes the conflicts surrounding the patriotism, race and equality issues are conveyed a little too heavy handedly, as though the audience isn't smart enough to pick up on subtle discrimination. It's like some of the scenes come with 'discrimination in progress' signs all over them, which takes a little of the authenticity from it and leaves you a little less engaged. Also, the lack of characterisation on the 4 leads means it's hard to properly engage with them or have any real depth of feelings towards them individually other than outrage at the discrimination they collectively experienced.
However, on the whole, I really enjoyed this film, and enjoyed a new perspective for a change. The final scenes with the information on the french government are shocking and I'm glad this has been allowed to go public - I wasn't aware of the info at the end, and was disgusted by it. More people should be made of aware of this and other cases like it.
< Message edited by Sway -- 14/11/2007 11:23:19 PM >
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"I am not in danger, Skyler. I AM the danger! A guy opens his door and gets shot and you think that of me? No. I am the one who knocks!"
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