Joyeux Noël, directed by Christian Carion and released in the US last month, is a film commemorating the now legendary Christmas truce [5] in 1914 duri

Joyeux Noël, directed by Christian Carion and released in the US last month, is a film commemorating the now legendary Christmas truce [6] in 1914 during World War I. This multi-country European production in French, German, and English combines fictionalized characters with historical events. The film focuses both on the human side of war, and on the collusion between religion and the state in promulgating stereotypes of enemy and ally, good and evil.

The scene is set in the trenches of the First World War. The unofficial truce probably began near Flanders, but spread rapidly along the line. Ordinary soldiers and some low-ranking officers took it upon themselves to call a halt to the fighting for Christmas Eve and then into the next days, to bury the dead and to, gasp, "fraternize" with each other. They sang carols, exchanged sweets, cigarettes, and liquor, and played soccer.

The human side of this drama is expressed with character episodes in three camps -- German, French, and Scottish. Someone carries an alarm clock around with him to remind him of the daily time when he and his mother would have coffee. The German officer is Jewish, and has a wife who, it is implied, is French. A Scotsman sees his younger brother killed but continues to write to their mother from both of them, unable to tell her of the death. There is humor, too, most poignantly represented by a cat who crosses the lines and who has been given different names by the different sides.

Yet the divisions of nationalism and warmaking frame this story, beginning with three little boys in their respective classrooms spewing their respective countries' jingoism and castigation of the "others."

In the end, there are punishments meted out on all sides for the breach of military discipline and the direct refusal of orders which caused a domino effect up and down the line.

The movie doesn't dwell on the political, but in a more effective, subtle way, we learn how people on all sides are connected to each other. From the Scottish chaplain who leads the worship service for the combined troops to the scenes of various military leaders who show up to give orders and then retire to relative comfort, safety, and even luxury, the unspoken issues of class privilege, authority, and greed are stark.

Some of the film's fictional elements are peculiar, the most glaring for me being the stationing of opera stars in the trenches. But by and large, the characters do fit the scene. They are mostly common, ordinary boys and men, with a complex mix of attitudes and understandings. The film sketches the progression of individuals as they change their perceptions of each other and question their conceptions of the war and the stereotypes they have held.

As a military counselor [7], I talk with young people who become severely depressed and sometimes suicidal during basic training [8], in part because they are being asked to strip away their natural instincts and learned values in order to kill --- both reflexively and upon their commanders' orders. Part of this "basic" training is to freeze or obliterate emotions and individual judgment. As a result, some recruits wind up with severe intestinal pain and nausea, insomnia, and bed-wetting. Even the Army recognizes they are asking people to go against the grain. In the most recent edition of "The Reporter" from the Center for Conscience and War, counselor Bill Galvin examines Major Peter Kilner's teachings about counseling soldiers on the morality of war. Kilner's teaching is being incorporated into course work for military chaplains. Kilner talks about post-traumatic stress disorder and acknowledges that becoming a soldier goes against the grain. His counsel, of course, is for chaplains to learn to explain how it is moral to kill those who want to take away your freedom or your life and how "enemy soldiers are morally responsible for the threat they pose."

Military surveys bear out what we know anecdotally, that when faced with the option of actually killing someone, many soldiers fire into the air! Joyeux Noël shows how, even in the harshest conditions, peace can break out.

To learn more about the real Christmas Truce, read Stanley Weintraub's Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce.