12/22/14
Good morning and welcome to Monday, Phoenix family and friends! Not much time left to finish your shopping or wrapping, or baking, etc. What's one dish your family has to have at Christmas??
Today's WTF Holiday movie is : Joyeux Noel (Merry Christmas). For those that may not have heard about this one, here's the plot summary:
In 1914, World War I, the bloodiest war ever at that time in human history, was well under way. However on Christmas Eve, numerous sections of the Western Front called an informal, and unauthorized, truce where the various front-line soldiers of the conflict peacefully met each other in No Man's Land to share a precious pause in the carnage with a fleeting brotherhood.
Trivia: This film is dedicated to the soldiers who fraternized on Christmas 1914 in several places on the front.
The film was originally supposed to be rated R. However, after film critic Roger Ebert criticized the rating, the MPAA officially changed the rating to PG-13.
Towards the end of the film Major General Audebert says "i've been ordered to arrest a cat for treason", A cat portrayed in the film as Felix/Nestor, was actually arrested and shot for espionage after it arrived in French lines wearing a new collar and bearing a note (in French) which read "which regiment are you from?". The general in charge decided just to follow the letter of the law, the cat was shot for spying.
The character of the Male opera singer is based on that of German tenor Walter Kirchhoff (1879-1951), who travelled to the front in order to perform for the troops. His performance was met by cheers from the French lines, where upon he decided to climb on to no-mans-land to see who was cheering.
Goofs: When Anna and Nikolaus talks about the time they met for the first time, they say "Oslo". Oslo, capitol of Norway, was called Kristiania until 1924.
In the film the musical exchange is prompted by the Scottish troops: in reality, most incidents began with the German troops singing carols from their trenches (but not exposing themselves to the enemy - both sides remained in their trenches) with the opposing troops countering with carols of their own. The film was advertised as "based on a true story", but neither the marketing nor anything in the film claims it to be a historically accurate account of the events. At the end of the closing credits it states, the story is based on a compilation of various documented events which took place along the front during WW1. Director Christian Carion said in the DVD commentary that he included Scots, rather than English, in the story because he wanted bagpipe music.
Have a fangtastic day, my friends! Brock
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