100 BEST WAR MOVIES: 65. THE 317th PLATOON (1965)

                        “The 317^th Platoon” is a French film set in the First Indochina War.  It is based on a novel by the director Pierre Schoendoerffer.  He was a war cameraman with the French army at Dien Bien Phu.  He won the best screenplay award at Cannes.  Two years later, he directed the documentary “The Anderson Platoon” which was the Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards. 

                  The film takes place in May, 1954.  A French platoon, with Laotian allies, is ordered to abandon its position and withdraw to a base miles away.  They are naïve about the trek as evidenced by their taking a refrigerator with them.  In a great action scene, they ambush a Vietminh supply convoy that is using bikes.  Afterwards, they check a wounded soldier to see if he is pissing blood. It’s little details like this that set the movie apart from the more big budget Vietnam War movies.  The convoy was a juicy target, but the ambush is a big mistake because now the unit is being chased.  The leader is Lt. Torrens (Jacques Perrin).  He believes in obeying the rules of war.  However, he is superseded by the arriving Adjutant Willsdorf (Bruno Cremer).  Willsdorf is a fascinating character.  He is a veteran from the German army in WWII.  He is a survivor who has seen defeat and feels that in a guerrilla war, there are no rules.  “In war, you must make sure your goals are worth the losses.  Otherwise you will lose.”  From this point on, the movie is a lost patrol movie.  Few of these men will survive the journey.  As Willsdorf says:  “This is not a stroll.”  It sure ain’t.

ACTING:                      B

ACTION:                      B  6/10

ACCURACY:               N/A 

PLOT:                          A

REALISM:                   A+

CINEMATOGRAPHY:    A

SCORE:                        sparse

BEST SCENE:  the ambush

 

BEST QUOTE: Willsdorf:  “In war, you must make sure your goals are worth the losses.  Otherwise you will lose.”   

                  “The 317^th Platoon” is a classic that is hard to find, but its worth the effort.  It has been compared to “The Battle of Algiers” because of its documentary feel.  It also has a cast of mostly nonprofessionals, although Perrin and Cremer are acclaimed in France.  The cast is excellent with no scene-chewing.  The movie is dominated by the Torrens/Willsdorf dynamic.  Each represents a different take on the war.  They remind me a bit of Elias/Barnes in “Platoon”.  Torrens reflects the American view of fighting in Vietnam (at least in the early years) and Willsdorf represents the French view circa Dien Bien Phu. Torrens is idealistic, and Willsdorf is cynical.  Their philosophies don’t match, but they manage to lead well despite their differences.  Willsdorf plants a grenade under a body while Torrens sniffs.  Torrens will risk lives to save the wounded, Willsdorf goes back to salvage a machine gun, but leaves the wounded behind.  After a bloody ambush, Torrens is disgusted, to which Willsdorf responds:  “No, it’s not disgusting.  It’s war”.  I have to admit that although I don’t necessarily agree with him, Willsdorf is one of my favorite war movie characters.

                  Another movie it reminds of is “84 Charlie MoPic”.  The cinematography is intimate, for the most part.  An ambush at a waterfall is filmed by a stationary camera at the top of the waterfall.  There is no music, but outstanding sound effects.  In fact, the soundtrack is used sparingly.  The movie puts you with the unit.  There are lots of close-ups.  You get a feel for the last days of a losing effort.  This is war without the frills.  Thus, it is realistic.  The soldiers are just doing their jobs.  The dialogue is realistically spare.  Nobody gives a speech.  A great war movie gets us to empathize with the men without having to undergo the hardships they went through.  The soldiers of the platoon know fear, bravado, stress, dissension, and exhaustion.  Few movies have done a better job of showing the effects of exhaustion on soldiers.  They deal with dysentery (which you rarely see in war movies).  Torrens makes mistakes due to tiredness.  Mistakes even a good commander might make.  The enemy are not demonized and are faceless.  It is implied they commit atrocities, but the movie concentrates on the way the war has corrupted the French.

                  “The 317^th Platoon” should have been required viewing at the Pentagon when it came out.  Since many of our leaders did not bother to read about the French experience in Vietnam, perhaps they would have sat down and watched a movie about it.  Just as they should have watched “The Battle of Algiers”.  You should watch it too.  It is one of the best Vietnam War movies.  Pair it up with “The Anderson Platoon” and then watch “Go Tell the Spartans”.  Your cinematic tutorial on the war has begun.

 

WAR SHORT: Firebase (2017)

                        “Firebase” is a short film from Oats Studios.  Oats Studios is the brainchild of South African filmmaker Neill Blomkamp who was nominated for an Oscar for “District 9”.  His idea is to make experimental short films and provide them free via YouTube and Steam.  If there is enough interest and financing becomes available, the films might be expanded into feature films.  The start-up is a gamble as, based on “Firebase”, production costs are clearly way above whatever revenue they bring in.  Good luck, Neill.  Until his business model proves a failure, let’s enjoy the free content.

                        “Firebase” starts with a viewer discretion warning.  It is definitely not for children.  A title card informs us:  “This world is not our permanent home;  we are looking forward to a home yet to come.”  Sci-fi vibe established.  Immediately followed with a horror vibe via a mutilated corpse tied to a post.  But it’s also a war movie because it is set in Vietnam in 1970.  Footage establishes that Vietnam was hell.  Blomkamp imagines it as literally hellish.  The plot is so gonzo it is hard to summarize.  There is a River God who is wreaking havoc on American soldiers, transforming them into zombielike creatures.  A CIA operative enigmatically calls the monster “a mistake”.  He needs Sgt. Hines to liquidate the anomaly.  Hines is basically an anti-virus.  He is not only a kick-ass warrior, but he seemingly is invulnerable to the River God’s godlike powers.

                        I tend to think of short films as being low budget and thus low in production values.  This film does not fit that stereotype.   Blomkamp filmed in the jungles of South Africa with a snake wrangler to protect the cast and crew from black mombas.  So the jungle looks legit, but it’s the special effects and makeup that wow.  The reanimated corpses are shown in all their anatomical creepiness.  The River God is scary as hell.  It’s not a film you want to see alone on a stormy night.  Or if you are eating anything.  As hard as it is to believe, the movie is clearly a war movie.  Besides the footage, there is a fire-fight and Hines goes down into a tunnel.  There is a nifty recreation of a base camp and the film uses several Hueys.  It is also a sci-fi movie as there is some space-time continuum thrown in to make heads spin.  And there’s this electromagnetic coil gun (think BFG, Doom fans) and a relativity capsule to provide a force-field around the demon-slayer Hines.  The only weakness in the film is we don’t get to see that bad boy in action as the movie leaves the YouTube watchers screaming for more.

                        If it is transformed into a feature length film, it will have to have a big budget to follow through with what Blomkamp was able to do in 27 minutes.  He’ll probably look for big-name actors, but the cast here is good.  And they don’t have to spout ridiculous dialogue.  On paper, it might read as ridiculous, however.  Don’t think too much when you are watching it.  Let me know what you think in the comment section.

GRADE  =  A

You can watch it here:  Firebase

a short teaser