Come What May

"En mai, fais ce qu'il te plait" (2015 release from France; 114 min.; US title: "Come What May") brings the story of a group of villagers in northern France. As the movie opens, we are reminded, while watching archive footage, that 8 million people were displaced in May, 1940, one of the largest displacements in history. We then go to "One Year Earlier in Germany", where we get to know a man and his young son. It's not long before they are fleeing the country, only to turn up in France, pretending to be Belgians. The man gets arrested by the French when they find out his real nationality, leaving the son in the care of a school teacher. As we get to May, 1940, the village mayor tells everyone to evacuate, from Pas-de-Calais to Dieppe, some 100 miles to the southwest. At this point we're 10 min. into the movie, but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for your yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is the latest movie from French director Christian Carion, best known for his Oscar-nominated WWI drama "Merry Christmas". Here he takes at a particular chapter in WWII, when millions of people from northern France tried to flee the invading Germans. Let me state upfront that I have no doubt it was a human tragedy. It's only that the movie doesn't come across that way until late into it. Indeed, much of the movie feels like a Sunday afternoon stroll in the countryside, with some wine and some dancing for good measure. It's not until the convoy gets attacked by German planes that it really feels like war is hell, and we feel some emotional connection to the characters. Indeed the last half hour of the movie is by far the best part of the movie. I wish that this level could've been achieved much earlier in the movie. There are some notable performances, including Alice Isaaz as the school teacher Suzanne, but real kudos to your young boy who plays 8 yr. old Max, and has speaking parts in both German and French (and impeccable in both languages). Last but certainly not least, there is a beautiful orchestral score by none other than the legendary Italian composer Ennio Morricone.

"Come What May" opened out of the blue at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati this weekend, and I was eager to check it out. The Saturday matinée screening where I saw this at was attended okay but not great. If you have any interest in WWII movies, you may want to check it out, be it at the theater, or eventually on VOD or DVD/Bly-ray.

I was deeply moved by this film. Most war films focus on the combatants, or the horrible genicide of the Holocaust, but this one captured the plight of refugees reluctantly leaving their homes in a hopeless attempt to avoid occupation, as their region was in WW1. The characters depicted totally captured my imagination. Their fear and suffering brought me to tears. My gauge of a very good movie is one where I completely forget I'm watching something on a screen. Acting, directing, cinematography, editing, musical score, and story...excellent.

This is a beautifully done film with an excellent script well acted with characters you come to care about and take to your heart, especially the father and little boy who desperately try to reunite after being separated during the War. Matthew Rhys is perfect as the gutsy British commander who has lost his entire battalion but stays to fight another day, knowing full well he may not survive.

Ennio Morricone's score is inspiring an perfect for the terrors and longings in the film. Bravo to the director, writers, actors and all involved. A film like this seldom comes along. But thank heavens it did and cheers to Cohen Media for making it available.

With sub-titles and a serious theme, it's not a money-maker, alas, not a slasher nor a horror nor an action film to bring in money, but we are grateful it got made. We have need for films like this.

After "Joyeux Noel" which dealt with the truce in the trenches in the WW1 slaughter, he tackles here another somber hour of French history :the flight of civilians from the north of France during the German invasion in 1940.

So the movie begins with archive films,like "jeux interdits" ("forbidden games") ,René Clément's masterpiece (1952). It's not really a true story but it's based on the director's mother's memories and it certainly means a lot to him.

Carion is a heir to the neglected cinema de papa ,he makes cinema populaire ,but like his peers of yore,he shows respect for the public, he's a wonderful story teller and his actors direction is faultless. And this cinema is a thousand more gripping than the dominant genre on the French scene ,the "feel good"

That is not to say his movie is faultless : it is a sprawling work ,with two parallel plots ,and all that concerns the Scottish soldier (why not a French soldier by the way?the problem would have been the same , he and the German refugee were "enemies"too ) often gets in the way ,but it at least provides some good scenes -the propaganda movies and the bagpipe Rhys plays for the Germans' movie camera .

On the other hand , the desperate odyssey of the villagers ,led by a mayor overtaken by events and history , is deeply moving and excellent .Olivier Gourmet,true to form, ,a God-forsaken Mosis ,leads his people to the promised land ,namely Dieppe harbor ; it' s the first time screenwriters have detailed this exodus :it's really hard to leave your farm, your house,most of your belongings and your dear memories behind ; along the way ,one can see scribbled messages on the blackboard or on the walls . Pretending there are things which remain in spite of it all ,the mayor gathers his town concil under the bust of Marianne in a makeshift townhall (in open air).

Women did not vote (they had this right after WW2 in 1946) and thus were not part of the council but it does not prevent the mayor's wife (the excellent Mathilde Seignier) from taking a rebel stand and leading the plundering of the grocer's shop (a selfish couple who predates ,unfortunately, the "everyman for himself" motto of certain French) ,a scene which recalls Zola's "Germinal" .

There are implausibilities of course : Gourmet had a lung removed because of the mustard gas ,but he does not seem to suffer from it; the father-and-son reunion (although the messages on the blackboard of the schools is a good idea ).

Ennio Morricone is ,as always , splendid and gives a western touch to this epic; Edith Piaf's and Charles Trenet's songs are thrown in for good measure.

Carion has a good sense of space and a sinister way of introducing the air raids by showing first a threatening shadow on the peaceful sunny country; the tanks making their way through the fields is also an impressive moment .

During the recording of the soundtrack composed by Maestro Morricone I was lucky enough to meet the music producer Mr. Pascal Mayer of the Noodles Supervision. After asking me how long I had collaborated with M° Morricone, and after knowing that I started in that studio with "Once upon a time in America" in 1983, he asked me to be able to include my "little" story related to these in the video interview with the Maestro. It was a great honor to be placed alongside the Master, and to be able to tell the world this little story of 35 years of collaboration, devotion, esteem and affection.