La Vie et Rien d'Autre

This is a film made by Bertrand Tavernier in 1989. It is one of the best films about war, the effects war and coming to terms with war. It is set in 1920 and in it a major, played by Philip Noiret, is responsible for finding and identifying as many as possible of the 350,000 soldiers who were missing after the First World War.

Philip Noiret, Of course, is not just any actor, he is one of those actors who bring a huge presence and strength of personality to his work. He is the emotional core of this film which, nevertheless, is populated by and large cast representing a wide spectrum of society, military and civilian. Among them are two women both waiting for and seeking their men, who are still missing since the war. One, Alice, played by Pascal Vignal loses her job as a teacher at the beginning of the film and for most of its duration is working in a cafe. The other, Irène, played by Sabine Azéma, is high-born with aristocratic manners and expectations, and to underline the point she arrives in the film in a large, posh car driven by a chauffeur. Sabine Azéma Is a well established actress, having appeared in over forty films. I recognized her from two films I had seen, made by Alain Resnais, Smoking and No Smoking. I have read Janice Radway's 'Reading the romance' and so I am quick to spot early signs of a romance narrative in a film, so the romance in this film played out with no surprises for me. Indeed, I was able to tick of the essential romance elements as it proceeded.

I think that Bertrand Tavernier Is a sort of 'old school' man and filmmaker. In this film we see the class hierarchy laid out before us. Everyone seems to know their place and to act and think and perform according to it. I imagine that that is how it was in 1920 but it is not how we see things now.  Now, we do not think that people's ability, or quality, correlates with their class location. That is why we see so much injustice in class-structured societies. I think that that other fine French anti-war film, La Grande Illusion, better depicts society as a diversity of people overlain by a bizarre, constraining class structure making it, with its absence of predictable romance, a more satisfying film. Also, I don't think that Tavernier is much of a film stylist, but more of a 'set up the scene and point the camera at it and follow it' type of film maker, so we do not come to expect striking shots of use of photography. Nevertheless, La Vie et Rien d'Autre is an unusually good film that I have no hesitation is recommending.