MovieChat Forums > L'ennemi intime (2009) Discussion > Good, but preditctable (spoilers)

Good, but preditctable (spoilers)

posted 17 years ago by dao54
11 replies | jump to latest

I enjoyed this film, but was a bit surprized by the amout of clichés in it :
The young righteous officer, the pragmatic petty officer, the soldier in charge of "questionning", absolutely sure he's doing the right thing. The scene where they watch the home film of their dead comrade, first everybody is excited and laughs, then emotion comes when they see all they now dead friends. The hero finally killed by the child whom he saved the life. And wee see French soldiers commiting war crimes, but we also see algerian atrocities, so everybody has it's share. Politicaly corecteness is safe.
And so on...
On the other hand the battles scenes were tremendous, Siri really is a great director, and I found the acting good.
Overall quite a good film, but nothing new.

[–] groucho-marx-1 17 years ago

Crimes were committed on both sides, as often. There's no political correctness in this. Political correctness would have been showing atrocities on the French side only, in my opinion.

[–] doctorrugger 16 years ago

I agree to Groucho's opinion.
I think the film accurately shows the complexity of the Algerian conflict; metropolitan french, Algerian French, Harkis (ie pro-French Algerians), Fellagas and the mass of the Algerian population which mainly tries to avoid the collateral damages.
The real improvement is that it links 2 worlds which have been kept afar till now : the French Resistance and the Algerian war . Why have the French heroes of the Resistance accepted to tolerate torture ? or even been torturers themselves ? Who were the authentic Resistants in this particular war ?

The point is that the use of unhuman treatments during the WWII has seeded a dark tree of torture which grew and flourished in the following conflicts, in Indochina, Algeria, and even in the South American dictatorships. The recent past in Irak shows that this terrible weed is not on the verge of dying.

[–] dao54 16 years ago

The intelligence Officer, a former resistant who has been tortured by the nazies and who know tortures Algerian, is indeed an interesting character.
But I'll stick with my point of view about atrocities. There is no doubt the film is accurate when showing both sides commited crimes, but cinematographicaly it's not very well shown. You could tell before seeing them when those scenes were going to happen and how they would end.
It's a film and as well as histoicaly accurate, it has to have artistic qualities. And on the crime/atrocities, in my opinion, the film just lined up a lot of clichés. Those scenes weren't particuraly powerfull, it just seemed the director or the writer felt he had to put them in in order to be fair with each side.
In L'Ennemi Intime, there's nothing as strong as the village scene in Platoon for exemple.

[–] overninethousand 14 years ago

The French massacre scene was strange. Apparently they killed about 30 people with a short burst from a light machine gun.

Or something.

And then the execution of just one FLN fighter was given much more time.

I'd cut out the massacre scene if I was the director or producer of this film. It was just too odd and unconvincing.

[–] PoppyTransfusion 12 years ago

The intelligence Officer, a former resistant who has been tortured by the nazies and who know tortures Algerian, is indeed an interesting character.

You could see by the end that although he survived his torture at the hands of the Gestapo, Berthaut never got over torture and he believed torture or be tortured. He visited on others what had been done to him. His character was the more complex than Terrien who really represents loss of humanity and ideals as a general rather than a particular person. The sad thing about Terrien is he was right. He knew that to win, really win and not just defeat, you had to win over the people and negotiate.

But I'll stick with my point of view about atrocities. There is no doubt the film is accurate when showing both sides commited crimes, but cinematographicaly it's not very well shown. You could tell before seeing them when those scenes were going to happen and how they would end.
It's a film and as well as histoicaly accurate, it has to have artistic qualities. And on the crime/atrocities, in my opinion, the film just lined up a lot of clichés. Those scenes weren't particuraly powerfull, it just seemed the director or the writer felt he had to put them in in order to be fair with each side.

I wasn't always certain what the outcome would be, but it is possible that some of the themes of this film are now so prevalent that originality is difficult.

In L'Ennemi Intime, there's nothing as strong as the village scene in Platoon for exemple.

Surely that's because such a scene would have swayed the audience's feelings against the French soldiers and the whole point in this film was to show that neither side was better and the situation for the ordinary folk just awful, as it was in Vietnam. I'm glad the film avoided this sentimental horror. Besides the slaughter of the villagers at Taida was bad enough as was the mutilation and murder of the captain taking the dead wan wounded man back to base. Better to leave what happened to the imagination rather than show it in grisly detail, which is more respectful to those who died. Let's not objectify their deaths anymore than they were.

I'm a fountain of blood
In the shape of a girl

[–] arsenick 16 years ago

The best cliché is that there were only two sides: the ALN (FLN) and the French army.
Algerian side was divided: MNA/FLN... some religious men who were in favor of more rights but not war etc. and the French side was divided too: the rich settlers/the common european people called the "black feet"/the french governments/the young french guys called for duty/old military authorities in favor of a french algeria...
Some movies have been more specific than this one. But it's not so bad anyway.

[–] overninethousand 14 years ago

You know it was just a film about one small outpost in a remote region, during the late war phase (so much about MNA), do you?

[–] nickm2 10 years ago

So then...how would you rate this movie? Does it compare favorably to a movie like Platoon 317 ( IE: La 317ème section )? 317's film maker Pierre Schoendoerffer was a Veteran of the French Indochina war & was actually taken prisoner by the Vietminh, and is considered one of the most realistic 'irregular jungle warfare' ever made.

[–] overninethousand 10 years ago

It's okay, even if the massacre scene is annoyingly awkward. But it's not a very realistic film.

[–] spookyrat1 10 years ago

I think it is very realistic. The Moroccan locations are both impressive and unusual. Yes the film has obvious Platoon like influences, but what was quite unique was the highlighted aspect throughout, of former WWII comrades now opposed to one another in a fresh conflict. I appreciated the thorough development of various interrelating platoon members. The film was definitely not just about 1 guy.

Technically too, the film shines. It's very well made. Bravo!

[–] Jefbecco-1 9 years ago

I've read a few books about the Algerian War (1954-1962) and seen a few documentaries.Not being French I can view the war with no passion. Seems to be that the movie made an honest attempt to show that it was a very ugly war with both sides doing very ugly things. Or ,as Alistair Horne called it, "A Savage War of Peace". Very slick professional movie I should add.