Carabiniers, Les
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Year Released: 1963
Rating: 3.0
Godard's attempt to show the absurdity of war is both humorous and inventive, thanks in part to the "hey it's Saturday let's go in a field and make a movie" feel he instills in the picture - it's very rudimentary, very spur-of-the-moment. He successfully blends in actual footage of combat, planes and destruction with his own characters - often to comical effect - and avoids the excessive logorrhea of his later films (a woman who proudly preaches about Lenin gets shot). One particularly offbeat moment has the 'heroes' of the war bringing home their 'spoils' in a suitcase - postcards of the animals, insects, natural wonders of the world - and divvying them up as if they were 'real.'
