Their motives for joining these colonial regiments are diverse, except they are united in one belief - that they are fighting for their 'mere patrie', the motherland - a country they have never seen and with which they share very little (race, colour, religion). They think they are fighting for liberty, fraternity and equality. This is despite the fact that they are never going to be promoted, paid well, given leave, given good rations, or be welcomed in the same way as the French troops. All the officers are French (or pretend they are, hiding their true ethnicity) most Algerian and Moroccan troops don't even rise to become private soldiers - they are lower than non-combatant French enlisted men.
The group fight through Italy, go to Marseilles, work their way up mainland France - where one falls in love with a French woman - but their correspondence is intercepted and the romance is doomed.
The group of soldiers end up as the advance guard in an Alsation village, fighting to the last. They have been led there by a Corporal who is duped into believing the promises of promotion, good pay and esteem. He believes that after the War the French African colonies will achieve their independence and achieve the liberty, equality and most importantly the fraternity promised by the French consitution. In 1959 (after the Algerian War) all these soldiers had their pensions frozen, and although a law reversing this was passed at the start of this century no French government has felt able to implement the proposition.
My rating? A tremendous 9/10. Go see it!
It has now joined my top ten of 2007 films - look in my earlier post.
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