The Carabineers (1963) User Reviews

War, What is it Good For...

[Xstal · 6/10 · 30 January 2023]

If you have an inclination to inflict, pain and misery and chaos in conflict, then the army is for you, you can do what you want to, although the outcomes are quite tricky to predict. In victory, however, you can take, as many women you can catch and beat and break, looting other peoples treasure, such reward and so much pleasure, overwhelmed just by the difference you can make. Don't forget all of the sites you'll get to see, as citizens attempt to run and flee, infrastructure now in rubble, as you march through at the double, razing places, to their bases, with such glee.

Will we ever learn!!!

An irritating anti-war fable...

[Nazi_Fighter_David · 6/10 · 17 September 2002]

Similar to Ingmar Bergman's 'Shame' is Godard's powerful parable of war, 'The Riflemen.'

Godard has stated that 'In dealing with war, I followed a very simple rule. I assumed I had to explain to children not only what war is, but what all wars have been from the barbarian invasions to Korean and Algeria, by way of Fontenoy, Trafalgar, and Gettysburg.'

Michelange and Ulysse leave the women when the king's officers come enlist them... They are offered everything... 'Can we loot, burn, rape etc. etc… 'Yes. You can do anything you want,' they are assured... So with rifles on their backs they are off to war...

Like Bergman's film there is no enemy... Both sides wear the same uniform, talk the same language and have the same objectives... Nothing is left out of the film, the hate, the humiliation, the rape, but above all we are impressed by the unending and unrelieved scenery of destruction... There is nothing that is natural or alive in the world of rubble...

Another case where Godard was ahead of his time and miraculously didn't have to disguise it through alienating storytelling devices

[StevePulaski · 8/10 · 29 June 2014]

Les Carabiniers is the fourth feature film French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard made, as he took the sixties by storm with his convention-defying techniques and incredibly layered content that derived greatly from traditionalist French ideas. I can imagine some of the shockwaves this film in particular sent through France and its neighboring lands. The film is essentially a critique of war done with the familiar tunes of satire to some discernible effect. I will say that after watching Godard's incalculably disappointing eight-part series Histoire(s) du Cinéma, sitting down to watch another Godard film wasn't in my best interest, but it paid off considerably this time around.

The film tells the story of two poor souls who are ordered to serve in battle. They are Ulysses (Marino Mase) and Michelangelo (Albert Juross), who were attracted to the job under the false pretenses that it would bring them wealth and sustainable happiness in the world around them. Their wives, Venus and Cleopatra (Catherine Ribeiro and Genevieve Galea) are doing nothing but encouraging them after hearing about the riches that are in order if they do fight. The two men set course for the battlefields, destroying and complicating every situation in their path, recounting their experiences through postcards through their wives that express the horrors and unforeseen ugliness of battle they weren't prepared for.

Watching Les Carabiniers in 2014 America as a teenager, where for more than half of my life my country has been involved in an overseas war, the film undoubtedly expresses ideas that aren't foreign but frighteningly close to home. In a country that provides subpar care and opportunities for its struggling veterans and where families are distraught every day through deaths overseas, the film provides for a painfully familiar idea to people that war is hell and there's no way to sugarcoat it. Even more surprising is that this commentary is pretty extractable because anybody who knows Jean-Luc Godard, clarity and straightforward formulation of thought are not what he likes to do.

There isn't much to say about the film other than it isn't as serious as it may seem; several small chuckles and jokes are made during the film but serious conversations are had between characters that, in turn, replicate a sad reality many have gone on to accept as the norm. This is just one of the many examples of Godard showing that he was ahead of his time and, look, he didn't have to make a message so alienating and ambiguous after all.

Starring: Marino Mase, Albert Juross, Catherine Ribeiro, and Genevieve Galea. Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard.

An Ugly Film on an Ugly Subject

[Krustallos · 7 July 2004]

While this is certainly not Godard's most enjoyable work some of the negative comments here are world-class examples of point-missing.

Godard had already shown with "A Bout de Soufflé" and "Vivre Sa Vie" that he knew how to make a film with style, romance and flair. Therefore it's clear that the crude editing and sound dubbing, continuity lapses, bad acting and overall cheapness on display here were deliberate.

What we seem to have here is "War for Dummies". Godard spells things out as if talking to backward children and absolutely refuses to invest his subject and his protagonists with any sort of spectacle or dignity, both by giving us moronic and unsympathetic characters and by refusing the audience any catharsis or vicarious pleasure.

Francois Truffaut once said that no war movie can be truly anti-war, since the camera automatically aestheticizes its subject. Godard here goes all-out to disprove that thesis.This does of course make the film hard to watch but it's a deliberate slap in the face, not the result of incompetence.

Incidents from many wars are parodied - for example scenes of the women having their hair cut off refer to the treatment of French women who had consorted with Germans during the Occupation. "America" is represented by a car with tail fins and some French tower blocks, in a prefiguring of "Alphaville"s approach to location. Apparently the letters used as intertitles are genuine letters home from French troops in various conflicts, although this does not seem to be made clear in the film.

I tend to agree that this is a film for Godard completists only and certainly not the best place to start with his work. The best comparison to make would be with Alfred Jarry's "Ubu Roi" which takes the same crude approach, and apparently the project started life as a stage play.

See "Weekend" for a similar approach to 'peace', only with a lot more fun and games.

A period piece

[returning · 7/10 · 28 January 2005]

Compare this with "Le Mepris." One is a wonderful meditation on film-making saturated with the director's one personal issues. It shouldn't work, but it does, and spells out a real talent. The other is an absurdest's take on war and the ignorant and animalistic impulses that it spawns. This also shouldn't work, and it doesn't. All the cinema-verity arguments in the world aren't going to change the fact that the film sets out to create a wholly unconvincing argument for the absurdity of war.

Perhaps as a 60's French director, Godard wasn't as immune from the vogue political ideas of the time as we might like to think, and this might be him purging it from his cinematic career. And something might be said for the film as encompassing a movement that the director himself doesn't even need to agree with.

But, as Truffaut pointed out, it may be just as hard to film a satire on war as it is to make a decent adaptation of "The Odyssey."

3 out of 5 - Some interesting elements

Brilliantly Odd

[jgc6690 · 7/10 · 4 June 2005]

As countrymen fight amongst themselves, two farmers join the fight for riches and fame, writing home to their wives with their view of the battle. Godard used actual letters from soldiers in various wars as a backdrop.

The film was originally panned as the worst film ever made. So much so that Godard pulled the film from all distribution. Amusingly thought provoking.

The best scenes in the film come during their fighting for "the king". Unknown enemy, speaking the same language and wearing the same uniforms, Godard successfully blurs the lines of war and reason.

amazing. 9/10

[zetes · 9/10 · 28 April 2001]

What can you say? It's Godard. If you appreciate Godard, his early stuff, particularly, Les Carabiniers fits in perfectly with films such as Breathless, My Life to Live, Une femme est une femme, Band of Outsiders, and Pierrot le fou. It is utterly complicated, and seems to be saying dozens of things at once, none of them becoming clear enough to formulate a satisfactory thesis.

The film starts off with two brothers and their wives living in a shack in the middle of nowhere. Two carabiniers (riflemen) arrive, basically assaulting the four of them. They come with a proposition, though: join the army, be one of them. You get to travel everywhere, and you can do anything you want. What a proposition! The two men join, leaving their wives (tellingly named Cleopatra and Venus) at the shack.

What follows is a fantastical account of war. The characters speak French, but they don't seem to be meant to be any specific nationality. Their supreme commander is "The King." They travel around the world, including Egypt and the USA, killing whoever gets in their way. They play sickening games with their victims. Why? Because they can. They have guns, their victims don't. Between the scenes where our heroes reak havoc, Godard inserts stock footage of real wars. Over the fictional footage, Godard inserts the sound of explosions and gunfire. This lack of realism creates a stunning surrealism.

At first, I was thinking the film was about the fact that your average soldier is an ignoramous with a deadly weapon. Transferred, this speaks illy of the government who willingly supplies its young morons with deadly weapons. One particularly hilarious scene (yes, it has elements of comedy, too) which shows these folks to be country bumpkins occurs when one, Michelangelo, attends a movie, his first ever. It begins with a train arriving at a station, a la L'Arrivée d'un train à la Ciotat, a Lumiere film made in 1895, often regarded as the first film ever made (though it wasn't, not even by the Lumieres). Michelangelo covers his face as it moves forwards on screen, as everyone has heard the first movie patrons ever did (which isn't true, either). The film he watches moves on to a scene where a woman undresses and takes a bath. Michelangelo is so impressed, he jumps up and tries to jump into the action, a la Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. The results are hilarious. I don't think this theme holds up through the whole film, but, c'est le Godard!

Further on, it seems to take more of a Marxist viewpoint (I believe Godard was a Marxist at this point in his career). Two communists ambush the carabiniers at one point, claiming that, though they may be allied with the carabiners' country, they are obliged ideologically to murder capitalists. Here I realized that a large number of aggressive nations during this time were capitalist. Later, near the end, a very long scene serves to criticize capitalism: the boys return home, saying that they have gathered everything in the world for their girlfriends. Yet they carry nothing but one suitcase. Here commences the longest single scene in the film, where the men reveal the contents of their suitcase. They have not collected everything on Earth, per se, but rather photographs of them. For one thing, this depicts Godard's main objective in life: to make us realize that we are watching a film, not involved in any sort of reality. With just photos, the lack of the real objects is even more ironic. Also, most of these objects photographed are objects that can never be owned: natural wonders, man-made wonders, and tons and tons of women, including ones long since dead. This petty ownership of photos (they also call them deeds) is a reductio ad absurdum for capitalism: the most important things in the world are unownable, and thus to own pictures of them is truly absurd.

Filmed by Godard like an indepenedent movie

[jordondave-28085 · 7/10 · 12 June 2023]

1963) Les Carabiniers (In French with English subtitles) WAR

Adapted from a play by Beniamino Joppolo which is a low budget, but still effective anti-war movie co-written and directed by "Breathless" director Jean Luc Godard. Aforementioned the film is low budget and uses actual war footage very effectively backing it up with quotations/ quotes and expressions to generalize the film throughout. But what I really like is the film portraying the main characters to be gullible but loyal soldiers but are far deemed to be moral characters anyway but eventually get their comeuppance even though the film does drag in some parts for a film that's an hour and a half.

Why ?

[grizzli-2 · 10/10 · 8 August 2004]

I don't understand how or why this movie was so much criticized. I just saw it on DVD and found it excellent. It's completely different of what Godard usually does : I tend to be a little disturbed by his systematic use of quotations (a good example is the recent "Eloge de l'amour"), and there is no such thing in "Les Carabiniers". The dialogs are completely pure, and there is a very clever use of enumerations, which seldom happens in a movie. Great scenes, like when the girl demands to tell a poem before she's executed, when Michel-Ange discovers the cinema, when Ulysse and Michel-Ange show Cléopâtre and Vénus the treasures they brought back from war... It's simple and beautiful.

Boring and Annoying

[claudio_carvalho · 5/10 · 21 August 2009]

During a war, the poor and ignorant brothers Ulysses (Marino Mase) and Michel-Ange (Albert Juross) are lured and recruited by two soldiers that promise wealth to them in the name of their King. The greedy wife of Ulysses Cleopatre (Catherine Ribeiro) and her daughter Venus (Geneviève Galéa) ask them to enlist to pursue fortune. They travel to Italy and become unscrupulous criminals of war. When Ulysses is wounded in one eye, he returns home with Michel-Ange and a small bag full of postcards of famous locations and the promise that they would be entitled of the properties in the end of the war. However, when the King signs the peace treaty with their enemy, they find that the agreement was actually surrender and they have a prize to pay for their actions.

"Les Carabiniers" is another boring and annoying movie of Jean-Luc Godard. The anti-war message uses a black humor that might work for fans of this director, but unfortunately I did not like it. The gorgeous Geneviève Galéa is the mother of the wonderful Emmanuelle Béart, one of the most sexy, talented and beautiful French actresses. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Tempo de Guerra" ("Time of War")

Effectively captures both reality and unreality of war (Spoilers)

[gabriel_morrison · 9/10 · 30 November 2004]

One of the main things to bear in mind when watching Les Carabiniers is the context in which the film was made. Le Mépris, widely regarded as Godard's finest film, was made in the same year 1963; and it is clear in Le Mépris how much time was spent to attain perfection in composition. So Les Carabiniers can be seen as something of an experiment a rough and ready look at one of life's grittiest subjects, war, a stark contrast to the passion of Le Mépris.

The intertitles play a very important role in the film, both enabling communication between the soldiers and their wives and giving an important sense of passing time. The handwriting used gives a sense of personal feeling but at the same time the often short and factual text always addressed 'On', as if the feelings of both brothers can be captured in a few words, renders them highly impersonal. The other interesting quirk is the final intertitle being handwritten despite it clearly not being written by the brothers making it almost an epitaph.

The cohesive device of postcards is important in the film, one is used to encourage the brothers to join, the postcards that are acquired by the end of their service are for them the riches of the world and the way in which they are thrown into the air makes them seem almost like the money they are seeking in a scene borrowed from heist films. Godard also uses the postcard collection to be a brief encyclopedia of the world through methods of transport, animals, monuments etc. ultimately trivialising it though into something only worth a few seconds of attention.

The slightly broader device of images and art is seen throughout the film, the vanity in the wives created by the magazines is clearly frowned upon; their names Cleopatre and Venus clearly demonstrating what they aspire to. The excitement with which they greet the new magazines and subsequent humour when the underwear adverts are held up to their bodies demonstrates a clear disdain for the materialism which they encourage. The artwork that the brothers see in a house that they pillage however is treated with the utmost respect, and Michel-Ange utters the words "un soldat salut un artiste". This really means two things, that contemporary popular life contributes nothing to culture, and maybe a personal comment from Godard on the necessity of education in artistic appreciation.

The anti-materialistic message can also be seen in the attitude of the wives, in encouraging their husbands to go and fight and in their reception of their husbands on their return, asking first of all where their treasures are.

The mis en scene plays a very important role in the atmosphere of the film; the techniques used being almost the antithesis of the polished style of Hollywood. The camera is virtually never static and Godard appears not to have used a tripod on the whole even in the establishing shots, this gives the film a sense of realism and almost documentary style where the camera is following the action as it happens. The poor quality film stock adds to this, shunning both colour and resolution to give an unglamourous view of war.

The editing of the film is also very unusual; some cuts seem to break down the continuation of relation that is understood in the grammar of cinema. One of the slightly odder examples is when Ulysses is seen in a medium close-up firing his rifle into the air there is then a cut to library footage of plane taken from another plane, and a quick cut back to Ulysses suggesting that he was firing at the plane when the images seem so clearly disassociated. Another example is when one of the carabiniers at the end of the film says "Je vais vous expliquer" in a shot where he can be seen with the two brothers in a medium shot, there's then an edit with a few empty frames and a close up of the carabinier repeating the same line. The sound is very often dubbed a few frames too soon or late and there is often no sound at all when ambient sound would be appropriate. The disjointed nature seems to be a distinct and deliberate effort to make the filming of war as brutal as possible.

The reality of the war is something quite interesting and strange in the film as only two of the enemy soldiers are seen during the first 45 minutes of the film, there are however many seemingly innocent civilians harassed and killed. In fact the only time that actual fire fights are seen taking place is after the war is over for the two brothers and they are out to get their rewards, the only point at which they no longer have their rifles. The scene in which they are killed by one of the carabiniers suddenly reverses the contempt the audience has towards the brothers in that they have only signed up as mercenaries with no care to what they are doing, seeking to use to army to fulfill their material desires. It is then clear that in fact they have been used to satisfy the desire of the king, and this leaves a very bitter taste in the mouths of the audience.

The film is however not entirely depressing, and the scene in which Michel-Ange discovers cinema is one of the most enjoyable. The film was described by one critic at the time a homage to Lumière's films, and while it can be seen in the visual style throughout the film, the short in which a train can be seen entering a station and provokes a reaction of fear from Michel-Ange is a more direct link. The scene in which he falls through the screen while trying to interact with the film, is something that anyone who has ever seen a film will understand and sympathies with, conveying a palpable sense of naivety.

There are many quirks in the film that are never really explained but serve to illustrate the bizarre situations that war creates. The sequence with the Mexican woman, the fireworks display filmed in negative, the mysterious other man with the wives who scurries away upon the return of the brothers and the poem recited by the girl in front of the firing squad.

Using a combination of humour, the march down the frozen river, and pathos, the newsreel footage of dead soldiers, Godard effectively conveys the reality and unreality of war and most importantly in the end how no one benefits.

Such a bad film

[DumaNV · 2/10 · 13 March 2004]

After catching this film on Turner Movie Classics last night I wondered what all the fuss was about. I remember hearing and reading about this film in the 70's and 80's as being one of the great grand-daddy's of anti-war genre. After sitting though it, all 85 minutes of agony, and hoping that every minute that this film will get better, I realized that this is simply a poor film. My expectations were higher, considering what these writers/directors had produced (Jules and Jim, Contempt, Weekend, The Wild Child, etc.) but what came out was worse than some sort of no or low budget sophomoric attempt to make a statement that fails. Even the attempt at humor, one of the brothers at his first movie, became a very cheap and childish shadow of Chaplin.

About 1/3 of the way through I simply gave up caring about either one of the brothers (or their moronic wives) and stuck with the film simply because I hoped that there would something that would elevate it from putting it the same class as two 10 year olds who got a hold of daddy's movie camera. It never did. Even the cast members who had lesser roles, the car salesman, the Italian woman, the communist girl, etc., all looked as bored as I felt. The young communist girl actually looked happy to be killed just so she could get out of this mess.

Plan 9 From Outer Space, move over.

don't expect breathless the sequel

[lolita27 · 13 April 2004]

throughout his work in the early to mid-sixties, jean luc godard rode the nouvelle vague by employing and twisting the classic features of a specific film genre. examples of this are his sci-fi (alphaville), and his beloved gangster film (breathless).

when examining les carabiniers, his take on the war movie, one must see godard's purpose in two parts; one, as an anti-war movie, and two, as an anti-war-movie movie.

that is, in addition to the visual social commentary which displays the standard horrific shots of dismemberment and destruction, godard uses the structural components of his film as a whole to mock films along the lines of 'private ryan'.

this means that he refuses to use the concept of war as something that will prove to provide the viewer with any degree of vicarious pleasure, whether that pleasure be derived from identification with a noble lead (which is surely why he has ulysses and michelangelo be such jackasses), beautiful glimmering visuals, (hence the low-caliber film stock), or enjoyable montage and pacing (akin to the conclusive lengthy postcard recounting).

to end this brief rebuff to those who compare this film to tomb raider, i will quote critic david steritt, who states that in les carabiniers, godard refuses to turn aggression into commodification.

one of the best anti-war films made.Vive la France!

[leybarsinister · 10/10 · 1 November 2003]

What an amazing film.From the opening notes of the military march, to the final scene,this is a harrowing ride through the landscapes of "soldiers pay."There is nothing slick or overproduced here,thank Godard. The use of actual letters from French soldiers in wars from 1812 to ww2, is a masterstroke that effectively ties the scenes together.This could be a documentary and is done in this style.This works very well with the vintage newsreel images that are also used to tie the scenes.If you are looking for a RAMBO type war -adventure,go rent a Chuck Norris film.If you are a serious fan of the war/anti-war genre,do not miss this one!

a film that challenges audience's expectations to the conventions of a war film

[Quinoa1984 · 9/10 · 2 March 2006]

One of Godard's better films from the 60's, which like a number of his films from his prime era is usually either liked a lot or detested to hell, is almost audience-dividing on purpose. His film is a black comedy that sometimes is (successfully) deceptively a bleak drama of corruption of the working man in times of War. Stylistically it is Godard all the way, though one can't disregard the likely significant contributions (though it may be hard to detect since it IS Godard's mouth all over the pie so to speak) of screenwriters Jean Gurault (usually Truffaut's co-writer), and (apparently) Roberto Rossellini.

Rossellini, who was one of Godard's big influences, is countered by what was also a big influence likely on this picture, Samuel Fuller, the king of B War pictures. So one could look at the quasi-split of ideals in the film, of Rossellini's documentary style of telling it like it is, crossed with Fuller's hard professionalism and no-holds- barred view of War.

Whomever influence comes through stronger, this is really Godard's show, and has here something that is fairly usual in terms of his challenging styles and criticizing past films (including Truffaut with his own comments on War depicted in film), but also is unique for how it is presented, and makes it a difficult, though rewarding experience. This is the French new-wave equivalent, to put it another way, to Sam Mendes's Jarhead; you're not sure if this really should be classified as a typical 'war' film, despite being in a league of other films already in place.

One thing that is as fascinating as it is occasionally frustrating is Godard's main male actors, Albert Muross and Marino Mase, are not very expressive, and of course are not really 'actors' in the traditional sense (at least at the time they were close to un- professionals). But maybe that is what's needed, dumb farm boys who are propogandized into going to fight for their invading, nameless country; the opening scenes of the list of things the men will get is equally funny and troubling.

Then the boys go off to war, and there is a really astute episodic kind of storytelling used, which works considering the short time length. One scene that really stood out was when one of the soldiers goes to see his first film ever, and is almost like some kind of primate seeing a woman disrobing on a screen (it's also arguably the funniest scene in the film). When the boys come home they are loaded with pictures, in a scene that is the one that almost had me questioning if it was either really good or really too long; the length of the list of pictures is like a litmus test for moviegoers- can you take all of these images, done almost to make a point that's not too clear?

But what makes Les Carabiniers work for me is how it is so un-like other war films that it stands alone on its own terms, like a French new-wave Dr. Strangelove (though maybe not a masterpiece like that one). At times I wasn't totally sure where the satire started or ended, and there is a certain distance that Godard places with his many long-shots getting in as much landscape as tanks and soldiers with their guns. What's surprising is how the tone is always assured, which is crucial considering this is a story told through the side of the invaders this time, men working under their elusive King for land and riches and wealth.

One of the best scenes I may have seen in any Godard film is when they have a woman who is at first thought to be 'a friend' of the soldiers, but then goes off on a Leninist rant. The men are about to shoot her, but can't for a few minutes, as the words she says strike some kind of chord in their primal mindsets. Amid montages of archive footage of planes flying and bombs dropping, there's a scene that would never ever be in any 'conventional' war picture.

There's a real thought process going on here, and even if it's got some of Godard's usual 'f*** you, it's my style, take it or leave it' attitude, it's not totally un-accessible either. It's a slim volume of gritty anti-War pathos, and it's maybe a tad under-rated in the director's massive catalog.

Light effort from Godard

[rcraig62 · 3/10 · 21 November 2002]

Saw this film on TCM this past Friday and found it to be a weak effort attempting to be a powerful anti-war statement. Two uniformed French militia break into the home of this small family living in the French boonies and press the men into service with promises of untold wealth and plunder. They decide it sounds like a good deal and join the King's army. From there, we see them engage in the various pointless exploits of war until the King makes peace and their dreams of fortune turn to nothing.

This film attempts to be a serious commentary on the nihilism of war but is executed without much depth. The two "list" scenes in the movie, (the riflemen detailing each item of plunder at the soldier's disposal and the French soldiers returning home with a suitcase full of snapshots of their travels), lasted, I would estimate, about a hundred years, and if you remove them from the film, the running time is about 9 minutes. Couple of good scenes (a titillating film being watched in small theatre and a pretty blonde revolutionary getting blown away by firing squad) but not enough to recommend this film. For better Godard, see Breathless or Le Petit Soldat. Leave this klunker in the discount rack. *1/2*

Effectively captures both reality and unreality of war

[gabriel_morrison · 9/10 · 30 November 2004]

One of the main things to bear in mind when watching Les Carabiniers is the context in which the film was made. Le Mépris, widely regarded as Godard's finest film, was made in the same year 1963; and it is clear in Le Mépris how much time was spent to attain perfection in composition. So Les Carabiniers can be seen as something of an experiment a rough and ready look at one of life's grittiest subjects, war, a stark contrast to the passion of Le Mépris.

The intertitles play a very important role in the film, both enabling communication between the soldiers and their wives and giving an important sense of passing time. The handwriting used gives a sense of personal feeling but at the same time the often short and factual text always addressed 'On', as if the feelings of both brothers can be captured in a few words, renders them highly impersonal. The other interesting quirk is the final intertitle being handwritten despite it clearly not being written by the brothers making it almost an epitaph.

The cohesive device of postcards is important in the film, one is used to encourage the brothers to join, the postcards that are acquired by the end of their service are for them the riches of the world and the way in which they are thrown into the air makes them seem almost like the money they are seeking in a scene borrowed from heist films. Godard also uses the postcard collection to be a brief encyclopedia of the world through methods of transport, animals, monuments etc. ultimately trivialising it though into something only worth a few seconds of attention.

The slightly broader device of images and art is seen throughout the film, the vanity in the wives created by the magazines is clearly frowned upon; their names Cleopatre and Venus clearly demonstrating what they aspire to. The excitement with which they greet the new magazines and subsequent humour when the underwear adverts are held up to their bodies demonstrates a clear disdain for the materialism which they encourage. The artwork that the brothers see in a house that they pillage however is treated with the utmost respect, and Michel-Ange utters the words "un soldat salut un artiste". This really means two things, that contemporary popular life contributes nothing to culture, and maybe a personal comment from Godard on the necessity of education in artistic appreciation.

The anti-materialistic message can also be seen in the attitude of the wives, in encouraging their husbands to go and fight and in their reception of their husbands on their return, asking first of all where their treasures are.

The mis en scene plays a very important role in the atmosphere of the film; the techniques used being almost the antithesis of the polished style of Hollywood. The camera is virtually never static and Godard appears not to have used a tripod on the whole even in the establishing shots, this gives the film a sense of realism and almost documentary style where the camera is following the action as it happens. The poor quality film stock adds to this, shunning both colour and resolution to give an unglamourous view of war.

The editing of the film is also very unusual; some cuts seem to break down the continuation of relation that is understood in the grammar of cinema. One of the slightly odder examples is when Ulysses is seen in a medium close-up firing his rifle into the air there is then a cut to library footage of plane taken from another plane, and a quick cut back to Ulysses suggesting that he was firing at the plane when the images seem so clearly disassociated. Another example is when one of the carabiniers at the end of the film says "Je vais vous expliquer" in a shot where he can be seen with the two brothers in a medium shot, there's then an edit with a few empty frames and a close up of the carabinier repeating the same line. The sound is very often dubbed a few frames too soon or late and there is often no sound at all when ambient sound would be appropriate. The disjointed nature seems to be a distinct and deliberate effort to make the filming of war as brutal as possible.

The reality of the war is something quite interesting and strange in the film as only two of the enemy soldiers are seen during the first 45 minutes of the film, there are however many seemingly innocent civilians harassed and killed. In fact the only time that actual fire fights are seen taking place is after the war is over for the two brothers and they are out to get their rewards, the only point at which they no longer have their rifles. The scene in which they are killed by one of the carabiniers suddenly reverses the contempt the audience has towards the brothers in that they have only signed up as mercenaries with no care to what they are doing, seeking to use to army to fulfill their material desires. It is then clear that in fact they have been used to satisfy the desire of the king, and this leaves a very bitter taste in the mouths of the audience.

The film is however not entirely depressing, and the scene in which Michel-Ange discovers cinema is one of the most enjoyable. The film was described by one critic at the time a homage to Lumière's films, and while it can be seen in the visual style throughout the film, the short in which a train can be seen entering a station and provokes a reaction of fear from Michel-Ange is a more direct link. The scene in which he falls through the screen while trying to interact with the film, is something that anyone who has ever seen a film will understand and sympathies with, conveying a palpable sense of naivety.

There are many quirks in the film that are never really explained but serve to illustrate the bizarre situations that war creates. The sequence with the Mexican woman, the fireworks display filmed in negative, the mysterious other man with the wives who scurries away upon the return of the brothers and the poem recited by the girl in front of the firing squad.

Using a combination of humour, the march down the frozen river, and pathos, the newsreel footage of dead soldiers, Godard effectively conveys the reality and unreality of war and most importantly in the end how no one benefits.

lousy, even when judged on it's own terms, but typical godard

[themadstork · 3/10 · 12 April 2006]

Godard might very well have set out to make an anti-war movie with Truffaut's comment that a truly anti-war film was impossible in mind, but even judged solely as an anti-war statement this film's a failure. Why? Well for one thing, Truffaut may have been a genius, but on this score he was certainly wrong. There definitely is a danger of aestheticizing anything you put on film, especially if you do it well (think of just how beautiful Sam Peckinpah can make a massacre), but aestheticizing war doesn't mean you can't successfully make an anti-war film. Think of "The Bridge on the River Kwai," "The Grand Illusion," or the more recent "Downfall." All are fairly conventional war films and none of them exactly make one want to go out and enlist. "The Grand Illusion," and to a lesser extent "Bridge on the River Kwai," paint a romantic picture of war only to undercut it later. You can't help coming away from those films with the message that, while there might be some nobility in war and the ideals that allow men to fight, both war and the ideals that motivate it are a form of madness. "Downfall" is a completely conventional war film, but it never makes war look like anything other than dirty, terrifying and completely insane. And to me this seems exactly the way one should make an anti-war film. Engage in dialogue with those who might find some nobility in war, admit their point, and try to show what's wrong with it while admitting its appeal; or show just how ugly, brutal, dehumanizing, and insane war is with as much realism as you possibly can. "Les Carbiniers" does neither. It's a smug statement aimed at those who already think that all war is wrong and anyone who fights in one degenerate and evil. People in that camp will no doubt find much to agree with, though little to entertain them, but anyone not so convinced will probably just be bored and angry. And who is it one's trying to reach with an anti-war movie anyway? In the end Godard succeeds too well at making an ugly film. Everyone here is either thoroughly nasty, helpless, or silly. It's kind of like Evelyn Waught at his nastiest, only not nearly as funny. In the scene where the captured partisans are shot Godard seems to me to mock the very idea of human dignity. But what is it that makes war so bad? Isn't it that people get killed? If people are as worthless as this film makes out, who really cares if they get killed? Even Waugh didn't' go quite so far; one always found a few noble fools here and there. The movie isn't a total wash. It might not be Waugh, but it is nastily funny here and there, and Godard was a pretty good craftsman when it came to film. Unfortunately, when you get down to it, this might be Godard's most characteristic film. Godard and Truffaut are often linked, but really ther films aren't alike. With Truffaut one always finds sympathy for his characters and there's just a certain warmth and light touch that permeate almost everything he did. One certainly doesn't find that in Godard. Yes there's craft and cleverness here, but also coldness, cynicism, and a failure to understand, or possibly care about, basic human emotion. To me that's what's characteristic of Godard; it's on display even in Godard's "more accessible" (I'd say "better") films like "Band of Outsiders," but nowhere is it clearer than in "Les Carabiniers," which might make it the best Godard film to start with if you really want to get an idea of the man and his work. Truffaut was a humanist in the true sense of the term, whereas Godard, like too many French intellectuals, subscibes to Ivan Karamazov's line: He loves humanity (in the abstract of course) and hates human beings.

An excellent anti-war effort

[acorral-1 · 10/10 · 18 May 2005]

Godard is considered on of the best directors ever and this is a good example why. The illogical stupidity of war is well reflected in a very illogical screenplay. The director made a deep reflection of things around the war. Stupid arguments to join the army like everything is permitted: to ripe, to steal, to kill innocents, to have a lot of richness, to visit different countries, to have immunity because a letter from the king. Then when the men of the house were convinced to join the king's army started a very interesting sequences where they are describing brutalities of the combats with an apparently cold blood. Actually we can see the handwriting on screen: "We shoot the rebels on the head, we bury them in a common hole, when is full just put some soil on the top". The movie continues in a series of sequences between the two male main characters (Michel Angelo and Ulyses, performed by Albert Juross and Marino Mase, respectively) and the two females at home (Catherine Ribeiro and Genieveve Galea, Cleopatre and Venus). The contact between them is the letters and postcards, where they described a lot of war insanities.

A good sequence occurs when Michel Angelo meets the movies for the first time. He is almost in the front and he reacts with the events in the screen: he feels terrified when the train is arriving to the station and he wanted to "see more" when the young lady is taking a shower. The end is probably the most coherent result of the incoherences showed. The two guys returned home with nothing but postcards as the only richness they obtained and cruel dead at the hands of the men (the rifle men) who recruited them in the first place. At the end war, is so absurd that only absurd things could result of it.

This film was written by Jean-Luc Godard with Roberto Rosellini, based in the homonym play by Beniammino Joppolo. In the natural way of Godard's early films, his technique is full of direct cuts and against Hollywood standards: the camera follows the action and there is no real sequence between the shots. Anyhow the result is superb. If you like different proposals with lot of criticism and situations to make you think and you are against the war and stupidity you will like this movie, if not, well make your conclusions.

Perfect

[chace-2 · 10/10 · 10 March 2007]

Jean Rouch has called this movie, the best anti war movie ever. He points out that the anti-epic character of the movie comes most close to the character of war, because war also works really anti-epic, too. So I really can't understand why the first comment to this movie on this page, which is really foolish and just shows that its writer has no idea of movies at all, isn't removed!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It insults the work of a genius.

Poor

[Michael_Elliott · 28 February 2008]

Carabiniers, Les (1963)

* (out of 4)

Um, okay. Jean-Luc Godard film about two farmers who are picked by the King to join the war. The two aren't that interested at first but soon become very interested when they're promised that they can rape, murder, steal from and torture anyone they please since "that's what war is all about". I've seen plenty of anti-war film but there's no doubt this is the worst of the bunch. I'm going to go out on a limb and say this film is directed well since there's no way in hell, not even Ed Wood, could have made a film like this without it being on purpose. I wasn't shocked to learn that this film was bashed and bombed when it was first released in France only to gain popularity four years later in America. With all the anti-Vietnam stuff going on there's no wonder they ate this film up. The whole message was just downright stupid and if it was meant as satire then it didn't come off too well. The only nice scene is one where one of the soldiers goes to the movies for the first time. I wouldn't even call this thing technically well made like the previous film I watched. Compared to Paths of Glory this sucker is on the level of an Ed Wood film.

War Is Swell

[wes-connors · 5/10 · 22 June 2012]

Two soldiers arrive in a poor, desolate French-speaking area. They initially threaten, then announce "The King" needs troops for war. Recruited into service are taller, cigar-smoking Marino Mase (as Ulysses) and shorter, cigarette-smoking Albert Juross (as Michel-Ange). The brothers are promised cars, women and all imaginable riches will be their reward for service. Moreover, being war soldiers allows them to steal slot machines, break a kid's arm, burn towns, and massacre innocent people. They will even be allowed to eat at restaurants and not pay. The new soldiers happily start out killing people, but get world-weary after three years of service. When the war ends, the men own postcards of the world's landmarks. Lastly, they receive a surprise...

Jean-Luc Godard essays a point-of-view more accomplished elsewhere. Granted, some famous critics have praised this one. The scene involving Michel-Ange's first visit to a cinema was the highlight. He wants to get a better look at a blonde in her bathtub. This scene can be removed from the film without altering the narrative in the slightest; enjoy it as a short.

***** Les carabiniers (5/31/63) Jean-Luc Godard ~ Marino Mase, Albert Juross, Genevieve Galea, Catherine Ribeiro

9.20.2023

[EasonVonn · 10/10 · 20 September 2023]

Godard made a war movie with a rather comical, one might say absurd, protagonist. Against the backdrop of the absurdity, which can be described as stupidity, the protagonist's desires are arguably infinitely amplified, linking human evil to desire, accentuating the horrors of war, and also here orienting the instigator to the hypocritical king.

I was touched to the heart by a scene in which a communist memorizes a poem and stands up for himself without hiding his political leanings, as well as the deeply saddening shot of multiple shots fired even after he is killed later in the film.

The cinema shots are also quite classic and seem to pay homage to many of the films that changed cinema history, such as Train in the Station and one of eating outside symbolized by the background moving I forget what it's called.

Very.

Les Cabiniers

[shannon-weiss · 5/10 · 22 October 2008]

While watching Les Carabiniers it is immediately evident that Godard is making a statement in an individualistic way. Is it a satirical portrait of society at war, a black comedy poking fun at realistic drama, or an experimental project through which Godard exercising his right to redefine himself and his cinematic style? The film is undeniably a combination of all three. Two military officers arrive at a shack which, surrounded by barren land in every direction, is home to two men and their supposed wives. The officers blind the foursome with promises of riches and glory stating, "in the current times… the police should learn to distract the population." The two men enlist and trot off to war, eager to "slaughter the innocent" and learn of "worldly women". A series of detached scenes ensues, illustrating the nature of war as the duo execute their plan to murder and misuse. Postcards arrive at home telling the women of their bloody exploits. The absurdity of war is made clear by the end of the film when the King loses the war, the men return home penniless, and life goes on much as it did before – perhaps with a slightly more bitter tinge. While the film makes a political statement it is perhaps not as enjoyable to watch if one is not well versed in or highly admirable of Godard's work.

Worst Movie I've Seen All Year

[charlieprince · 12 December 2001]

I had thought Tomb Raider was the worst movie I'd see all year until seeing this. The descriptions in the other comments are probably sufficient to describe whatever exists of the "plot." All of the scenes are intentionally absurd, although without the kind of effect this technique has in, say, The Idiots.

Many of the scenes are painfully long without meaning, and feel like filler, which is surprising given that the movie is allegedly short. The worst instance of this comes towards the end, with the 20 minute sequence of laying down postcards one at a time in front of the camera, with a voice-over saying "Boat, airplane, bicycle...." The humor of the situation, and the attempt to poke fun at capitalism, is effective for the first minute or so, and very obvious, but the rest is just unwatchable.

Next, the acting is awful. The main characters are consistent, if boringly one-sided, but many of the characters they interact with performed so poorly it distracts from the film. In one scene where some prisoners are being shot, there is a two to three second lapse between when the gun goes off, and when the girl being shot (about 15 feet away from the gun) jumps/jolts as if she'd just been shot, and then slumps. It's hard to believe that this sort of stuff was intentional, as Godard was clearly trying to make a political statement, not an Ace Ventura slapstick comedy, although in instances it unwittingly gets closer to the latter.

The editing is what really got me though. The pathetic use of stock footage makes Ed Wood look impressive. The attempts to merge the pictures of a small handful of people running, supposedly in battle, with stock footage shots of tanks and planes, felt like a Saturday Night Live skit spoofing the stock footage. And the overuse of stock footage reminded me of the infamous B-movie "Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster" with endless collages of stock footage, interspersed with shots of 3 or 4 people and a cardboard-looking tank. The worst example, and completely unexcusable, is a scene where the star pulls the hat off of a girl who has ambushed him, and then the film cuts to a close-up of the girl's head -- and the hat's back on her! It's like Godard wasn't even trying to make a decent film.

In the end, I don't think the film got beyond an unsophisticated grunt "War is stupid, capitalism is stupid." Whatever cheerleading pop-culture value the film may have had during it's time, today it's an utter waste of a movie, with an inexcusable plot, wooden and boring characters, awful acting, and editing that would get an F in a basic film 101 class.