Les vainqueurs

SYNOPSIS

After writing The Bridge on the River Kwai and writing/producing The Guns of Navarone, Carl Foreman was ready to make his big statement as a director. The result is this, one of the most ambitious war movies ever made, designed to show how war degrades people on all sides. A shot of victors and vanquished - both exhausted and looking like vagrants - rams home the point. Subtlety was never on Foreman's agenda and three hours of episodic hectoring and ironic twists of fate do get a bit wearisome. However, there are some stunning sequences such as a firing squad in the snow with Frank Sinatra's Have Yourself a Merry Christmas on the soundtrack.