Week-end à Zuydcoote (1964)
Directed by Henri Verneuil

Film Review

Based on the award winning novel by Robert Merle, Week-end à Zuydcoote provides a harrowingly realistic account of one of the darker episodes in World War II - the retreat and decimation of the English and French troops at Dunkirk in June 1940.  Whereas most war films ultimately conclude in glory and victory, this one is resolutely about defeat and loss, offering a sober reminder of the grim reality of war.

Week-end à Zuydcoote is one of director Henri Verneuil's most ambitious and daring films, and should be considered one of his best works.  What makes this film so memorable is that it combines the epic scale of the traditional blockbuster war film with the intimacy of its protagonists' day-to-day experiences.  The film is not concerned with battles between armies of nameless soldiers; instead, it shows how ordinary human beings feel about their predicament - depicting their boredom, frustration, fear and anger - all compressed into a turbulent two day period.

Even though he had only a modest fraction of the resources that would be available to a Hollywood director on a comparable film, Verneuil manages to achieve an astonishingly believable reconstruction of the period.  It is reported that he scoured most of France to find authentic-looking equipment for his film and recruited two thousand extras (mainly dockers and workers at a nearby factory) for the armies of British and French soldiers stranded on the Normandy beaches.

Henri Decaë's sumptuous colour cinematography gives the film a boldly lyrical quality which is superbly complemented by Maurice Jarre's dramatic score - both heighten the audience's involvement in the film and the intensity of the emotional experience.  With its stunning production values and sterling performances from Jean-Paul Belmondo, Catherine Spaak, Jean-Pierre Marielle and Pierre Mondy, Week-end à Zuydcoote is unequivocally one of French cinema's best war films, and one of the few that still bears comparison with similar realistic offerings from Hollywood.

Film Synopsis

Early in June 1940, the battle for France is all but lost.  Overwhelmed by the superiority of the German armies, French and English troops are driven back towards the Normandy coastline.  Their only hope of avoiding a total wipe out is to flee across the channel to England, but there are far too few boats available to transport them, and those that do make it out to sea are under constant attack from the air by German fighter planes.  The beaches are strewn with the sad detritus of war, and all around fires burn as bullets rage, spitting death in all directions.  It is the grimmest scene from the Apocalypse and for decades to come this will be remembered as one of the sorriest episodes in the war.

One of the casualties of this tragedy is a young soldier named Julien Maillat.  Along with many of his comrades, he is caught in an ever-tightening death vice in Dunkirk, fighting a battle that appears increasingly hopeless with ever hour that passes.  Suffering and misery is all around him, and he can only watch helplessly as cargo ships, laden with exhausted and badly wounded soldiers, go up in flames.  Julien is sick of all this but he goes on fighting, even as his comrades fall about him.  His hopes of escape are revived when he saves a young woman Jeanne from being raped by two other soldiers.  Jeanne and Julien realise at once that they are made for one another, but will Fate acknowledge as much?  This we shall soon discover, as the bloody weekend at Zuydcoote reaches its grisly climax...