Wooden Crosses is an important and significant film. It ranks with Kubricks ‘Paths Of Glory’, Losey’s ‘King and Country’ and Peter Weirs ‘Gallipolli’ as one of the most profound examinations of the madness of the Great War. Like those films it focuses on the foot soldiers who bore the brunt of the conditions, and here Bernard keeps it simple and effective by staying with a small company and the situations they face together. Like it’s German themed counterpart ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’ this is the story of a fresh faced young man new to the front. Demarchy (Pierre Blanchard) joins the battle hardened veterans and is soon moved from a quiet section behind the lines, where they are enjoying some much needed recovery time to a frontline trench that is having an exposives mine dug underneath by the Germans.
The pressure, not surprisingly, is too much for some, and the mens lot is to share the trenches with tension and death.

The irony of a running battle that culminates with the death of the well respected sergeant in a cemetary is just one of the insightful vignettes Bernard captures. His death speech is remarkable in it’s candour and honesty, no trite sentiment here. A Church where they pause for worship has a mass being conducted on one side and horrific injuries being treated on the other, religion seems hopelessly ineffective when faced with this human calamity.

The soldiers know that the generals may see military glory and honour in winning a Croix De Guerre, but the only cross they are likely to win is a wooden one. The reality of the Western front is something the French people still live with, ploughed fields are still yielding metal that typically took a million shells in a week long artillery bombardment, prior to a mad dash across no mans land. One third of the British shells were reported to be duds. Futile infantry charges are mounted, gains of hundreds of yards are measured in thousands of dead and wounded. The shame of the generals and politicians is not only that it started, but that it went on for so long. The battle scenes are incredibly vibrant and convincing, made just 13 years after the war ended, it seemed that those involved wanted to tell how it was so future generations would understand. The visual effects are poetic and graceful, and the Criterion DVD presentation of the French restoration is stunning. Raymond Bernard made a film as important as ‘The Grand Illusion’ with ‘Wooden Crosses’, something to sear itself into the heart of humankind, something to remind us of the madness and the losses, something to help stiffen our resolve when the politicians suggest confrontation is the solution and we say, never again.