Every December, Hollywood unleashes the Christmas family films. Last year, it was Fred Claus, a desperately unfunny romp. Before that came Elf and the Santa Clause trilogy and Deck the Halls and a host of other completely forgettable films. All these films drench the,selves in the same shallow paraphenalia of Christmas hokum, the Christmas village at the North Pole, the elves in the toy factory, every house festooned Griswald-fashion with fairy lights, schmaltzy family warmth and so on.
Yet, each year, these films strike me as particularly un-Christmassy. They lack the genuine magic of this holiday, substituting hollow platitudes of family togetherness that strike a maudlin tone.
An Unlikely Christmas Film
For me, the greatest Christmas film of all time (apart from The Muppet Christmas Carol - seriously) is the French film Joyeux Noel. Released in 2005, the film depicts the events of Christmas 1914, as Germans and allied forces laid down their weapons for a spontaneous cease fire.
The Strangest Christmas Mass in History
This particular Christmas is remembered in history for the startling events when Germans rose out of their trenches carrying Christmas trees. They invited the allies to join them and for the rest of Christmas Eve and into Christmas Day they swapped stories, played soccer and shared food and drink.
It was an event never to be repeated as the authorities soon stamped out any future attempts at collusion, but the amazing night of December 24th, 1914 continues to be spoken of as an illustration of the power of the ordinary soldier to resist the push for war.
Although the idea of watching a film set in the trenches of World War One may seem like an odd choice for Christmas, every time I have watched it, I feel the warmth of human bond shared by these soldiers as they realized that they could not desecrate Christmas Eve by fighting.
Although not Christian myself, I was nearly brought to tears when the Scottish army Chaplain held a Christmas Eve Mass in no-man's land to a gathering of three warring armies.
True Christmas Spirit
For me, this film depicts the truth about Christmas. Never mind the tinsel and the food and the presents. Never mind the Nativity (although the Mass is a high-point of the film). The point was that people recognised that this festival was about caring for your neighbours, about sharing hardships together, about love.
So when you settle down this month for a film to put you in the Christmas mood, look past all those gaudy films where the veneer of Christmas lights hides a hollow story of materialism or family disunity. Choose a film that celebrates how warm Christmas can be, even in the coldest of places.
Watch Joyeux Noel.
