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Comment by vmception | Hacker News Reader

I saw a French movie about a French soldier in Vietnam set in 1945

I was also in France at the time when viewing the movie, it was very surreal in so many ways to be empathizing for a protagonist on one of the enemy sides - from an American perspective as I am an American.

But I had never seen anything depicted about that war decades before the US got involved.

I had never seen a war movie produced outside of Hollywood. Or a director with primarily french influences producing a war movie.

It was sensual, horrific, erotic, fascinating. I dont think it would get greenlit by American studios. Maybe some streaming services have it though.

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> I had never seen a war movie produced outside of Hollywood. Or a director with primarily french influences producing a war movie.

Not sure if the stipulation is a war movie about Vietnam, or just plain a war movie. But certainly here's a list of some non-U.S. 20th century war movies, very vivid, biased towards France:

The Battle of Algiers (French, Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)

Come and See (Russian, Elem Klimov, 1985)

Ivan's Childhood (Russian, Andrei Tarkovsky, 1962)

Beau Travail (French, Claire Denis, 1999) -- OK, soldiers but not war

Army of Shadows (French, Jean-Pierre Melville, 1969)

A Man Escaped (French, Robert Bresson, 1956) -- POW, not front lines

Little Dieter Needs To Fly (British/French/German?, Werner Herzog, 1997) -- actually relates to the war in Vietnam

Thanks! These are new to me

A Man Escaped

SPOILER

- is that the one where the pow makes it to the front lines and gets shot by his own side who assume he's German, since he was disguised?

"Centurions" movie and more importantly the novel by the same name on which movie is based, written by Richard Lopteguy, offers an incredible French perspective of Vietnam experience including the demoralising defeat at Dien Bien Phu.

There are some depictions of the French occupation of Vietnam in the beginning of "We Were Soldiers".

Also Apocalypse Now extended cut has a part with the French elite still trying to live their old privileged life. I get why it's cut from a writing perspective, but it shows some important context.

Also The Quiet American

What is the name of the film?

I need to look it up from the time and place I was there, I'll edit if I find it in two hours or make a separate comment

edit: Les Confins du Monde (English: To the Ends of the World), 2018, directed by Guillaume Nicloux

I'm not immediately seeing where to stream it, I would really like to view it again! With English subtitles!

Thank you.

You're right, doesn't seem to be streaming yet. https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/to-the-ends-of-the-world

A DVD is available on Amazon without subtitles.

The first step

War movies produced in Israel are also a distinctly different experience from American ones.

They tend to be made by veterans of those wars, after the ~20 year gap that seems pretty standard for the PTSD barrier to crack. e.g. the best ones made about the Lebanon War (what Israel calls its intervention 1982-2000 in the Lebanese Civil War) all came out within a couple of years of each other:

* Lebanon (2009)

* Waltz with Bashir (2008)

* Beaufort (2007)

And the first of the good Yom Kippur War (1973) films is probably Kippur (2000), with the long-development-time miniseries Valley of Tears (Sha'at Ne'ila) only coming out last year.

Not quite enough time has passed for films about the heaviest fighting of the 2nd Intifada to be made - the closest thing I can think of is the TV show Fauda (2015-present) but that's a somewhat different genre.

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