Die Wächterinnen

Xavier Beauvois just does the most beautiful films. As with Of Gods and Men, The Guardians is full of quiet dignity and humanity, and it gets the emotions just right. There are so many films about the battlefront, it's great to see one focussed on the scene back home and on women's work, their hopes, their endurance, their grief, and even their betrayals. The pace is slow, and follows the events of the narrative as much as the seasons and the labour they entail. Beauvois is someone who takes the time to show people who are not often seen on screen go about their everyday life, their toil. When do we get to see women shovelling dirt, feeding fodder to cattle, or doing the harvest? It's sometimes hard to believe this takes place between 1916-20 and the contrast with our post-post-modern world is all the more valuable. We're lucky that a director of such talent chooses topics like this for his work.

Photography is beautiful and the actors do their best with a script which is anaemic in comparison with the novel on which the film is based. Many of the more interesting characters in the book are omitted, along with half of the setting - the people who live on the waterways. The ending is unbelievable.

This movie does not move quickly. But it is beautifully filmed and well acted by a group of actresses headed by Natalie Baye. Not for the impatient, but it will be appreciated by those who can take the time to let it have an effect.

This is life on the home front, in the country The other side of war. No one shot at these women, but their lives were still difficult.

Interesting that the depiction of American soldiers is largely negative. They have plenty of money, and are not interested in "the locals" other than as sex objects.

Xavier Beauvois's film 'The Guardians' tells the story of a rural French family left behind during the First World War while the young menfolk are off fighting at the front. It's a quiet and observational movie, watching the rhythms of the agricultural calendar while human life is in some senses on hold. Unfortunately, the conceit is rather overdone: in six years, we see almost no signs of joy or even simple boisterousness, as if the war shifted everyone into a permanent state of dignified melancholy. The result is a overly slow and solemn story.

I thought the film was mediocre. The ending definitely left me confused and wondering what happened with the rest of the film.