La 317ème section

La 317ème section is a movie about a French/anti-communist platoon that gets separated whilst up country during the Vietminh offensive against Dien Bien Phu.

The movie's two main advantages are that the director was an ex-combatant in that war, and Raoul Coutard, who was one of the great New Wave cinematographers.

The story concerns a green lieutenant, Torrens, thirsty for battle, brave and intelligent, though seemingly an adventurer from another century, and his seasoned adjutant Willsdorf, Alsatian Wehrmacht veteran. Many other films have used this formula, a classic principal-agent problem that genuinely occurs in conflicts, but used it as a metaphor for classism, and exaggerated matters.

If you look at Hollywood treatments of either the Korean War or the Vietnam War, particularly around this era, you genuinely see that there is absolutely no understanding of the naturalised inhabitants of the country. Even where there is good will, these productions remain opaque. Willsdorf however genuinely seems to have a feel for the people and how they live. He senses a more poetical way of living, which he respects, but which is clearly ripe for exploitation. There's a piece of dialogue where he mentions how the trees of the forest will soon turn red for Autumn, and that when they do the locals will drink, dance, make love and celebrate, and you sense part of him wants to join with that, wants to find a nook in a river bend where he can set up house.

What these individuals are though, as literally shown in the opening credits, are soldier ants in the forest, their lives are expendable. They are men who live in a man's world without the comforts of home, and take their pleasures where they may, they can only hope to do their duty and lay down and die, and may as well embrace what they do and who they are. It's not a "war is madness" movie, but it is terribly sad, and I was just sorry for Willsdorf that he wasn't sipping a nice Riesling back home after tucking his children into bed. It seems that by being totally apolitical the film manages to leave room for you to come to the conclusion that imperialism is deeply aberrant.

French Indochina, May 1954. While the Battle of Dien Bien Phu rages, a nearby French platoon is ordered to abandon its isolated base and march to a more secure location. The journey is fraught with danger: they are surrounded on all sides by forces several times larger than them. Commanding the platoon is a young, inexperienced Lieutenant. His senior NCO is very experienced, a veteran of WW2, but the two don't always see eye to eye.

Watched this because famed military historian Antony Beevor regards this as the greatest war movie ever made. Turns out, it's not, but it is very good.

Written and directed by Pierre Schoendoerffer and based on his novel, The 317th Platoon is the first "Vietnam War" movie in a sense. It might not be the Americans fighting the Viet Cong or NVA but the French Indochina War was the precursor to the Vietnam War. Replace Americans with French in a Vietnam War drama and you have this movie: the setting, tactics and feel to the movie are very similar.

Quite realistic in its portrayal of war: the danger, the randomness, the impact of seemingly minor decisions, the wastefulness and futility of it all. Other than the latter aspect, not hugely profound: is more about the plot journey than the destination. In addition, does drift in spells and the ending is too abrupt, hence the less-than-perfect score.

In 1954 Vietnam, at the time of Diên Biên Phu, a French unit on patrol under the command of an inexperienced lieutenant is gradually depleted by Vietminh until only an ex-Wehrmacht Alsatian adjutant remains. He is to die, a title informs us, in Algeria in 1960.

Semi-documentary in style, this is an effectively low-key appraisal of the difficult choices with which war confronts its soldiers. As so often in Vietnam films the enemy is only glimpsed from a distance, the camera remaining a disembodied observer among the group. Bertrand Tavernier acted as co-writer on the film.

I saw this movie some 35 years ago on TV and its memory has been with me ever since. My father and I happened upon it late one night and were stricken by its integrity, clarity of message, and visual beauty (note: B/W).

The melancholy of men in a desperate cause has haunted me ever since. The unwinnable pursuit paints a picture of doom that my generation would forever associate with Vietnam and later with other military endeavours; the name of Dien Bien Phu would be associated with this party that dwindles as it traverses the jungle. No other film on the Vietnam war has reached the same effect for me; not "Platoon", none of these. Bear in mind that this comment comes from outside the US.

Memorable phrase, for some maybe not so relevant reason, the men at the hand-cranked dynamo radio (a huge affair) calling their no more responding party, "Alo, Alo, Lima Bravo." Would be glad to know of reliable source for a VHS or DVD copy.

America made many movies about the Viet Nam war, good ones and bad ones. On the contrary, France didn't make films about the Indochina and Algeria wars. But "la 317e" is not only rare because of this, but also because it shows war as it was really fought, not by Rambo-like superheroes, but by simple men, some courageous, some not... Besides, Shloendorffer is a great film maker, and you can feel during the film that hes was really there, that he shared tragic hours with these men.