Review by boblipton

When war is declared in 1914, everyone is in the fight, even those who remain behind. Someone has to raise the food for the soldiers to eat. However, all three members of the noble D'Urbex family are at or near the front: Georges Deneubourg, who is a commandant at a major post; his son, Jean Angelo, a lieutenant on the front lines; and Deneubourg's wife, Sarah Bernhardt, who nurses at an aid station. When word comes that her son has been killed, she breaks down and returns to her own village.... where she must rally those in the back lines to fight for Mother France.

The print is in pretty good shape for a movie that was missing for ninety years, and the chance to see Madame Bernhardt acting, even in her old age, is not to be missed. She seems to be in every scene. Yes, she's old and fat and missing one leg, but she knows how underplay for the camera, and her immobility looks like determination.

It's remarkable how dark a story this undeniable propaganda film tells. People die in mazes of trenches, unseen beneath an exploding shell, or under the collapsed barricades; those who survive come home blinded, and those who return whole come down with cafard and are anxious return to the front. It is only by facing the reality of the war, the dirt and suffering and death that the earnestness of the situation becomes real. It's less a performance than a command.