Nous étions un seul homme

This movie started at the bottom and dug a hole. Who knows what the director was going for: comedy, drama, period piece, or romance. Whatever his goal, he failed miserably.

The essence of the movie was a man with mental disabilities finds a mildly wounded German soldier who stays around for reasons that never are made clear (or simply make no sense). Strangely, no one goes looking for the missing soldier so he spends his days hanging with the village idiot. A man who doesn't bathe, sees dead bodies and people in general as violins, violently kills animals (the killing of the rabbit was real, the dog was debatable).

The whole concept never made sense but then again neither does war. Perhaps the director stumbled upon that message, purely by accident. There are two robots and a man in a space station that are missing this movie.

Did we watch the same movie? I ask this to the 100 positive votes this thing has in here, and the three positive (and completely out of line) reviews given to this and also the two other negative reviews which focus on a poignant problem and that's it enough to criticize a movie. I usually take my time and expose a lot of things and since this was a terrible movie I'll spoil the fun in all possible ways, maybe I can add a missing perspective. To conclude this minor rant, I bet none of the reviewers were gay or bisexual or really committed to the cause. No sane person, gay or straight, but specially gays truly devoted and passionate about queer cinema, they wouldn't enjoy this film. Not a chance.

"Nous étions un seul homme" (or "We Were One Man" and let me tell you something, no you weren't!) has a starting point worthy of an Oscar nominated picture. The story, I mean, not the presentation. During WWII, a French peasant (Serge Avedikian) rescues an injured German soldier (Piotr Stanilas) and nurses him back to health. But the lonely laborer doesn't want the man to go back to the front and insists in his staying, and even though the other isn't necessarily forcing him into anything, the soldier decides to stay. Soon they're friends, get used to each other and live a strange yet quite life in the country. So far so good. No, because the country boy is messed in the head, acting like a needy child who refuses to accept that one day his new friend is gonna leave. In the meantime, the soldier seems to fall in love for this guy and that's why he doesn't go, this time trying ways to reach him more deeply. Plot twist: the Nazi soldier is gay, the country boy isn't and has a girlfriend.

If this were a serious film, it would be awesome. Maybe someday a director will use those outlines and make something good out of it. This thing is a mess, completely disjointed, laughable and ridiculous. From the humored music to the peasant's obnoxious behavior, it's all terrible. Most of the time I kept thinking that something awful should happen to him, just like in the final pages of "The City and the Pillar" (read that book, please), he would deserve such fate. I should be able to understand that he's mentally challenged but his actions didn't fit the movie's purpose - killing animals for pure fun, or in the most extreme of the situations, just to cause jealousy on his partner who has more affection for a dog than to him. And I shouldn't be using the word "partner" since they're just buddies who during the majority of the film just talk about random stuff and dry-hump each other and that's it. We have to wait almost to the ending just to see one kiss, one sex scene (despite some nudity on the way) and that's it. It's not about love, it's about camaraderie. a form of love indeed but not in the homosexual sense. It's incomprehensible why the soldier sticks in the hut with this nut case. He's not holding a gun to him, he's just following him. I'd run faster or do things to him you wouldn't like to know.

The few good points this rubbish gets comes from Piotr Stanilas performance and killer looks (which later rendered a career as a porn star), it's easy to fall for him and in the end we have more sympathy for the Nazi than to the stupid Lacombe Lucien kind of character that just looks crazier by the minute; and kudos the amazingly well-filmed sexual sequence which puts to shame many Hollywood friendly films of the gay cause.

Don't be fooled by the poster. It looks cute but it's just another exploitative film loaded with awful moments, animal abuse and sour destinies to queer characters. Stanilas is a hunky but you can watch him doing other stuff and for real, not fake. 2/10

Vallois made a film which is not easy to watch and one never forgets it, since this film speaks out things normally silenced. Love between persons of different sex is theme in many war time movies where border line separates the lovers and the rest is sentimental crap. But here we have two men who should hate each other, as men should, even if they are not enemies. They are, however, in a secluded hut, mid-forest, also metaphorically: they don't know anything about each other than what they see. No common language. But in their flesh they begin to know each other, little by little: they are men, they have the same urges and because of the war times they don't have to play social plays. They don't need the illusion a civilized life requires; they joyfully agree in being straightforward in their physical needs. Communication is all but easy but they show us art and practice we don't know anymore, not in everyday life. They attack each other directly in flesh, both in sensitive way and aggressively, ending up making love or running away from each other. Vallois' film is like a well structured reality document where one looks the world that should be there somewhere but one knows that any peace and civilized state of mind make a life like that impossible. Men simply can't love each other without Mothers giving them rules for that.

I've read some of the longer reviews and I agree with most of the criticisms, but there was something compelling to watch here. Was it just the sheer uniqueness of this gay themed movie? Was it because it was set during WWII? Or was it mostly because the leads were young and attractive, especially Rolf? The crazy French peasant with stout gluts and the hyperactivity of a 12 year old held my attention throughout. And Rolf, the brooding, athletic German soldier was just too handsome to NOT look at. I wanted to feel sympathy for the Frenchman, but he was just too unpredictable, hyper and mental that it was doubtful he could ever blossom into a fully adult male, capable of a deep human bond. The Nazi came from a very oppressed, homophobic background which is why he decided to stay with his newfound, though crazy pal/lover. Had a crazy ending, not surprising. Seems the Frenchman could never allow his new German lover to ever leave, so he did what seemed most logical - to him. Fortunately, the movie had some comical undertones; otherwise, I wouldn't recommend it at all. It would have been just too sad, pathetic and crazy!!!

A young peasant farmer rescues a wounded German soldier towards the end of WWII in rural France. At first they are mutually suspicious of each other, but slowly a bond starts to grow between them and.... Serge Avedikian is convincing as "Guy" - the rather eccentric, shall we say, young Frenchman whom the locals leave to his farm as a bit of a simpleton; Piotr Stanislas as his German friend "Rolf", however, is much less so and therein lies the problem with this story - it just doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't need end to end shagging - indeed there is really only one sexual scene in the performances (asides from Guy's assignations with the local hooker), but the development of their relationship seems to grow in disjointed fits and starts; there is nothing consistent in the way the story progresses. The ending - though touching- makes little, if any, sense. Perhaps 40 years have not helped it, it may well have been much more a remarkable piece of man-to-man cinema in 1979, but now it is just all rather lost, with too much of the dialogue replaced by a rather annoying jaunty score.