A Midnight Clear

The winter of 1944, a forest in France. An intelligence squad from the American army is sent to a forward post. There are six of them; all clever, none trained to fight, and half the unit is already dead. They settle into an abandoned house. There is a German platoon nearby. But the Germans do not attack. They throw snowballs, they sing, and one night they leave a Christmas tree at the house. The purpose becomes clear: they want to surrender but need to appear to have been fired on while doing it. The two sides plan a staged skirmish. Keith Gordon writes and directs. Ethan Hawke, Peter Berg, Kevin Dillon, Arye Gross, Frank Whaley and Gary Sinise are in the cast. The source is William Wharton's novel. The matter it treats is a situation in which war's own rules will not work; both sides agree and the order does not permit it. The film keeps the combat to a minimum and the violence comes only in the last section. Snow and forest work inside the narrative; the place is silent and the sound design underlines it. The narrative proceeds through flashback and uses narration. Most of the cast were at the start of their careers at the time. The film did not find wide distribution on release and its standing rose later. Its ending rests on an accident and puts nobody in the right. Its limit is pace; the narrative is slow and flat for anyone expecting action. Who it is for: viewers who like plain war drama and independent cinema of the period. Who it is not for: it is slow, the ending bitter, and the narrative cold.