The Carabineers

Two men live in a hut far from anywhere. Ulysse and Michel-Ange. One day two soldiers come with a letter from the king: join the war and everything will be yours. They list it; a house, a car, women, treasure. The two go at once. The war lasts a long time. They send postcards, they shoot, they burn villages and line people against walls. They write home. Then they come back. They have a suitcase with photographs of everything promised: monuments, animals, aeroplanes, women. All that is in the suitcase is postcards. Jean-Luc Godard directs. Marino Masé, Patrice Moullet, Geneviève Galéa and Catherine Ribeiro are in the cast. It is a French and Italian co-production, made in 1963. The source is Beniamino Joppolo's play; Godard prepared the screenplay with Roberto Rossellini. The film was almost unseen on release and failed commercially. The image is coarse and grainy; the war scenes mix with real documentary footage. The matter it treats is what a war promises; the two soldiers never ask what they are fighting for and think they have won. The postcard scene is its best known passage and runs long. The narrative develops no character; the two are deliberately left as types. The film is against war but builds no sentimental stance; the narrative is cold and sardonic. Its limit is form; the narrative is dry, the pace uneven, and it leaves the viewer nothing to hold. Who it is for: viewers who like Godard's cinema and political film. Who it is not for: it is dry, cold, and the ending merciless.