SunnyHello Nice effects though.

Lightdeossk Captivating movie !

HeadlinesExotic Boring

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

gordonl56 "La 317ème Section" The 317th Platoon – 1965 This film is probably the best film about the war in French Indo-china. Director Pierre Schoendoerffer was involved in the actual 1946-54 war as a cameraman at several of the war's battles, including the defeat at Dien Bien Phu. He shows the just what war in the dense jungle was like, dirt, rain, mud, dirt, rain, mud with firefights here and there with the Viet Cong.The film is set just before the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. A small outpost just over the border from Cambodia has received orders to withdraw. They are to destroy the base and head south into Cambodia. They are to head for another base 100 kilometres south. The Platoon is led by the just arrived in country, Jacques Perrin. Under his command are 5 French NCO's and about 35 Cambodian troops.The senior NCO is played Bruno Cremer. Cremer, a long time veteran of the war is all for avoiding contact with the VC and hot footing it to the base in the south. He soon has a falling out with LT Perrin over how to conduct the with-drawl. As a result of a clash with pursuing Viet Cong, they now have several seriously wounded men. Cremer says they need to leave the wounded and continue in all haste away from the enemy. Fresh from Officer training school, Perrin refuses to leave the wounded behind.This of course slows the party down and soon the enemy is barking at their heels. The group splits up with Perrin and the wounded going one way while Cremer and several Cambodian soldiers attempt to lead the VC off their trail.Several days later the two parties meet further up the trail. Cremer has managed to throw the pursuers off the trail, though he knows it will not be for long. Lt Perrin has by now realized that Cremer was right about the wounded. They have all died, and they are now 2 days behind where they should be.The group starts out again, only stopping for rest, food and to try and make radio contact. The party is losing men with every clash they have with the pursuers. The soldiers finally reach the base, only to discover the VC already there. They now need to head further south to the next base and hope they can outpace the enemy.While stopping for a much needed rest. The platoon is hit hard in an ambush by a large VC group. Only 5 men, Cremer, a badly wounded Perrin and 3 Cambodian troopers make it away from the massacre. Perrin orders Cremer to leave him behind. Cremer hands him a grenade and fades into the jungle with the 3 remaining troopers.The film was shot on location in the jungles of Cambodia.Director Pierre Schoendoerffer other films include the Vietnam War films, THE ANDERSON PLATOON and DIEN BIEN PHU. He also wrote the WW2 novel, FAREWELL TO THE KING which was made into the film of the same title. This one stars Nick Nolte and is set in the jungles of Borneo.

oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx 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.

zablotf This movie is so close to the reality that, in the French Army, it is still used for the instruction of the young infantry platoon commanders. Notably the management of the NCOs, usually older and more experienced than the Lieutenant fresh from the Academy, is an interesting issue. And nearly all the basics of the infantryman on the battlefield are there. Keep in mind that Schoendorffer was a war correspondent within the French Army in Indochina at that time. The DVD version of the movie is now available (at least in France). Charlie Bravo (1980) is another French movie that depicts a similar story, but with less talent and less realistically.

Rave-Reviewer 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.