In keeping with his experience as a war correspondent/photographer, Pierre Schoendoerffers does not waste any screen time here on preliminaries but launches us straight into the action and establishes the two principal protagonists from the outset. The dynamic between the archetypal young idealist of Jacques Perrin and the grizzled veteran played by Bruno Cremer is impressive and both actors excel.
There are no gung-ho, macho, mock heroics here but a grim depiction of human beings in extremis. By all accounts the director was demanding of his cast and the making of it on location in Cambodia must have been distinctly unpleasant although not nearly as unpleasant as the real thing!
A film such as this would have been far less effective in colour and Schoendoerffer's masterstroke here is in utilising the services of one of France's greatest lighting cameramen Raoul Coutard whose bleak, monochromatic cinematography gives the effect of newsreel footage.
At a time when nations are having to come to terms with and face the consequences of their colonial past this film is ripe for rediscovery.
Despite its controversial nature and the French public's weariness with colonial conflicts this film did surprisingly well at the box office.
Brilliant military historian Antony Beevor has declared this to be the greatest war film ever, an opinion few would share. However, judged on its raw power, immediacy and an overwhelming sense of 'being there', it must surely take high rank.
