What is most stunning about "Wooden Crosses," seeing it nearly 80 years after its release, is that it was clearly ahead of its time. I can't imagine that there were many films really willing to show the brutality of war at quite this level, or to show the results. I'm thinking in particular of the scene at a makeshift hospital ward in a church, where you see nurses tending to men who have lost limbs. The scenes of the regiment together as soldiers tend to be rather ordinary and sentimental, but once the film gets going, it never lets up. It doesn't really feel dated, either; it has a you-are-there quality, thanks to the director's unusual documentary technique, and his inventive use of angles from all sides; the camera doesn't just follow the soldiers, it also shows them approaching, which is interesting. The film still hits hard.

World War one was a pretty nasty business. Trench warfare was some of the most brutal combat that ever took place, not to mention mustard gas and chlorine gas attacks. This movie follows a platoon of French soldiers from conscription through the length of their service. Not a pretty story, let me assure you, but it is one heck of a war flick. It does take it's time getting started, but it pays dividends later on in the story, for having gotten to know the characters a little better. I appreciated the parade double exposure that suggests that the dead soldiers are parading along with the live ones... cool. Right up there with All Quiet on the Western Front, it's awesome. Watch this movie!