Charles Dickens knew the importance of establishing horror if you want to show moments of peace or redemption that have real impact. After all, he began A Christmas Carol by emphasising Jacob Marley's death because, without that knowledge, `nothing wonderful can come of this tale.' Sadly, Christian Carrion's Joyeux Noel/Merry Christmas seems oblivious to that lesson, and so without anything tangible in the way of the horrors of war or the psychologically draining nature of trench warfare by way of contrast, there's no sense of relief or wonder to the brief respite offered by the spontaneous 1914 Christmas Truce on the Western Front. As a result, the film carries no real weight. What's worse is just how horrifically bland it all is.

At its best it's well-intentioned pap, a woefully inaccurate retelling that gets practically nothing right, historically or artistically. The scant regard it has for history is bad enough when there are so many powerful true incidents from that period to draw on, but the sheer overpowering wrongness of many of the inventions and the complete lack of any emotional involvement with the barely drawn stereotypes is equally deadly. If you're going to invent, at least invent something better! Perhaps it's the preponderance of production companies involved in this Franco-German-Anglo-Romanian co-production (more than a dozen companies and tax shelter funds are credited) that left it so bland and lifeless - certainly there's a feeling that this is not the film anyone wanted to make, merely the one that everybody could more or less agree on

Most of the performances are weak to invisible, with Gary Lewis failing miserably to provide anything but an actor's extreme discomfort in a role that's meant to be the heart, soul and conscience of the film while Benno Furrman substitutes a look of stoic indigestion for characterisation as Diane Kruger's Danish opera singer in the trenches (no, seriously) mimes her way through the classics. Only Daniel Bruhle makes much of an impression out of his underwritten role, although even he is outshone by a blink-and-you-ll-miss-it cameo from Michel Serrault and Suzanne Flon that briefly wakes up the film.

Carrion's previous film, Une Hirondelle a Fait le Printemps/The Girl From Paris, was quite superb, for the most part avoiding clich?? or whimsy and creating believably flawed characters, which makes his flat handling here seem all the worse. Easily the most desperately disappointing film of the year. You'd be much better off reading Malcolm Brown and Shirley Seaton's excellent 'Christmas Truce' instead.

Carrion does admit to the dubious accuracy in the film in the interview that is, along with his audio commentary, the main extra on this DVD (though for some bizarre reason the out-of-copyright WW1 photographs used in the interview are all shown out of focus at the behest of Columbia's over-zealous legal department). However, the deleted scenes and documentary on the Australian 2-disc DVD have not been included.