Maurice Pialat's La Maison des bois 4 (1971)

There are surely numerous criticisms of war in this series, and this is one of them. French soldiers arrive, pitch tent, the children befriend them, and in turn play at war. In a real war game in which a German aviator is killed, there is a very long shot of a French soldier guarding the body, and he is almost motionless but he seems to register boredom, embarrassment, and/or resignation: typically, and wonderfully, so Pialat.

This is what the teacher has his pupils intone by rote: 'La France est ma patrie. Je l’aime comme mon père et ma mère. Afin de lui prouver mon amour, je veux maintenant être un enfant laborieux et sage pour être, quand je serai grand, un bon citoyen et un brave soldat…' ('France is my country. I love it as my father and mother. In order to prove my love, I now want to be hard-working and good, to be, when I grow up, a good citizen and a brave soldier.' (My translation.)

Conveniently, the French Wikipédia provides a précis of each episode, which I give at the bottom of each post here: as La Maison des bois deserves more than one long blog post, I make seven short ones.

Épisode 4

1 L’arrivée des soldats – 2 Le bivouac – 3 Les enfants jouent à la guerre – 4 Hervé chez la femme de l’aviateur – 5 Maman Jeanne et les Parisiennes – 6 Jeu de quilles – 7 Repas du dimanche – 8 Hervé à la peche – 9 Hervé grondé – 10 À l’école – 11 Albert est de garde – 12 Un tour en avion – 13 Hervé chez l’aviateur – 14 Combat aérien – 15 L’avion abattu – 16 Générique.