Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Really Surprised!

Overrated

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The first segment of the French anthology based on Civil War writings by Ambrose Beirce IN THE MIDST OF LIFE, this is actually the least of the three stories (being somewhat draggy at 37 minutes) but still pretty good taken on its own merits. If anything, it sets the tone perfectly for the other two: being partially a story about childhood (like CHICKAMAUGA) and also sort of a plot-within-a-plot (like AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE), in this case a flashback to the protagonist's past. As expected, the period detail feels authentic and is exquisitely captured by the camera. Regrettably, some of the narration here is only presented in unsubtitled French! The premise involves a soldier on guard in a forest shooting an unseen enemy who tries to cross the lines; in the excitement (being young and, thus, inexperienced), he recalls his life growing up and in particular how he was separated from his twin brother. This sets up the predictable but nevertheless effective twist ending, where it transpires that the man he killed was his own sibling (leaving one in doubt whether the latter was conscious of the other's identity and had come to greet him)! Incidentally, the title refers to the children's pet which is heard chirping a tune subsequently picked up by the fallen twin! I followed this with yet another horror effort from this director – the made-for-TV but feature-length 'haunted house' tale THE GHOSTLY RENTAL (1965) and, for the sake of comparison, I also intend checking out the ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS episode from 1959 of "An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge".

Ambrose Bierce is a writer unknown to me, but the film that Robert Enrico has fashioned out of three Bierce stories has great power. The terrors of war are recreated here with great artistry by Enrico and his excellent cinematographer Jean Boffety (they made many films together). The sunlight cascading through dense foliage has rarely been so well caught in a movie.I found the final story La Riviere du hibou (An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is the English title) to be almost unbearable in its emotional power. The hanging party is set up with great attention to detail--the condemned man notes at one point that sharpshooters always have grey eyes like those of the man who's aiming at him--and the effect is stunning. This film must be issued on DVD.

It's difficult to believe that the Robert Enrico who made Les Aventuriers also made Au Couer de la vie a decade previously because the two are chalk and cheese having only directorial talent in common. A cynic may remark that Enrico had been frightened by Max Ophuls after noting the way his camera is seldom if ever static, circling the action constantly, creeping through the woods like a Comanche war party surrounding settlers but fluid camera-work is only one of the stylistic strings on Enrico's bow. He has taken three stories by Ambrose Bierce all illuminating some aspect of The War Between The States (1861-64), often erroneously labelled the American Civil War, and melded them into a powerful - all the more so because it is largely silent - anti-War statement. All three stories blur the boundaries between reality and the supernatural and the first segment 'Mockingbird' is the ideal introduction to the concept when a soldier, rewarded for bravery with a furlough, falls asleep and dreams of a Past that is still in the Future and all too soon becomes the Present. The second segment 'Chickamauga' is a tour de force in which the actual battle is unseen but 'felt' by a deaf-mute child who subsequently plays among the dead victims and induces them to rise and follow his reverse Pied Piper in a danse macabre. The last segment 'An Incident At Owl Creek Bridge' was widely shown in the 1960s as a 'short' and is arguably the most lyrical of the three; a condemned man is hanged from the eponymous bridge and dropped into the river where, miraculously, he is able to free himself and out-swim the bullets of the hanging detail. Joyously he runs all the way home to the arms of his waiting wife but then ...This is yet another neglected masterpiece that separates the men of Real French Cinema from the boys of the new wavelet which, by 1963, was barely a trickle and as dbmonteuil has said in his own perceptive review another one or two films of this quality around 1958-61 and the nouvelle vague wouldn't even have been a joke.

This is a beautifully-made film, nearly silent, based on three Civil War stories by Ambrose Bierce. It is one of the most powerful antiwar films ever made.It was shown in full at one of the early New York Film Festivals (in the 1960s), and the portion known as `An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' has been shown as a short more frequently.Unfortunately, it is difficult to get hold of a copy, although the New York Public Library does have one available for viewing on site.It has long been on my personal list of the `Ten Best Films of All Time.'