KING OF HEARTS (1966) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge
Director: Philippe de Broca Writer: Daniel Boulanger (story by Maurice Bessy) Starring: Alan Bates, Jean-Claude Brialy, Françoise Christophe, Geneviève Bujold, Michel Serrault, Pierre Brasseur, Adolfo Celi, Julien Guiomar, Palau
"King of Hearts" is an anti-war film, and God knows we don't need another anti-war film, but this is a rather peculiar one. Instead of getting its message of peace and love and all that good stuff across via cheap, blatant, and banal manner, as is the case of many films (even Kurosawa's great film "Ran" features some awful dialogue in one scene about how God is crying because he sees us killing eachother for no reason - oi), it opts for a different approach, one that never allows it to succumb to any sort of anti-war cliches.
The great thing is, though, that it never comes at all close to feeling cliched. When "King of Hearts" opens, it opens lightly. We see men at war, fighting eachother, and if it weren't for the wacky credits (which give the film a nice tone), we'd probably think this is a serious war film, maybe about the lives of some of the army men or a little bit of history we never learned about. The film takes place during World War II in a small French town, and when it opens, the Scottish and German armies are fighting around it. But it looks like the Germans have the upper hand: they've placed a bomb in the clock tower of the town, ready to explode at midnight that night.
The Scottish Army has their spies, though, and one of them overhears the discussion, and is in the process of revealing it to his side when he is discovered, and shot on sight. With only part of the message in tact, they send the only Scot who can speak French to go into the town, hide as one of the town's inhabitants, find the bomb, and disarm it - one Private Charles Plumpick (a young Alan Bates). When he gets to the town, though, the Germans spot him immediately, and chase him around town until he hides in the local asylum, which now holds what seems to be most of the original town members. The Germans follow him in, and Plumpick disguises himself as one of the patients, proclaiming himself to be "The King of Hearts" when asked by the soldiers, since he sees a playing card of the same title and in an effort to assimilate with the nuts.
Once the Germans have left, he leaves to, but accidentally leaves the gates to the asylum open, letting all the patients go as well. They re-populate the town, bringing back their old jobs, and old social status. And as an added bonus, they begin to hail Plumpick as the King, since that's what he said his name was earlier. Plumpick begins mingling with them, trying desperately to warn them of the bomb that is still going to erupt, and of the war going on around them on all sides of the town, but they act oblivious of everything.
"King of Hearts" could be a grand old blatant satire, one where the crazy people are the only sane ones because they get along and do not believe in any war, and for the most part it is. It's a philosophical film, where we're asked who are the real crazy people, and where we're asked to gulp the notion that if we don't see something's wrong, it's not wrong after all. The people in this film are sunny and cheery, hinting cynically that the key to happiness is insanity, while the sane are the miserable and moronic. The character Plumpick is our window into the world of the townspeople, and as he gets more accustomed to their world being the real world as they become more and more his friends, we experience the same thing.
But satire needs something else to push it along, to make it watchable and lovable. Many mediums make the mistake that if you just push theories and make bold statements that the entertainment will come naturally. "King of Hearts" retains its power as a philosophical satire on war, but all the while it possesses a totally different facade, that of a human comedy. The entire feel of the film is that of light comedy, where everything is taken with a sense of humor that anyone can relate to, and instead of coming across with a fierce, acidic contempt for war, it comes across as a silly, lovable comedy that shows us that the real reason is war is bad is because it's moronic.
"King of Hearts" moves at a steady pace towards no real conclusion, since its message is able to be ascertained rather early in the film, so what it fills the screen time with is dropping in on the crazy inhabitants of the town. Phillipe de Broca's direction throughout all this is light but moving, as he takes the time to really make the former patients into real people, and in one long sequence, quietly observes each as patient as they relearn their original places in society.
The script by Daniel Boulanger is a witty and warm one, creating a society that's like no other, not only because the inhabitants are all crazy, but also because unlike most societies, they effortlessly get along with one another, despite the fac that each of them is a unique, original creation. There's a Duke and Duchess (Jean-Claude Brialy and Françoise Christophe) who walk around gaily, totally content with everything going around them, and having absolute confidence in their social statuses. As a love interest for Plumpick, there's a tarty waif (a tres young Geneviève Bujold) who's elected to be the girl who satisfies Plumpick's more sensual desires, since he is the king (and good it is to be, obviously). Even famous actor Michel Serrault (known to American audiences as the gay, quasi-transvestite lover in "La Cage Aux Folles") plays, of all things, a foppish hair dresser.
We soon get sucked into their world, as Plumpick does, and toward the end, when conclusions have to be arranged, we almost forget that there's still a bomb to destroy and maybe even a battle to be fought. Luckily, none of this corrupts anything that goes on in the town, and we never have to really chose which world we'd rather belong to: that of the armies or that of the insane French town. This leaves the viewer with the chance to just bask in the glow of a really hilarious and very pleasing film that doesn't argue its message with the viewer via corny or ignorant measures. And there's just something to be said about an anit-war film when following a battle where everyone has been brutally killed, the comment following it is "They're overacting."
MY RATING (out of 4): ***1/2
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