Rating: NR
Genre:
Drama
Theatrical Release: 05/31/1963(France)
Release Date: 11/20/2001
SubTitles: English
Dubbed: French
Sound: 1
Run Time: 80 Minutes
Flags: Not For Children
Distributor/Studio: Fox Lorber
Jean-Luc Godard directed this brutal and purposefully harsh
satire (adapted from a play by
Benjamino Joppolo) which explores the grim folly of war.
Ulysses (
Marino Masé) and
Michel Ange (
Albert Juross) are a pair of thickheaded peasants living in a nameless country who receive a visit from a pair of military recruiters informing them the king wants a favor of them. Impressed that the king regards them as friends,
Ulysses and
Michel Ange join the army and set out to see the world's battlefields, having been told they can claim any spoils as their own and live a lawless life on the nation's behalf.
Ulysses and
Michel Ange often write their equally dim girlfriends,
Venus (
Geneviève Galéa) and
Cleopatre (
Catherine Riberio), with tales of the places they've seen and the people they've killed, but when the soldiers return home, their women discover the riches they were promised are not quite what they imagined. Filmed and recorded in a deliberately harsh and murky style,
Les Carabiniers (aka
The Riflemen and
The Soldiers) features a brief appearance from
Barbet Schroeder, years before he would become an acclaimed director, as a car salesman.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
;)
