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7 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :- Celebration of life and love, 18 February 2006 Author: Corvin Ello from Canada
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
It is the end of the first World War, in France. Major Delaplane (Noiret) is ferociously determined to insure no dead soldier remains anonymous, despite the pressure from military and political authorities to keep them buried as a "lot".He keeps scrupulous count of each and every "casualty" he finds, treating each dead man with the absolute and final equality attained in death: he refuses to put any extra effort in tracing a rich one faster than a poor one.When he meets a grieved, upper-class widow looking for her dead husband, this man and this woman's worlds are shaken. From their distant positions, they start a slow and respectful journey towards each other, and the power of life over destruction will prevail.As always with Bertrand Tavernier, the personal story of the characters is tightly woven into the political issues of the times, as it is for all of us, whether we realize and like it or not.This is a film that celebrates the power of the individual within society, not outside of it. It is good for the soul in these times of fatalism, cynicism and loss of hope in man's good will.If you like this film, do not miss Tavernier's other films, they are all excellent.
8 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :- Un film extraordinaire!, 3 December 2000 Author: artzau from Sacramento, CA
I take issue with some of the negative reviews regarding the storyline. It works. The superb acting of Noiret is better than usual and he's great when he's merely being ordinary. This is a powerful film about the nihilism following the end of la grande guerre. The character of Noiret, a man torn by complex emotional conditions identifying the unidentified, finds himself torn between his own moral code, his emerging love for a widow looking for her dead husband, his repulsion at the profiteering capitalism of industrialists and his secret knowledge of the dead man's bigamy. The intensity of Gallic emotions are often misunderstood by us Americans (too much English influence for my tastes, je suppose) but this is an excellent film with all the necessary elements for a classic. See it. Decide for yourself!
7 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :- It worked for me, 5 October 2007 Author: sansay from San Diego, USA
I watched La vie et rien d'autre, about a year ago. Well, it stuck with me. And I really wanted to see it again. So I watched it a second time. And some things became clearer to me. The central message obviously that war sucks, that war is a disaster for everybody. And nothing should be done to hide this truth from anybody. That's Delaplane's belief, that's his fight, his moral code. And yes, there is a love story coming to interfere with his dull and depressing duty. Why people can't see that a man such as Delaplane could not handle love, specially while in the middle of such an ugly struggle? I read some negative comments about this film. I just could not understand that. This is a beautiful movie, touching, a bit slow certainly, but the topic does require that we take time to learn all the details so as to better understand the nature of this human drama. What pushes all these people to look for remnants of their loved ones, just to have proof of their death. For what? This we may never understand for not having to live through this. Go ahead, watch this movie. It's not a big action movie, no, it's a reflection movie. A movie that a lot of people who see war as something that's glamorous should have seen, but probably never will... alas!
2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :- Sadness, cynicism and sardonic humor in a fine Bertrand Tavernier film, 3 March 2008 Author: Terrell-4 from San Antonio, Texas
There are at least five stories in Life and Nothing But, and most of them could make a movie in themselves. There is the story of Major Delaplane (Philippe Noiret) who in 1920 has the task of trying to identify the 350,000 French soldiers who remain on the missing roles. There is the story of the hypocrisy behind the choosing of an unknown soldier who eventually will be buried with great pomp and honors beneath the Arc de Triomphe. There is the story of Irene de Courtil (Sabine Azema), married to a missing soldier who comes from a rich and privileged family. There is the story of Alice (Pascale Vignal) whose fiancée and lover was last seen in a battle where hundreds of soldiers were wounded or killed. And we have the story of the thousands of wives, parents, brothers and sisters of those 350,000 missing men who, nearly two years after the end of WWI, still have no idea of what happened to their men...are they alive, are they dead, are they horribly wounded, are they forgotten in some hospital or mental ward? Delaplane is an army officer who is consumed by his job of identifying the missing, of finding corpses and tracing who they were. His superiors think he is reckless and unreliable. The generals, the politicians and the industrialists want nothing more than to let the missing stay missing. That way bad decisions and pointless battles may escape notice, and protected factories can go back to business. Delaplane is even more cynical as he sees the rush to find the remains of an unidentified soldier to be honored in Paris. He has to deal with the aristocratic Madame de Courtil and with the schoolteacher, Alice. He is brusque and cynical, yet he is dedicated to finding and identifying every one of those 350,000 missing men that he possibly can. One long, outstanding sequence takes place in a huge, unstable railway tunnel. Toward the end of the war a train carrying munitions, gas shells, supplies and a car full of wounded soldiers entered the tunnel. The Germans in retreat had mined the place and it blew. Now, two years later and deep in the tunnel, Delaplane is trying to dig through the rubble, the unexploded gas shells and the torn tracks and find the car of bodies. In the field nearby relatives are waiting. Soldiers are sifting through dirt and rubble to find traces of bodies and belongings. Tables have been set up holding every manner of object which have been recovered so far, some matched with the bodies they were found on. People pass by the tables trying to find something that would tell them the fate of a loved one. They don't expect life; they just want closure. Tavernier holds these stories together thanks to the power of Philippe Noiret as Major Delaplane, to the power of outrage at what Delaplane is up against, and to a script which manages to combine sardonic humor with a look at what the bureaucracies of war do to the men who fight the wars. This is not a grim movie, but a poignant and sad one. "One patriotic song and off they go to war," says Irene de Courtil to Delaplane. They had been seated at a small restaurant where a black jazz band had been playing. Then a French woman came on stage and sang a song of how we can fight and then be comrades. The young soldiers all stood and joined in the song. So did Delaplane. "It's a club," she says fiercely to Delaplane. "It will be a club for years to come, this club of those who won the war. And the losing side will have its club, too. You know why I think of clubs? Because women aren't admitted! Nothing scares you men more than women, their wombs, their courage, their watching eyes..." And yet, as a friend and sculptor points out to Delaplane, the remains of the war now mean great business. "It's the Golden Age, my friend," he says. "Nothing like it since the Greeks, since the cathedrals. Even mediocre artists have their hands full. A monument per village. Three hundred sculptors for 35,000 towns. Everybody wants his doughboy, his widow, his pyramid, his marble, bas-reliefs, inscriptions. It's a factory. Better than the Renaissance. It's the resurrection." "Thanks to our dead," says Delaplane. Eventually the stories come together. The unknown soldier is selected with pomp and cynicism. Says Delaplane, "Officials are reassured by the story of the unknown soldier. They had a million and a half men killed, and now we'll only think about this one." Delaplane discovers the fate and identity of Irene's husband and Alice's lover. There are some twists and turnings. While each major character either chooses or is forced to choose life, the future for Delaplane and Irene is indefinite. On balance, while I liked this movie a lot, there still are probably too many things going on for Tavernier to handle with complete success. Still, it's always a satisfying experience to see Philippe Noiret, with those shrewd eyes and bloodhound eye lids, take on a role of real substance.
5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :- Beautiful and thoughtful, 20 October 2000 Author: quincey-2 from Winnipeg
A wonderfully acted and well written drama set in France in the aftermath of World War One. It's a romance about the importance of memory in morality and love and coming to terms with loss on an individual and national scale.
8 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :- A great story told in a rather dull fashion, 10 April 2006 Author: zetes from Saint Paul, MN
Philippe Noiret plays a military bureaucrat who is meticulously trying to catalogue the casualties of WWI. He and two women cross paths during the excavation of a train that was buried in a tunnel by German explosives. This would make for a great existential movie, but it's all talk talk talk. The dialogue is endless, and, with the long running time, the whole picture seems that way, too. The film would be much more powerful if it demonstrated its themes more visually. Instead, the emotions come off as somewhat flatter than they deserve to be. The production is also poor; it feels like it was made for television. And the musical score is so weak it takes the film down a peg itself. It's still worth watching, but I think it really could have been a lot better.
2 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :- Very good but probably not a film that most younger people would appreciate, 2 March 2007 Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida
I was fascinated by this film--probably because I am a history teacher and teach about WWI (among other topics). But I wonder if most other people would really care about the plot. You see, it's about the aftermath of WWI and the setting concerns soldiers sifting through the French countryside trying to find and identify all the bodies. The officer in charge is a bit fixated on all this and into his obsessive little world come two ladies who are looking for a husband and a fiancé who have been missing since 1917. The attention to details in the film is interesting and there are many little touches that make it a must see for history lovers. However, I must also point out that for me, the relationships that develop and unfold during the movie don't always work all that well. Plus, another recent French film dealing with the same topic (A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT) is a vastly superior film. It would be great if you could see them both, but if you only want to see one film, see A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT--it's better in most every way.
6 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :- Impressive visually, but, grim, slow, and unsatisfying., 11 June 2000 Author: jameswtravers (jameswtravers@netscapeonline.co.uk) from London, England
This is a powerful film with a genuinely epic feel. The backdrop of a post-war battle field is movingly sombre, with sets scattered with the last remains of soldiers, some hastily dug graves, and hoards of women mourning the loss of husbands and sons. There is no sense of victory or joy after the war, and its central character, Delaplane - brilliantly played by Philippe Noiret - portrays the mood of grim realism of what the war has done to his country and to his life.Unfortunately, the film is let down by a somewhat feeble love story involving Delaplane which has an unsatisfactory and unconvincing resolution.At way over two hours in length, the lack of a substantial central plot is more than noticeable. Towards the end, the film becomes slow and almost boring, despite some impressive visual images. It is almost as if the grimness of the subject matter has completely overwhelmed the film. However, considering how grim the subject matter is, that is hardly surprising.
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