Northwest Film Forum

One of the most genuinely peculiar movies to emerge in many a moon, La France is a bizarre but beautiful brew, equal parts gender-bending drama, war-film, romantic odyssey, and anachronistic folk-musical. Determined to find her husband who has vanished into the storm of WWI, Camille (Sylvie Testud) disguises herself as a man and sets off into the countryside, where she soon falls in with a band of wandering soldiers who are burdened with a secret of their own. Eschewing realism for an allegorical, fable-like tone, La France is note-perfect, a soulful, mysterious, and poetic voyage through a landscape that is both war-torn and enchanted. Like the songs that punctuate the narrative, La France is melancholy, strange and lovely.

"Without ever surrendering its deadpan naturalism, La France becomes increasingly poetic: The seasons change, the landscape grows barren, and the stars in the sky take their names from the dead men below." - J. Hoberman, Village Voice