Le Roi de Coer is indeed the King of Hearts
'Le Roi de Coer' (King of Hearts) is a French-Italian co-production movie released way back in 1966. manages to capture hearts to this day mainly on account of highlighting the absurdity of war. Managed to catch it on TV5 Monde Asie, a French channel available on Asianet broadband (channel no.426) recently.
The film opens with the shot of an ancient town, complete with a church and its clock tower. As the clock strikes 12, a knight comes out and strikes 12 chimes on the bell. This is of great significance in the film as we will see.
Well, with the movie being set during World War 1, the town is deserted by its citizens to escape the advancing Germans, camped somewhere on its outskirts. Similarly, the British forces are encamped nearby. When a spy from the French resistance informs the British about the German's plans to blow up the town, a Scottish soldier, Charles Plumpick, played by Alan Bates, is despatched to find, defuse and save the town.
So Plumppick arrives in the town, to find it deserted. He is chased by some German soldiers and runs into the local lunatic asylum. There, he finds some of the inmates busy playing cards and other such activities. The soldiers who chased him couldn't find him as he sat among the card players and leave.
Plumpick still has to make sense of the clues he has been given that involves a 'blockhouse' and the knight who comes out at midnight. He asks around the asylum, but do not get an answer from anyone. Around this time, they find that the Germans have left the main gates open and stream out into the town.
Some of the women go into the local whorehouse and dress up themselves in the clothes left behind by the inhabitants who had fled. Similarly, some others go into the shops, including a barbershop and put on the clothes they found in the cupboards and other storage places. Those who go into the Governor's house also help themselves into the ceremonial robes and appoint themselves as Lords and Ladies.
Yet they lack a king. Who would they find the most suited for the role but our Plumpick! However, the coronation ceremony is interrupted by the German invaders. The British forces also come in and in the resultant shootout, all the soldiers are killed.
However, the lunatics prove themselves to be more level-headed than the so-called sane leaders conducting the war. At one point, one of the characters says that there would soon be only two types of people-the Generals and the whores. The generals would be producing soldiers by sleeping with the whores and the merry wars would continue unabated.
Anyway, the film ends with Plumpick managing to decode the message and defusing the bomb kept on the blockhouse near the clocktower and climbing the clocktower to physically prevent the knight from coming out at midnight to strike the bell as it would have lit the fuse to set off the bomb.
The film ends with the inmates of the asylum shedding the clothes they had taken from the townspeople and returning to the 'safety of the asylum. Plumpick also returns to the town from his camp and sheds his uniform to stand naked at the asylum gates demanding admission.
The film may not appeal to those looking for political correctness. But as an anti-war essay, it surely is worth a watch.
Comments