assigned to
death without a life
by Douglas Messerli
Yves Boisset and Jacques Kirsner
(screenplay, based on the novel by Yves Gibeau), Yves Boisset (director,
assisted by Jean Achache) Allons z'enfants (The Boy Soldier) /
1981
Before I even begin this essay I
want to make clear that its central figure, Simon Chalumot (Lucas Belvaux) is
not necessarily gay—indeed his insistence to his school friends that he has a
girlfriend who he describes as a fiancée and that he later falls in love with a
nun nursing him after a suicide attempt support evidence that the boy is
strongly heterosexual—and the movie makes no apparent refence to LGBTQ issues—in
fact, does not even concern itself significantly with issues of sex, either
heterosexual or homosexual.
The reason why this film might be of interest to an LGBTQ audience is
because, first of all, Chalumot is not even given the possibility of
determining his sexuality or exploring his sexual desires—he dies a virgin—but
yet is presented within the military school complex in which he lives from age
13 with all the tropes that define him as queer boy without ever openly
expressing it as such. Yves Boisset’s 1981 film Allons z'enfants (literally
meaning “Let’s Go Kids,” but titled in English The Boy Soldier) is
fascinating, accordingly, because its character, openly described as an
agitator for peace, but treated like a terrorist, is also presented by the
director, through the implications of the boy’s father, military commanders,
teachers, and general cultural stereotypes as a gay boy in the making, which,
in part, is why everyone in his world—except for a few of his male friends, one
teacher, and the nursing nun—perceive him as a queer outsider who needs to be
saved from his afflictions.
What this film shows us is how deeply embedded military and other
educational institutions are in the stereotypical categorization of anyone who
dares to challenge the status quo, which consists of brutal treatment of its
students and trains them as fodder for the killing fields of war.
We might more rightfully describe this
film as a study in pacificism within the military itself, and how it struggles
to rectify or destroy any anti-militarist attitudes while also facing the
problem that the antagonist is one of the most intelligent and, at least early
in the film, well-liked of its residents.
The son of a rabid militarist who fought in World War I at the Battle of
Verdun, Chalumot has been unwillingly shipped off to military school at Andelys
at age 13. Simon loves film and theater, and wants to be a film director, but
is never given the opportunity to study film or anything much outside of the
prerequisites of a military education, a fact he deeply resents along with the
inexplicable violence to which he and a few others are daily subjected.
His outspoken rejection of such treatment and his resentment of having
to daily participate in meaningly marches, and, later, in shooting sessions in
which he absolutely refuses to participate quickly gains him the reputation of
an agitator and the hatred of the school’s commander which is quickly filtered
down the line to all the school’s authorities who describe his as a
troublemaker simply for this logical refusal to give any significance to their
often absurd commands. If he obeys them, it is without any conviction.
Early in the film, Simon escapes one night, hitches a ride to Paris with
two friendly truckers who provide him with breakfast, some money, and even
advice. But the moment he meets up with his girlfriend Zézette (Florence
Pernel) with the hope that she might provide him with some clothes that to
change out of his military dress, he is arrested by her former policeman
father, handcuffed, and shipped back to his parents. His father (Jean Carmet)
berates him and returns him to the military institution from which he has
escaped.
Although their policy is not to accept
him back, the father pleads for his son’s reinstatement, and the school accepts
him, but only at further cost to the boy who is treated even more brutally and
perceived as a dangerously resistant terrorist-like influence. A particularly
brutal sergeant summarizes Simon’s and other’s treatment during military
exercises where the boys are forced to crawl on the ground through barbed wire
enclosures before they must climb a trestle and walk across it as fast as
possible. When the boys are called to
climb, Simon stands up for a reluctant, heavy-set colleague, who suffers
from vertigo. Simon, described as “Miss” Chalumont, is punished for his
explanation by having to go first. He does the maneuver successfully despite
the fact that abuse is hurled the entire time throughout his efforts; but when
his friend is forced to climb and walk the high narrow structure, he becomes
dizzy and falls to his death.
Outraged by the petty meanness of the
sergeant who has needlessly caused the cadet’s death, Simon attempts to arouse
enough sympathy among his friends to sign a petition he plans to deliver
personally to the Commandant. But it is at this point where the other boys also
perceive him as a kind of agitator; afraid for their ranking and treatment at
the school, they refuse, and when he attempts to report it, he is told it is
simply a closed a case, an “unfortunate accident.”
From then on it becomes clear that
Chalumont will have no one to turn to. Even a young new officer who seems
attracted to Simon is unable to save him from abuse.
The only real “friend” the boy develops at school is his French teacher
Brizoulet (Jacques Denis) who invites him to dinner, introduces him to the pacifist novel of
German writer Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (a
dangerous book in a French military academy which Simon innocently passes
around to his school mates, one of whom reports its existence to the
commandant), takes him to a Moliere play, and approvingly reads his film
script, written despite the fact that Chalumont has never had the opportunity
to even see a movie manuscript.
These activities, obviously, only
further promote the notion of Simon being a “soft” queer figure, who should be
concentrating on mathematics, history (particularly that of living military
heroes) and the other sciences. Clearly, to the community in which he is
imprisoned, Simon does not represent a true soldier or a real “man,” despite
the fact that in opposing the values of his school he displays a great deal of
courage.
During a visit from the outside
authorities, Simon once again attempts to speak out about the school’s
injustices; but they have placed him in the very back of a squadron, and when
he attempts to raise his hand, fellow cadets knock him out.
Recovering, he perceives that they are
probably searching his rooms, and races to save his beloved possessions from
destruction. They consist of only books and film magazines which the rummaging
sergeant from who he retrieves them treats as if they were male porno
magazines. Refusing to hand them over for destruction, the boy dares the
soldier to come nearer, not only an illegal action, but which he warns him will
end with his jumping from his high bedroom window. The officer takes the dare
and lunges forward, Simon leaping to what might have been his death.
He recovers in a nearby hospital, where even there he is threatened and
lectured to by the head nun for reading Madame Bovary, the book
impounded for destruction. A young nurse, Sister Beatric (Eve Cotton) retrieves
it from the trash, Simon even further falling in love with her for her kind
act. She is also attracted to him, but after a brief kiss, demands that he
never see her again.
His time in the two military institutions which the movie recounts would
have led, no matter what, to further military duty since he has been indentured
to it through his “free education.” He might have hoped for a special and
removed position as one of the highest ranked of his class. But the outbreak of
World War II steals even that tentative freedom from him as he is inducted and
sent to the Maginot Line, the series of obstacles and bunkers built in the
1930s to supposedly protect France from invasion by Germany.
There, as he notes, very little happens
until they shoot at an approaching German tank, the young driver being thrown
from the vehicle and almost killed as their own tank nearly runs him over. In trying to rush him to a nearby
hospital, Simon meets up with German air fire and is killed, a boy soldier who
has never had the opportunity to experience anything but preparation for war itself.
One might argue, however, that the
story itself, based on the novel by Yves Gibeau, is as resistant to allow its
central figure to experience life as the institutions into which Simon Chalumot
has been trapped since becoming a teenager. While the other boys later taunt
him for never visiting the brothels, Simon readily admits he has been a virgin
while imagining himself, through his romantic visions of life, has having been
truly in love.
But there is no evidence that he has
ever even kissed his “fiancée” Zézette, and the work refuses at every turn to
allow him entry into the sexual world around him. Although he seems to have a
close roommate, there is no suggestion that the boys have a more intimate
relationship than chitchat. The two truckers who agree to drive him to Paris
seem more than a little interested in having a young boy at their disposal, but
nothing happens except their fatherly attentions.
When, just before beginning his higher-level
school, Simon has a whole summer to himself, he understandably selects to spend
time in the country with his uncle rather than return to his unloving father.
And in the grape fields of France Simon seems to be physically and spiritually
at home with the bronzed handsome men who work the fields. Yet no move is made
on either the worker’s or the boy’s part to even enter into deep conversation.
The new, quite handsome officer who
takes an inordinate interest in his difficult student, never makes a move
toward a physical encounter with the boy. Although both Sister Beatric and
Simon feel sexual stirrings, religion and duty demand no further contact. His
interested French teacher appears to be happily married.
For all the brutal denial of life that
the institutions impose upon young Chalumont, the writer and director
themselves might almost be shilling for a US Hallmark Card production
where good clean living is just as important as the message it delivers.
Accordingly, The Boy Soldier, a story about how a young man has been
denied his life itself works in tandem to deny its character any human
interchange other than his imaginary characters of film and fiction.
In short, this young hero, who the film
keeps hinting may be either heterosexual or homosexual is, in fact, asexual.
The story seems afraid of allowing the tropes of the paternal militarist world
in which he lives to become something of reality, and leaves him instead
without any sexual life. Even his pacifism seems to have been assigned to him
rather than fully embraced by this reluctantly nonviolent kid.
Los Angeles, March 22, 2022
Reprinted from World Cinema
Review (March 2022).
