Director: Julien Hayet-Kerknawi
Writer: Julien Hayet-Kerknawi
Stars: Iain Glen, Sasha Luss, Joe Anderson
Synopsis: Amidst World War I’s chaos, a grieving father turns hero, leading villagers to safety while evading a relentless enemy driven by vengeance.
World War I was an unprecedented event when it happened. It changed the way people thought and the way they looked at the world. It is a war that, unlike World War II, has not been examined, picked apart and retread hundreds of times in movies. If it is depicted, the war is often shown from the lens of its greatest impact, which was the brutal and dehumanizing trench warfare. Rarely do we see the civilian toll that the war took or even what warfare was like outside of those trenches.
The Last Front seeks to tell one of these stories. The problem is that there isn’t enough exposition about the state of the war. We get a short title card about German advances into Belgium at the time the story takes place, but some of the set pieces become more confusing because of this. There are Belgian regular soldiers as well as resistance fighters who attack the Germans. The Germans seem to be trying to regroup, but they are pushed to take a different route, the direction of which is not made entirely clear. At one point, there is a pitched battle within a small trench in the middle of a forest and artillery going off, but no large guns in sight. It’s a needlessly confusing piece of an otherwise uncomplicated survival story.
The rest of the film would be fine without the complete perspective of commander and father, Maximilian (Philippe Brenninkmeyer) and his subordinate and son, Laurentz (Joe Anderson). It pulls us away from the idyll and class conflict that propels the beginning of the film. But those military pieces add color to the story and remind us that the distant booms in the night scenes aren’t put there by mistake. This story takes place during uncertainty and war. The war rears its ugliest head between the push and pull between the father’s 19th century gentlemanly warfare mindset and his son’s 20th century total war mindset. It’s this conflict that’s at the heart of why Leonard (Iain Glen) gets involved at all.
It also highlights a superb, if a little too arch, villainous performance by Joe Anderson. He plays Laurentz with the mix of a man who hates his military legacy and loves the chaos and power of war. His cold and calculating gaze sends shivers up your spine as his aim always seems terrifyingly true. It’s a great antecedent to Iain Glen’s stoic, reluctant, and brave Leonard. Leonard hates Laurentz because of what he did to Leonard’s family, yes, but he hates him even more because if he doesn’t stop him, he will do it to many more families.
The two concurrent narratives have their moments of slowness, but the film moves at a very good clip. Writer and director Julien Hayet-Kerknawi is the rare filmmaker who can make a war film under two hours long. It helps that there are no grand battle scenes to stage or hundreds of background characters to manage. It also helps that he keeps the story focused. Even though it would be helpful for more historical context, it is better that Hayet-Kerkwani sticks to the story at hand, which is the survival of the civilians caught in a war they wanted no part in. He’s able to find his emotional arc not only in a father avenging his slain children, but in a man grappling with the loss of his wife before the war.
There is a fantastical element within The Last Front that really works well. Leonard feels he’s not doing his best raising his children and he sometimes sees, but more often just speaks with the spirit of his wife, Elise (Trine Thielen). In one particular scene, Leonard has a position in a building overlooking where the German troops find cover from the sniper on the other side of the street. Leonard raises his weapon, but hesitates. Elise appears as if to give him strength. Her hand slides along his and presses so he will pull the trigger. It makes the spirit of Elise into a sort of vengeful presence, but it also serves to remind Leonard that killing one person who means you and everyone like you harm could save the lives of dozens of others.
The Last Front is a solid film. It has its moments of high drama, terror, and anguish with a beating, if staid, heart as well. It isn’t trying to create a new kind of genre, but to tell a simple story within a complex historical period. It has a good story, but it won’t try and teach you something grander about the larger conflict at play, which, in some ways, is to its detriment. The Last Front is worth your while if you want something that will hold your attention and leave you satisfied after it’s over.
