War ! What is it good for ? Absolutely nothing! Unfortunately most of the times mankind is so stupid that it doesn’t learn from the past and goes on with it forgetting along the way why they even started a war.

In 1984 Roger Cantin was co-writer of the Canadian movie La Guerre des Tuques (aka The Great Snowball War). In this movie the children of a village split in two groups who fight each other and try to conquer the enemies’ fortress. At first they all have fun, but slowly things change and the kids become more and more fanatic. It results in the death of the dog of one of the children. They then realise that fighting each other is silly and that playing together can be much more fun.

In one of the scenes of La Forteresse Suspendue (the Hidden Fortress) the parents of one of the children are talking about that snowball war that they were fighting once when they were kids themselves. Two pictures on the wall show scenes from La Guerre des Tuques. No coincidence since La Forteresse Suspendue was written and directed by the same Roger Cantin. Nice to link those two movies the way he did!

The storyline of La Forteresse Suspendue is very much along the lines of La Guerre des Tuques. Two groups of kids who make war and when time passes forget about the rules because there is only one objective: to win the war, whatever the costs may be. A girl from one of the groups (and sister of the leader) falls in love with the leader of the other group and they secretly meet every evening. They get caught however and get into a big danger. Fortunately no one gets hurt so the story ends well. But again they all realise that it doesn’t make sense to fight each other.

I enjoyed this movie very much. About a year ago I watched La Guerre des Tuques on TV and I really liked the way the director linked up both movies. Besides the camerawork is very good and therefore the movie is quite entertaining until the end. It’s always nice to see kids play and have fun, although they started to become very fanatic and a bit cruel during the second part of the war.

Eyecatcher is Xavier Dolan-Tadros who plays the part of Michael, a wiz kid who invents all kinds of tricks and tactics but who has a small heart as well. The scene in which he gets excited about the transformation of the caterpillars that he collected into butterflies is nicely done and a joy to watch.

Overall message of the movie is that war is meaningless but in the first place this movie is just one big kids adventure. I wonder though if Roger Cantin will make a new movie in 25 years from now about the third generation...... time will tell!

Both La Guerre des Tuques and La Forteresse Suspendue (English and French language) are available on DVD through (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links)

‘soles’ :cwm39:

Pictures of La Guerre des Tuques on the wall

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Xavier Dolan-Tadros as Michael

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