We Were One Man (1979)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

So much average

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Did we watch the same movie? I ask this to the 100 positive votes this thing has in here, and the three positive (and completely out of line) reviews given to this and also the two other negative reviews which focus on a poignant problem and that's it enough to criticize a movie. I usually take my time and expose a lot of things and since this was a terrible movie I'll spoil the fun in all possible ways, maybe I can add a missing perspective. To conclude this minor rant, I bet none of the reviewers were gay or bisexual or really committed to the cause. No sane person, gay or straight, but specially gays truly devoted and passionate about queer cinema, they wouldn't enjoy this film. Not a chance. "Nous étions un seul homme" (or "We Were One Man" and let me tell you something, no you weren't!) has a starting point worthy of an Oscar nominated picture. The story, I mean, not the presentation. During WWII, a French peasant (Serge Avedikian) rescues an injured German soldier (Piotr Stanilas) and nurses him back to health. But the lonely laborer doesn't want the man to go back to the front and insists in his staying, and even though the other isn't necessarily forcing him into anything, the soldier decides to stay. Soon they're friends, get used to each other and live a strange yet quite life in the country. So far so good. No, because the country boy is messed in the head, acting like a needy child who refuses to accept that one day his new friend is gonna leave. In the meantime, the soldier seems to fall in love for this guy and that's why he doesn't go, this time trying ways to reach him more deeply. Plot twist: the Nazi soldier is gay, the country boy isn't and has a girlfriend. If this were a serious film, it would be awesome. Maybe someday a director will use those outlines and make something good out of it. This thing is a mess, completely disjointed, laughable and ridiculous. From the humored music to the peasant's obnoxious behavior, it's all terrible. Most of the time I kept thinking that something awful should happen to him, just like in the final pages of "The City and the Pillar" (read that book, please), he would deserve such fate. I should be able to understand that he's mentally challenged but his actions didn't fit the movie's purpose - killing animals for pure fun, or in the most extreme of the situations, just to cause jealousy on his partner who has more affection for a dog than to him. And I shouldn't be using the word "partner" since they're just buddies who during the majority of the film just talk about random stuff and dry-hump each other and that's it. We have to wait almost to the ending just to see one kiss, one sex scene (despite some nudity on the way) and that's it. It's not about love, it's about camaraderie. a form of love indeed but not in the homosexual sense. It's incomprehensible why the soldier sticks in the hut with this nut case. He's not holding a gun to him, he's just following him. I'd run faster or do things to him you wouldn't like to know.The few good points this rubbish gets comes from Piotr Stanilas performance and killer looks (which later rendered a career as a porn star), it's easy to fall for him and in the end we have more sympathy for the Nazi than to the stupid Lacombe Lucien kind of character that just looks crazier by the minute; and kudos the amazingly well-filmed sexual sequence which puts to shame many Hollywood friendly films of the gay cause. Don't be fooled by the poster. It looks cute but it's just another exploitative film loaded with awful moments, animal abuse and sour destinies to queer characters. Stanilas is a hunky but you can watch him doing other stuff and for real, not fake. 2/10

Some of the acting was atrocious; in particular that of the "mad man", who, in my state, wouldn't meet the criteria to be institutionalized. Even if he were very insane nothing about the way he talked or moved seemed in any way realistic. I thought briefly that perhaps he was purposefully a caricature of some sort for artistic reasons, but quickly decided that didn't work. Then there was the killing of animals. So it was wartime in France and rabbets are food; no problem there. But I really wish I hadn't seen the dog killed for no apparent reason. Nothing in the plot justifies killing a dog. If you like dogs you shouldn't see this movie.

The human elements of this movie are quite touching, but it contains the most appalling incidents of animal abuse I have ever seen. At least one very sweet dog and one rabbit are killed on camera for the enjoyment of the director and his audience. Other viewers clearly don't care, but I do.However inspiring this movie might have been otherwise, I strongly advise anyone who really cares about animals not to watch it. If you're the sort who can excuse animal abuse in the name of art or changing times (as others have done here), or if, like the director, you actually enjoy it, then by all means indulge yourself. But if, like me, you believe that animal abuse for entertainment was no less abominable and inexcusable 30 years ago (or 1000 years ago) than it is now, you should avoid this movie.

Vallois made a film which is not easy to watch and one never forgets it, since this film speaks out things normally silenced. Love between persons of different sex is theme in many war time movies where border line separates the lovers and the rest is sentimental crap. But here we have two men who should hate each other, as men should, even if they are not enemies. They are, however, in a secluded hut, mid-forest, also metaphorically: they don't know anything about each other than what they see. No common language. But in their flesh they begin to know each other, little by little: they are men, they have the same urges and because of the war times they don't have to play social plays. They don't need the illusion a civilized life requires; they joyfully agree in being straightforward in their physical needs. Communication is all but easy but they show us art and practice we don't know anymore, not in everyday life. They attack each other directly in flesh, both in sensitive way and aggressively, ending up making love or running away from each other. Vallois' film is like a well structured reality document where one looks the world that should be there somewhere but one knows that any peace and civilized state of mind make a life like that impossible. Men simply can't love each other without Mothers giving them rules for that.