"Father and Soldier" - Cannes war films delve into France’s painful colonial legacies

[Story]

Quote

 

Abdoulaye Ndiaye, who died aged 104, was the last of the Tirailleurs, the Senegalese riflemen who fought for their colonial masters in the trenches of northern France during World War I. He died just one day before France’s then-president, Jacques Chirac, was due to decorate him with the Legion of Honour in belated recognition of his services.

The failure to acknowledge Ndiaye’s sacrifice during his lifetime has stuck with French director Mathieu Vadepied ever since, inspiring the long-gestating project that has finally come to completion at the Cannes Film Festival.

 

 

Quote

While the film’s original title, “Tirailleurs”, has evocative power in French, its English version highlights the director’s concern to approach war through an intimate focus on a father’s relationship with the son he is desperate to protect. “Lupin” star Omar Sy, the son of Senegalese immigrants, plays a weary village farmer who enrols in the army to watch over his son after he is forcefully conscripted by the French.

 

Cannes war films delve into France’s painful colonial legacies (msn.com)