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| KING OF HEARTS (1968) |
In the darkened auditorium of New Orleans’ only art house theater, I saw my first foreign language film – a wonderful, timeless French fable that opened my eyes to world cinema.
The year was 1975. The movie was Philippe De Broca’s 1966 film “King of Hearts,” a comedy-drama set in World War I France and starring Alan Bates as a Scottish soldier chosen to enter a small French town to defuse a German bomb.
As the local residents flee the town, the patients of an insane asylum escape the hospital and cheerfully take over the entire city oblivious to what is happening or to the ongoing war. They also thoroughly confuse Bates, whom they believe is the “King of Hearts.”
De Broca’s film has a simple and obvious message: Who is more insane – the folks who live in the asylum or the soldiers who wage war. The film’s joys come from watching De Broca and his talented cast work their magic, using sympathetic characters and poignant humor to drag you deeper into the story.
