During the thirties ,Pierre Benoit was a trendy writer whose works were often transferred to the screen ("L'atlantide " by Pabst being the more memorable) .They have not worn well and the author has sunk into semi-oblivion today.
"Boisière" is a war melodrama and it follows the rules of the game dutifully.Don't even try and look for plausibility .But the action is so dense that there's never a dull moment .There are many coincidences , but as a whole ,it works: the film is a long flashback .
Directing is not as effective as his colleague (and sometimes collaborator/producer) Abel Gance ,whose thirties efforts were often melodramas ("le roman d'un jeune homme pauvre " the subject of which is not far from "Boissière,"paradis perdu" "la vénus aveugle"),but it has his moments :
: the sequence when the young teenager is told he's got to be courageous because his father took his own life segues into an almost obscene scene in which his mistress lives it up with other lovers ; the beginning of WW1
is filmed in successful succint style: soldiers hollering "la Marseillaise" ,then "la Madelon" ; the soldier telling he will be home for Xmas (in 1914, everybody thought that the war would be very short ).
There's a problem ,however ,with Pierre Renoir's character : you won't believe he is a German officer a single minute: what? Not the slightest Teutonic accent?
And in his would be first language, he is not convincing either :"unglaublich! schrecklich!";his part is actually reduced to a deus ex machina ,no more,no less.
All in all,if you enjoy war melodramas, you may get something out of it
