One night during the First World War in January 1917 five French soldiers court-martialled for self-inflicted wounds are pushed into no man’s land

One night during the First World War in January 1917, five French soldiers, court-martialled for self-inflicted wounds, are pushed into no man’s land, and an almost certain death. The youngest of the condemned men has left behind a fianc?(Tautou), who after the war tries to discover what became of her sweetheart.Convinced he is still alive, she begins an investigation that unearths a trail of clues and the raw memories of slaughter in the trenches. On this last Jeunet is at his most incisive, recreating a hell of mud, barbed wire and criminal brutality. Unfortunately, he wants to weld this realism to an Am?e-style romantic comedy, packing the screen with whimsical clutter and madcap gadgetry.Dear Frankie (12A) If Shona Auerbach’s feature debut were judged solely on tenderness of feeling it would win prizes. Frankie (Jack McElhone), a deaf nine-year-old, and his mother Lizzie (Emily Mortimer) are fugitives from a violent family past, though the boy still writes to his father, absent at sea. At the other extreme is the opaque fable Tropical Malady, which got the jury prize in Cannes last year, but left audiences flummoxed Thai film-makers are equally baffled. “Even well-educated people didn’t understand it,” Pisanthanakun says “Most of us aren’t serious.

We just want to enjoy life.”The easy-going Thais love to have a good time at the movies, and upbeat stories predominate: even one of last year’s hits, The Letter, a weepy in which a city girl falls for a country botanist who proceeds to die of a brain tumour, ends on an hopeful note.One thing that we won’t be seeing any time soon is a Thai tsunami movie. Ric Lawes, an Australian producer based in Bangkok and touting for finance for one, explains: “As Buddhists, Thais don’t highlight tragedy.” Pisanthanakun agrees “It’s much too soon to tell that story But I guess Hollywood will do it one day.”. The annual Golden Globe Awards held its 62nd edition on Sunday. The event has long been considered something of a dress rehearsal for the Oscars, not because anyone would be foolish enough to wear the same dress to both events, but because, historically, it has acted as a reasonable indicator of who will win the major awards. This means that the HFPA gives the impression of being attuned to the Hollywood zeitgeist, even though its international make-up might lead one to expect it would be more cosmopolitan and worldly than the mostly American-based Academy members.

But the HFPA are people who live and sometimes die in LA, some of whom practically live off the buffet spreads put on by publicists at press junkets.The one big difference between the Golden Globes and the Oscars is that the Globes split three of the major categories into six separate awards. So there is not just a prize for the best picture , but one for “Best Picture – Drama” and one for “Best Picture – Musical or Comedy”, allowing two films to be honoured. Likewise, there are four top acting prizes: one for the best actor in a drama and one for the best actor in a musical or comedy, and two similar ones for the best actresses. Perhaps just to keep the ceremony from going on for ever, there’s only one prize each for the best supporting actor and the best supporting actress.This splitting of the categories gives the Globes a 50:50 chance of matching an Oscar result a month later. Effectively, the Globes provide an indicator of which two films are leading the pack, making the awards a sort of semi-final Consider the statistics.

In the last 20 years, the Globes have given a top prize in either of their categories 17 times to the film which went on to be the best picture at the Academy Awards. In the last five years, a Golden-Globe-winning best picture has won every year, with only one divergence in 10 years. (In 1996, the Globes honoured Sense and Sensibility as the best drama and Babe as the best comedy or musical, while the Oscar went to Braveheart.)According to Variety, “in its 61 years, the HFPA’s picks have had approximately a 77 per cent correlation with the Oscars’ picture winner,” which is a damned fine batting average. This means it’s more than likely that the Oscars’ best picture this year will either be The Aviator (the Globes’ best drama) or Sideways (their best comedy).Strangely enough, the Globes are a slightly more reliable indicator of who will be the Oscars’ best actress than they are for the best actor. The Globes have largely matched the Oscars in the actress category for yonks – as far back as 1944, when Jennifer Jones won both for The Song of Bernadette, through to 1972, when Jane Fonda reaped both for Klute. In the last five years, there has been only one mismatch, when Sissy Spacek (In the Bedroom) and Nicole Kidman (Moulin Rouge) won Globes, but Halle Berry took the Oscar for Monster’s Ball.This year’s Golden girls were Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby) and Annette Bening (Being Julia) – a bit of a blow for Brits hoping that Imelda Staunton will be the Oscars’ best actress for Vera Drake.