Les carabiniers

Coscripted by Roberto Rossellini, Jean-Luc Godard’s fifth feature is not only a caustic antiwar satire, but a surreally subversive deconstruction of the very idea of the war film that anticipates the director’s late-1960s transition into explicitly political filmmaking. Enticed by promises of riches and glory, a pair of naive brothers, Ulysses (Marino Masé) and Michelangelo (Patrice Moullet), enlist to join a world war, adapting disturbingly easily to their newfound tasks of looting and pillaging. But what happens when it’s time to go home?