A Midnight Clear

Although perhaps not the cult classic that the accompanying publicity would like us to believe it is, A Midnight Clear is a worthwhile watch, not least for the presence of so many actors who have become familiar faces in the two decades since the film was made. They give uniformly good performances in this World War II story of an intelligence unit sent to occupy a remote farmhouse on the French-German border. Once there, they encounter German soldiers who seem to have things other than fighting for the Fatherland on their minds.

Director Keith Gordon handles the development of a brittle trust between the two sides effectively, balancing the Americans' suspicions against their desire "to make something good out of this", and uses the bleak, wintry landscape to suggest the spiritual exhaustion that has overtaken the soldiers as the war comes to a close. Less successful is the heavy-handed symbolism that sometimes threatens to overwhelm the plot. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]