I did not expect Julio to die.

The film surprised me in that despite the extreme views of Julio, his father, and grandfather as opposed to the German relations - neither were presented too critically really. So you were unsure what the film's stance was until the end, yet even then, the film tried to not have either a biased/romantic POV unlike most films in the 30s beyond.

Julio and his family are presented as people who love the excess of life. People who come across as selfish, narcissistic, and shallow yet there is a vibrancy, a sincerity, and a naiveness about them - the folly of youth, even in the aging grandfather or father.

The German family is seemingly more restrained, more reserved, conservative, ways that are relatable especially in comparison to the Desnoyers. YET, they are cold, detached, and in love with the concept of war and the fatherland. The nation comes before the blood.

Both families are presented as extremists of opposing life views. And such extremists love for the passions of life or war are shattered in the face of war - hell.

But even war is not presented so negatively critically. War was related to hell, yes. To the apocalypse and destruction, yes. But war was also shown to change some men and women for the better. The better, in that both Julio and his lover learned to think of others and not just themselves. It also taught the von Hartrott parents that romantization of war can destroy families and sons.

But what of the father Desnoyer? He was a puzzling man to me compared to everyone else. He was shown to be the favorite son in law of Madariaga. Why? Well, at first I assumed that he was hard working and was better equipped in transitioning to the life in Argentina. The German von Hartrott as disciplined as he was, perhaps was out of place and could not excel in whatever it is he needed to excel at in a foreign land. But then, the grandfather dies, and Desnoyer leaves the land and brings his family over to France. We are shown his excesses and impulsiveness in hoarding and buying and it is then we wonder and find ourselves disappointed to what he is. He was shown to have been a deserter or of one fleeing his country's service but it is in France where we see that he is not a man who I thought him to be.

How did Madariaga accumulate such vast wealth if he had not worked despite his excesses in life? And so we, or I, assumed the same for Desnoyer, a man who worked hard for and under his father in law, a job he excelled at unlike von Hartrott. But in France, we see no hard work, we see no character that we associate with strength as Madariaga was, he was not even a businessman nor a money saver, he was all excess with no other redeeming quality.

We see him changing his attitude towards the war with the destruction of his beloved castle of extravagant antiquities, he advises his son that his cousins are now his enemies. Enemies that must be destroyed. But perhaps I'm too hard on Desnoyer. After all, it was his nephew who made no intercessions towards him and his servants. It was his nephew who allowed a young girl in Desnoyer's service to be raped. And it was the nephew who showed no love, pity, alliance, or sympathies for his uncle. Because the nephew was taught by the father and perhaps due to the grandfather, to have love only for war and the fatherland.

And who is the socialist neighbor supposed to be? Is he meant to be a mortal that represented and presented what war was? What did he mean by "knowing every dead soldier"? Did he mean that as an expression of one soldier is the face of all or is he some mystical being brought forth to narrate and record war and its destruction?

And last, did this film leave us a message or is it just a film meant to show us the face of what war can bring and change? Is the message supposed to be that both families should've embraced their adopted homeland? A homeland where they may have been unaffected by the horrors in the Old World? Yet, without these horrors, would Julio still change? Or would he have turned out to be just like his father, excessive without the discipline of hard work and strength his grandfather had (despite his very own excesses)?

Also, I notice scenes had a tint to them, bright promising mornings had a yellow tint while war and the four horsemen were red. Were these tints in the original showing? How were they accomplished in a b/w world of cinema without color? Did they accomplish this on top of the projector with a tinted glass over it, and so, done in the theatre, in the projector room, in every film viewing, like the music was done?

I gave this a 4 1/2 / 5 rating, nowhere near TMDb's present 62% at all.