Synopsis
Le Crabe-Tambour (1977), Pierre Schoendoerffer's French war drama, is available to watch online on iFILM.
A French naval captain, newly told he has lung cancer, takes one last assignment — escorting a fishing fleet to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. He is also looking for someone. Somewhere in the North Atlantic serves an officer his crew calls Drummer Crab, an Alsatian named Willsdorff (Jacques Perrin), whom the captain knew from the Indochina years. Three shipmates take turns recalling who this man was. Jean Rochefort, Claude Rich and Jacques Dufilho piece together a portrait from contradictory memories: hero, deserter, idealist. Willsdorff himself barely appears on screen.
Schoendoerffer based the story on his own time as a military cameraman in Indochina and Algeria — the specificity shows. The film picked up three main prizes at the 1978 César Awards: Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor for Rochefort. Stream Le Crabe-Tambour (1977) online on iFILM.
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