Synopsis
King of Hearts (Le Roi de cœur, 1966) is a French anti-war comedy you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Philippe de Broca. Alan Bates plays a young British soldier sent alone into a deserted French town during WWI to locate a German bomb. The only people left are the patients of the local asylum, who promptly crown him their king.
Inside the hospital walls there's colour, pageantry and a kind of upside-down sanity — everyone is gentle, everyone is playing, and Geneviève Bujold's circus performer is the closest thing to a love story. Outside, the world is killing itself efficiently. The contrast isn't subtle, and de Broca doesn't intend it to be.
The film died at the French box office on release, then found its second life on US college campuses through the 1970s, where it ran continuously for years and became one of the defining cult films of that circuit. Stream King of Hearts (1966) online on iFILM.
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