The Great War (1914-1918), or First World War, shattered Europe, and there is hardly a European today with ancestors that did not fight in it, or were at the very least affected by it. I knew nothing of the Portuguese army and its involvement in the war until I came across this film, so it was an education for me. It is a home-grown film about one soldier in particular, who is the only soldier to ever be awarded Portugal's highest decoration for bravery, for his actions on the Western Front in the spring of 1918. His story is told through flashbacks, from his arrival in France in the 1917 with the Portuguese Expeditionary Force, while in the present-day in 1943, he hunts a wolf in the countryside near his farm, with his young daughter.
The English title I watched this under was "Courage of One". The war scenes first. They are very well-shot, and the attention to detail in the uniforms and the trench warfare, and action, is decent. I have to admit that the Lewis gun was distracting to me, as a history buff, because the magazine often rotates around even when Milhais is not pulling the trigger. An interesting prop malfunction. But that can be overlooked. As can the clear fact that the film was shot in Portugal, and not in northern France or Belgium. I had unnerving flashbacks to the 1960s film "Battle of the Bulge", set in the Ardennes in the winter of 1944, but filmed in Spain. However, "Courage of One" gets away with it, as the action is set in the spring.
The narrative works very well, and is the film's strong-point. The present-day adventure of Milhais hunting the wolf runs parallel to the narrative of the Great War. Carminho Coelho plays the role of his daughter, and she is excellent, and contributes to some of the best scenes in the film, as I found it to be a very strong and moving portrayal of a father and daughter relationship. "I've read your service records ten times," she tells her father, after she recites some war facts about him, when he joined the army and when he arrived in France. Overall, I highly recommend "Courage of One" to history fans. The crew did a fine job here with their low-budget. They substituted France and Flanders for the Portuguese countryside without making a complete mess of it, but it is the narrative that seals victory and makes this a film worth seeking out.
