Le pantalon (1997)

Since [date unspecified], the First World War has been bogged down in trench warfare on the Western Front. An infantryman in the [number unspecified] Infantry Regiment, Lucien Bersot, a farrier and young father, is doing his duty as a citizen at the front. He eagerly awaits his next leave so he can see his family again. But fate, in the form of a pair of trousers, decides otherwise. As he is being issued his gear before going up to the front, he is given a white fatigue-uniform pair of trousers instead of the red trousers that are part of the French army uniform: there are none left in his size. During the troop inspection, an officer insists that he be given regulation trousers. But the pair the quartermaster sergeant offers Bersot is stained with blood and torn, having been taken from a corpse. Bersot refuses to wear them. For this refusal, he is imprisoned until his scheduled court-martial. Two of Bersot’s comrades protest this injustice and inform the lieutenant who had brought the charges against him. The meeting ends in a misunderstanding, and the two soldiers are imprisoned as well. Colonel Auroux, acting on rumors that soldiers have refused to go over the top, wants to make an example of someone. The ensuing trial of the three men is a travesty of justice: the colonel, who presides over the court, abuses his authority to dismiss both the soldiers’ arguments and those of their defense counsel. The court sentences Bersot’s comrades-in-arms to hard labor and Bersot to death. Bersot’s defender, Lieutenant Guérin, who has seen him fight, tries to save him by seeking a pardon from the army corps general. Unfortunately, enemy artillery pounds the route Guérin takes on his way back, and he is killed. The next day at dawn, as an example to the new recruits and the rest of his comrades, Private Bersot is executed by firing squad.