King of Hearts

Le roi de coeur

During World War I, Scottish soldier Private Plumpick is sent on a mission to a village in the French countryside to disarm a bomb set by the retreating German army. Plumpick encounters a strange town occupied by the former residents of the local psychiatric hospital who escaped after the villagers deserted. Assuming roles like Bishop, Duke, barber, and circus ringmaster, they warmly accept the visitor as their King of Hearts.

With his reconnaissance and bomb-defusing mission looming, Plumpick starts to prefer the acceptance of the insane locals over the insanity of the war raging outside.

"A surrealistic jewel of a comedy which you realize, when you can catch your breath between laughs, has made the case for the sanity of the lunatics and the madness of the war-waging sane." - Charles Champlin, Los Angeles Times