They Shall Not Grow Old
Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2018 11:15 am
Last night we visited the local Odeon to see the world premier of this film, live from the British Film Institute in London and being simultaneously shown on cinemas all over the country. I only knew about it after seeing an item on the TV news. Despite the high ticket price it is the first time in years I have seen a cinema virtually full.
For those who weren't aware of it, it is a film made by Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings fame in conjunction with the Imperial War Museum to coincide with this special Armistice Day. From hundreds of hours of archive film of the First World War, using the latest technology, he has restored many sequences, cleaning the film, slowing it down to a realistic speed and colourising it. The result is truly breathtaking.
I have long been interested in WW1 and have visited the battlefields of the Somme, Verdun and other places several times. I thought I had a vague idea of just how terrible trench warfare was. I now realise I did not. This film brings home the horrors more vividly than anything you've ever seen. To see it in jerky black and white is one thing. To see it in full colour and looking like it was filmed yesterday is something else.
Above all though the film helps to turn these black and white figures into real people. It also shows the humour which is often the only coping process for people in terrible circumstances. And it shows the humanity in the midst of it all. One remarkable sequence shows a dressing station with British and German soldiers being treated alongside each other and German POWs helping the British doctors and carrying wounded. At that point there was no enemy, no animosity, they were all just soldiers trying to get through it.
On a lighter note, it is also not entirely off topic as there are some very good sequences featuring the trench railways. Several steam and petrol locos are shown and trains taking troops and supplies up to the communication trenches.
See it if you can for whatever reason. It is not easy to watch at times but is a phenomenal piece of work.
For those who weren't aware of it, it is a film made by Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings fame in conjunction with the Imperial War Museum to coincide with this special Armistice Day. From hundreds of hours of archive film of the First World War, using the latest technology, he has restored many sequences, cleaning the film, slowing it down to a realistic speed and colourising it. The result is truly breathtaking.
I have long been interested in WW1 and have visited the battlefields of the Somme, Verdun and other places several times. I thought I had a vague idea of just how terrible trench warfare was. I now realise I did not. This film brings home the horrors more vividly than anything you've ever seen. To see it in jerky black and white is one thing. To see it in full colour and looking like it was filmed yesterday is something else.
Above all though the film helps to turn these black and white figures into real people. It also shows the humour which is often the only coping process for people in terrible circumstances. And it shows the humanity in the midst of it all. One remarkable sequence shows a dressing station with British and German soldiers being treated alongside each other and German POWs helping the British doctors and carrying wounded. At that point there was no enemy, no animosity, they were all just soldiers trying to get through it.
On a lighter note, it is also not entirely off topic as there are some very good sequences featuring the trench railways. Several steam and petrol locos are shown and trains taking troops and supplies up to the communication trenches.
See it if you can for whatever reason. It is not easy to watch at times but is a phenomenal piece of work.