A very odd movie, with a montage of world war 2 footage in chronological order with a soundtrack of Beatles covers (minus the really, really inhuman pieces of footage).
Some of it works quite well and is poignant, but others seem trite and insulting, but overall I quite liked it. I’d even buy the soundtrack.
Rather good WW2 action flick, with some great locations (it really did look like war-torn Europe during WW2), great costumes, and some crazy adventures of army criminals who get free when their convoy is ambushed, and figure they will head for the Swiss border, only to end up on a mission. Good story, good casting, and quite enjoyable, though maybe a tier below the best of the WW2 action movies (such as The Dirty Dozen or Where Eagles Dare).
First watch for me, and not something I’ve ever rushed to see, but I do like a few Peckinpah movies, so I thought it was time.
I found it very unengaging. The acting wasn’t great, except for Coburn (who was qreat) and some of his troop, and I found the slight story meandered along in a disjointed pace, and I did find some of the scenes either pointless or just poorly constructed.
I think if I’d have liked the film better, I’d have probably liked the non-ending better, and if I’d hated it, I’d probably loathe the ending, but as it was, I was just glad the movie was over. I suspect they did film an ending, but it was not a good one.
Probably overrated, in my humble opinion.
The Dambusters (1955)
This movie is based on the true story of a raid by British bombers to take out the dams of Germany, used to power and aid in the steelmaking process, powering Germany’s war machine. It’s dated somewhat both in presentation (the dialogue is clipped, very stiff-upper lip) and certainly in its special effects. It’s also a bit problematic in that the leader – Guy Gibson – has a dog whose name is now quite a severe racial slur (the N-word), and whose presence is throughout the movie – which is a shame as it means they barely ever put this movie on the TV.
However, it’s very stirring stuff, despite being pretty anti-gungho. I really enjoy how technical problems kept coming up, and the boffins or the airmen just shrug and say ‘we’ll work it out’ – and they do just that for each and every seemingly-impossible problem, by sheer ingenuity and brainpower. The attack requires a new type of bombing mechanism – the ‘bouncing bomb’, thought up by Barnes Wallis – one of the great engineers of the war, which has to dispatched at exactly the right height and distance from the target.
The bombers who have already dropped their load go in with each run of the next bomber to help draw flak, and given these men have to fly very low over water at night, with spotlights on, and always unload the bomb in exactly the same position – these guys were sitting ducks and they knew it.
It’s a movie of brave men training to fly at insanely low heights for hundreds of miles just to get where they needed to, and then fly into flak with courage and coolness to deliver their payload. There’s no dflag-waving, there’s no histrionics, just men knowing what they have to do, and doing it. It ends in a downbeat way, with the survivors resting in their bunks, whilst the bunks of the 56 lost men lie empty.
A war movie with a documentary feel, I’d thoroughly recommend this as long as poor special effects don’t bother you.
Rating: Good, 8/10
The Battle of Algiers
This is a film made in 1965 about the late 1950’s uprising in French-run Algeria. It has a soundtrack by Morricone, and is filmed in an interesting and gripping documentary style, in order to try and stress the realism of the events portrayed. It’s an even-handed film, showing evil acts perpetrated by both sides during the struggle, and I was quite surprised to find out that it was actually commissioned by the Algerian government. It doesn’t seem particularly biased (or as unbiased as such film can be).
There’s no flinching here from the acts committed. We are shown children and civilians being carried from collapsed buildings after some French action, and emotive, welling music rises (‘hm’, I thought, ‘so it’s gonna be anti-French’), but later similar footage is shown of the aftermath of a bombing of innocent civilians in a cafe, and a similar montage and the same music is used. More bombings – at a race course for example – presenting the approach of the Algerian Liberation Front (FLN) are shown, but again, this is balanced by unflinching footage of the torture of arab suspects by the French – electrocution, drowning, hanging in awkward positions, beating…
There’s more scary stuff here. The ease with which the women change from traditional covering clothing to Western-style clothes and make-up to get through checkpoints with bombs, the hiding of guns in the robes which are quickly pulled and used to shoot policemen going about their jobs (at the start of the agitation), and how the fighters assume (correctly!) that other arabs will willingly help them. Other striking scenes include how one of the fighters is going to be blown out of his hiding place and the French offer to allow a boy to come out – but the man keeps the boy with him. Another is the FLN (early on, before the struggle is really underway) declare they will clear the Kasbah of drink and drugs and prostitution, and a gang of small boys start taunting an old drunk. He staggers up a wide stairway, but the boys whistle and call other boys, until there’s a mass of them, pulling the drunk about, and then dragging/forcing him down the stairs on his back…
There’s a lot to be said for watching this film. I can’t recall any movie quite like it, and it is a cliche, I know, to say it’s never been more relevant. But it’s a true cliche.
It’s tense, it’s gripping, it’s thought-provoking.
This film is in French and Algerian/Arabic.
OVERALL: 7/10
REWATCHABILITY: Once a year. Suitable for middle teens up. Quite grim and bloody, but it is in black and white.