A film review I felt I had to write, having watched the film over three lessons in my History class. The film is about an old couple, James (Jim) and Hilda, who live in a cottage in a countryside, separated from most others. Their family live in the city, and it’s in the middle of the Cold War. The couple are scared about a nuclear attack, and so Jim decides to build a shelter in case an attack hits.
SPOILERS FOLLOW
As the shelter is built by Jim, the doors taken from hinges and all other preparations made, we learn about the couple. We get to like their strange ways, their lives, their reminiscing about the Second World War, and their confusion about just who is at war at the minute. And then of course, in this fictional land with this fictional couple that we love – the bomb hits.
Everything’s destroyed, the house is wrecked – but the couple have survived. And now the story is about their survival. Their life in their tiny shelter, the tale as their health deteriorates as the fallout from the bomb hits. When they step outside, when they sit in the fresh air, and all the time you know they’re unwillingly exposing themselves to the fallout.
And then they start to get more ill, and you can feel these people suffering. Their hopes stay up all the time, Jim’s always trying to cheer up his wife, always looking on the bright side, always finding excuses – and it’s that bit that’s heartwarming. And heart breaking.
SPOILERS (KIND OF) STOP HERE
The film on a whole is an interesting one. I didn’t find myself particularly falling in love with the couple, and it felt like you knew what would happen, and the predictability took away the shock and maybe the feelings that should’ve been felt. But when, on the third day of watching, I watched the last half an hour, I actually could feel what they were going through. It was sad, watching as their health deteriorates and watching as these poor people are subjected to fallout – fallout they aren’t really aware of. You do feel for them, eventually. Either because you love them and it’s sad when they start to fall ill, or because you can see this poor, lovely, sweet couple starting to fall ill – you aren’t particularly interested in them, but you can feel their pain. I’m the second one. i didn’t fall in love with them all the way through, but it felt sad to see them at the end, you could feel their feelings at the end. Not because I’d known them forever (or I suppose it felt like that in some places), but I was sad because these people were innocent. They were a lovely, innocent couple. And the most heart breaking thing of all. They kept thinking someone would come to save them. And every day, they planned to get up and go and buy some milk and carry on as normal.
The music was something that was meant to be quite important – and the only piece of music that really affected me was… well there were two bits. The theme song. Typical of the time, and despite the almost happy sounding tune, you can feel the pain, almost the falling of the music, the slowing of the music, to fit the eventual fall of the couple (I know that sounds grim, but it’s hard to explain). And the other piece of music was the kind of, reflective tune that played when Hilda dreamt of better times, when she made wishes, and we saw a weird dream land kind of scenario.
The film has some lovely and truly heart warming and heart breaking moments. It’s an amazingly powerful film, especially nearer the end, and strangely enough near the beginning, when we aren’t entirely sure what will happen (even though it isn’t that hard to guess). The little moments of comedy (and there’s a really funny bit just before the bomb hits), and the bits where we see just how innocent this couple are really make the film what it is. There are golden moments, the best bits of the couple, that make this film. And it’s those bits you remember when you reach the end of the film, and it’s those bits you remember after you’ve seen the film. The best bits of the couple make the film. And the fact the couple are there, innocent, harmless, also helps to add to the realism. The realism of this film and the time-placement must have been immense when it was first released. And even now you can still feel the time and the realism. And even now you can still feel those best bits of the couple, which make the film.
The film is an interesting one. Not overly exciting, but it’s those golden moments, those best bits, and those powerful bits you need to watch out for. And you just need to feel the time to see how powerful it is.
I felt it could’ve been more powerful – and yet those powerful moments there are and that I felt, make the film deserve quite a high mark anyway.
8.6/10
No comments:
Post a Comment