Quiet reality of an unquiet time - Film - Arts - Evening Standard
       

Quiet reality of an unquiet time

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A prize-winning British festival entry in 1975, Stuart Cooper's war movie looks even better now than it did then, since its Second World War combat scenes, culled from German and British archival documentaries, make its fictional story seem extraordinarily real.

John Alcott, Kubrick's cinematographer, shoots the rest in pale black and white, which matches the original footage superbly.

We follow a young and diffident middle-class man (Brian Stirner) through his military training, see the tedium of his waiting for combat, his short moments of liberty, a hesitant, achingly brief romantic interlude with a girl (Julie Neesam) at a dance and his stoic acceptance of possible death when battle commences.

The whole looks and feels totally authentic and is all the better for refusing heroics. It's a quiet film about an unquiet time and very well worth reviving.

Overlord
Cert: 15

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