“Mostly, they were just boys, as we were. They seemed to be glad to be captured. They were out of it.”
What struck me most as a viewer were the faces, the procession of almost invariably smiling faces – the assembled weight, minus any pretense of pageantry, of an entire generation of British youth girding themselves, steeling up their courage, gearing up for war. The images, seen faraway, largely lack distinguishing features yet are familiar, static black and white, grainy, jumpy, degraded in spots, over or underexposed in others, confined within a comparatively meager square occupying the dead center of a massive IMAX screen. In that square, smiling face after smiling face, looking around in a mixture of bemusement and anticipation, not entirely ignorant of the horrors they have yet to confront but, to a man, nevertheless outwardly unconcerned. Continue reading “Movie review: “They Shall Not Grow Old” (2018)”
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