They Shall Not Grow Old

[Blupiper]

My son and I went to see this documentary. It was done by Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame) and made use of MOD film and interviews done with veterans in the sixties and seventies. It features a number of kilted Highland soldiers and one bizarre shot of a dozen bagpipers playing while doing a fifty yard sprint. That was odd.

The film is a fascinating, magnificent piece of work. There isn't a script, per se, but the old film is played and the interviews talk of various aspects of the Great War and military life. The interviews explain, the film illustrates. Work was done to make this film run and appear as a modern film is the most amazing aspect of the film. The original, hand-cranked film was reprocessed with a higher frame-per-second rate, the speed was filtered and evened out, it was colorized and brought into a more modern aspect. Sound was added as appropriate (lip readers were brought in to try to suss out what was being said by those on the film) And then it was all brought together.

One often forgets these were teenagers marching off to have an adventure (one soldier actually turned around to the camera and said "hi, Mom.") The official age to enlist was 19 and in some of the interviews the veterans said they had actually enlisted at age 14 and a half (!). The battle scenes were harrowing and listening to the interviews hammered home the futility and randomness of the War. How they were treated after the War was criminal--considering how they were convinced to join up.

I can't recommend this highly enough. It's a beautifully done piece of art, a technical marvel and a heartbreaking true story. See it if you have the chance.


JMB