A good movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but, since it was included in ‘They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?’ list, I was quite eager to check it out (For some reason, I also thought that it was included in the ‘1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die’ list but it was apparently not the case). I have to admit that I had never heard of Humphrey Jennings before watching this movie but he apparently became famous with such short movies he made in the 40’s. To be honest, even though I understand why it was included, I wish they didn’t add this introduction by Leonard Brockington. Indeed, I loved the fact that there was no commentary or narration and removing this intro would have made the whole thing even more evocative. Concerning the rest of the movie, it gave a pretty good look on how life was back then during WWII in England. Personally, I have always been intrigued by this time period in Great Britain as their experience of WWII was so different to what happened in France and in the Netherlands and the other countries occupied by the Nazis. Of course, they still had to face the Blitzkrieg and suffered great losses but they basically remained undefeated after all and you could say it has shaped this country much more differently than the rest of Europe, maybe even leading to the recent Brexit. Anyway, it gave a pretty neat time capsule showing how British people lived at the time and I can understand why Jennings was considered a poet of the English cinema. Of course, it was still some propaganda but the approach chosen by Jennings was so subtle, without the introduction, it would have been the most subtle propaganda movie I had seen. 

7/10