Lest we forget, they said, but turn on the news and the world’s on fire. We are a forgetful people, it would appear. War leaves a trail of destruction, both physical and psychological, that can affect generations to come.
Some filmmakers explore the personal effect of war, others the unexpected events that occur, while still others have turned their minds to reasoning with us against following the same tragic paths again.
The Telegram Man
Australian director James Francis Khehtie’s award-winning short brings home the terrible truth that lies at the broken heart of the saying “Don’t shoot the messenger”. The inimitable Jack Thomson’s kindly telegram delivery man, Bill, is much respected in his remote country town, delivering the good news of weddings and births that keeps family and friends connected across incredible distances. But his standing is transformed by the long arm of WWII to a harbinger of unimaginable loss no one wants to welcome to their door.
The Telegram Man is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Operation Mincemeat
Surprising tales of WWII’s strangest events continue to surface on the big screen. Such is the case with Shakespeare in Love director John Madden’s rousing depiction of a particularly gruesome operation conducted by the Allies. The ever-dependable Colin Firth plays Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu, a retired lawyer pressed into naval intelligence who is tasked with realising a jaw-dropping misdirection: fool the Nazis into thinking they’ll land in Greece, rather than Normandy. How? By depositing fake orders with a false identity corpse and allowing him to wash ashore. Also featuring Trainspotting’s Kelly Macdonald and Ripley’s Johnny Flynn as future Bond novelist Ian Fleming, it’s impeccably crafted.
Operation Mincemeat is streaming at SBS On Demand.
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Operation Mincemeat
Historical drama • war • 2021
Historical drama • war • 2021
Onoda
French actor, director and Anatomy of a Fall co-writer Arthur Harari, who shared the Best Original Screenplay Oscar with Justine Triet for that film, here draws a nuanced and compelling look at the folly of Japanese intelligence officer Hiroo Onoda. He infamously refused to believe WWII was over and doggedly stuck to his mission to hold Lubang Island in the Philippines at all costs, right up to 1974, a determination not even his family could dissuade him from. Rather than taking cheap potshots, his refusal to concede is leant unexpected grace by actors Yûya Endô and Kanji Tsuda, who share the role as the years pass.
Onoda is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Benediction
Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi and Dunkirk’s Jack Lowden are sublime as older and youthful versions of conscientious objector Siegfried Sassoon in this impeccable biopic by Terrence Davies. Having witnessed the mud-stuck horror of the trenches during the Great War, he rejected the idea that peace could be won with guns, instead funnelling his psychological wounds into words of acute wisdom and aching beauty in poems including The Hero. His troubles were twofold as a closeted man in very different times who found succour in the friendship of Oscar Wilde ally Robbie Ross (Simon Russell Beale).
Benediction is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Chronicle of the Years of Fire
We’re so used to seeing WWII from the Western perspective, which makes this bracing epic from Algerian filmmaker Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina all the more intriguing, particularly as that conflagration is purely prologue. The director and his co-writers, Rachid Boudjedra and Tewfik Fares, instead examine, from a very human perspective, the 1954 revolution against the French colonial invaders and the sweeping battle for independence that followed. A historic portrait, it made history, too, with Lakhdar-Hamina becoming the first Arabic and African man to win the Palme d’Or at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival.
Chronicle of the Years of Fire is streaming at SBS On Demand.
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Chronicle of the Years of Fire
Historical drama • 1975
Historical drama • 1975
All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria Remarque’s enduring, semi-autobiographical novel, which drew on his own experiences of the First World War as a young German man oblivious to what he was about to endure, gets at the bitter crux of war’s all-pervasive devastation. So much so it was burned by the Nazis. Adapted multiple times, first by American director Lewis Milestone and most recently by German-Austrian Edward Berger, this 1979 telemovie helmed by Oscar-winner Delbert Mann relays its heartsore tale with a starry cast including Ian Holm, Donald Pleasance, Ernest Borgnine and Patricia Neal. It’s brutal but brilliant.
All Quiet on the Western Front is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
All Quiet on the Western Front
war • 1979
war • 1979
Klondike
With the war in Ukraine still raging, writer/director Maryna Er Gorbach’s devastating depiction of the civilian cost focuses on the home front, quite literally. Set in the Donbas steppes in 2014, the fateful year flight MH17 was downed by Russian-backed militia, farmers Irka (Oxana Cherkashyna) and Tolik (Sergiy Shadrin) are picking up the pieces with the front of their humble home blown off. He wants to leave, she’s determined to stay, and all around them, the machinery of mayhem is gearing up as the region rumbles towards today’s conflict.
Klondike is streaming at SBS On Demand until 10.25pm 12 December.
The Unknown Soldier
Finnish author Väinö Linna’s powerful novel is based on his own experiences in the Continuation War (1941-44), a pitched battle against the Soviet Union that was concurrent with WWII but ignited by Soviet territorial aggression before the global conflict erupted. Finland’s defence saw them turn, infamously, towards Germany for support, a move for which the country was resoundingly punished, shrinking even more. Director and co-writer Aku Louhimies does not get stuck into the nitty gritty of history, instead zooming in on the day-to-day grind faced by a band of Finnish soldiers stuck in this hell.
The Unknown Soldier is streaming at SBS On Demand.
