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.
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
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.
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All Quiet on the Western Front
war • 1979
war • 1979
The Good German
and set in a shattered Berlin in the aftermath of WWII, Soderbergh's The Good German casts Blanchett as Lena Brandt, a shades-of-grey character who we learn has made an awful bargain to evade the Holocaust. Fellow Soderbergh regular George Clooney plays an American war correspondent who gets mixed up in a muddle as competing forces tussle over concealed war crimes in this captivating noir that riffs off Casablanca and the golden era of Hollywood film production.
The Good German is streaming at SBS On Demand.
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The Good German
