Overlord (1975) User Reviews (38)

Excellent. Just excellent.

[eddie-177 · 8/10 · 16 May 2005]

When I heard that this film consisted of about 1/3 newsreel footage, I was expecting the worst. Stock footage blended with studio footage is something you'd find in an MST3k movie; three people in a car driving quickly away from a giant lizard and then cut to a different film grain shot of an iguana in a lab and then back to the car. Oh no, the Iguana is chasing us.

The effect can be jarring, to say the least.

But Cooper, so far as I have heard, actually wrote the screenplay for Overlord with the stock footage he was going to use already in mind, tailoring his script so that the footage actually made sense. The movie is shot so that the switch from studio to stock lighting and film quality is barely noticeable. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's seamless--it does take a little while to get used to, but after the first fifteen minutes or so you don't even notice it.

And that's a good sign, that you have to "get used to" the picture for a little while before you feel comfortable watching it. That's the sign of originality. This is a brooding and slow-paced war film, but unlike other such films it maintains a certain lightness in spite of its weighty subject and so avoids coming off as ponderous. No viewpoints are shoved in your face. Hard questions are asked, yes, but you're given plenty of time to try and sort them out for yourself.

This is a movie you have to be wide awake while watching--it demands your full attention, and if you're not willing to give that up then you're probably not going to enjoy it. Overlord is most certainly not mindless entertainment. It provokes thought, and if thought makes you uncomfortable it's simply not the movie for you.

Stunning mix of newsreel and fiction...wow!!

[von-13 · 8/10 · 27 July 2000]

Fantastic little "war" gem this. Stands to reason why it won a Silver Bear at the Berlin Filmfestival once. We are offered visually very beautiful images of documentary footage from world war 2. In an extremely competent manner this material is mixed into a fictitious story about a young soldier´s life and death as a soldier participating in the famous D-Day invasion (Operation Overlord).Don't expect another Saving Private Ryan or The Longest Day.....Overlord is by far too "experimental" for that.Well, it's really impossible to compare these films, but rest assured Overlord will deliver a very unique war movie experience, like you´ve (probably) never seen it before.

Good considering the budget.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 5 November 2019]

I can safely assume that "Overlord" had an extremely minuscule budget. None of the actors look like professionals, it was all shot in black & white and the film uses lots and lots of stock footage from WWII. Despite my reservations, which I'll get to in a moment, it's awfully good considering the costs.

The film follows a typical sort of soldier, Tom Beddows, from his induction to his landing at the beaches of Normandy. Throughout his story, clips of the preparations for the landing as well as other war footage is inserted...often in the clumsiest and seemingly random manner. Despite this, the story of Tom IS compelling and sucks you in to his life. Worth seeing...especially if you would love to see a decent micro-budgeted picture.

War. Is. Zzzzzz(?)

[natashabowiepinky · 16 December 2013]

There are some who will proclaim this to be a modern classic, a brilliant parable on the realities of war and the effect it can have on the psyche. I cannot agree. Through all of the archive montages of buildings being set on fire, planes flying through the air and squaddies setting out to sea, I was just twiddling my fingers. If I wanted to see old Pathe footage, I would have watched a documentary. But I didn't, so the fact so much of it takes up the meagre 72 minutes running time strikes me as outright lazyness.

Mind you, what's actually been shot for the film isn't too great either, as our too-polite-by-half main character gets enrolled in the army during training scenes that are about 1% as interesting as those in Full Metal Jacket. We then follow his career until D-Day itself, falling in love with a girl at a bar and voicing his disquiet at the conflict in the letters he sends. Problem is, this bloke is as dull as ditchwater, and his fellow soldiers, on the rare occasions they open their mouths, are just a bunch of one-dimensional stereotypes. The most interesting participant here is Tina, the cocker spaniel our young recruit says goodbye to at the start. Someone get that dog a contract.

I can appreciate the use of a bit of celluloid material from back then, to set the scene and give us an idea of what life was like during the period. But here, it monopolises half the length, which is far too much for a product marketed as a movie. And why did they have to choose to follow someone so vanilla in the title role? I was reminded of the film Titanic, where despite the hundreds more enthralling prospects on board, the director opted to show us the lives of the two most tedious passengers. WHY?? By the time his eventual fate is revealed, and has done or said nothing to endear us to him... so, who cares?

War can be many things... but surely it should not send you to sleep? 4/10

Good but not great recreation of the days leading up to D-Day is more about waiting than it is about war

[dbborroughs · 6/10 · 25 September 2007]

This review contains a potential spoiler.

In honor of Ken Burns' The War I pulled out the recent DVD release of Stuart Cooper's Overlord to see things from the English perspective Overlord concerns a soldier named Tom from the point at which he leaves home to report for military service to the landing on D-Day. We follow as Tom trains, makes friends and generally waits for his part of the war to start. Shot in black and white to match a great deal of inserted footage from the time this is a soldier's life during wartime English style.

Re-released in the US a year or so ago I remember the reviews being nearly perfect and I looked forward to getting the chance to see this "lost classic". Finally watching the film I'm left wondering what all the shouting has been about. Don't get me wrong, its a good film, its just the great one that some pundits, like Roger Ebert seemed to make it out to be.

Essentially a film about waiting this film is merely a slice of life for the English soldier on the eve of the great invasion. We watch as Tom and his men are shunted around, we see their training, we see footage of the war from the air, and we watch as the men just wait around. There is more to it than that but for me its an 80 minute march to a foregone conclusion. It great to look at with some stunning sequences of old footage (flights over the countryside and air combat) that looked great on the 42 inch TV in the living room, but the film really didn't have much beyond that. Tom the central character and emotional center is too melancholy and morbid (he's certain he's going to die) that the film seems more incredibly sad if not incredibly distant. Why would any one want to be around him when he seems mostly to sulk and brood, even when he's falling in love with a girl he meets at a dance. The film looks stunning and on a technical level its a masterpiece of combining old with new footage.Clearly we are there, but with a central character such as the maudlin Tom Beddoe its not really a place we want to be no matter how good it looks.

A disappointment (its good but not great) thats worth a look.

A superb evocation of a soldier's life in the weeks preceding D-Day

[Sylvester · 10/10 · 12 August 2005]

"Overlord" follows the experience of a young soldier from his induction into the army up to his participation in Operation Overlord, the D-Day landings.

Beautifully photographed in black and white, the film weaves archive footage seamlessly into the fabric of the story and captures, not only the look, but the very essence of the period.

Until the closing moments, the protagonist is not involved in any fighting. What we see are the minutiae of life for a young soldier being trained and waiting to go into battle – the marching and military exercises; a trip to the cinema and the local village dance, where he meets his first girlfriend; the eve of battle, when he writes his last letter home, fills in the standard army issue will form, and burns all the private papers which he is not permitted to take into battle lest they fall into enemy hands and give away some information of use to the enemy. These small personal details give the film an emotional depth and a feeling for the times, which most war films made in the post war period fail to do.

Tries to be a classic

[joseph45-732-714081 · 6/10 · 15 July 2013]

I didn't like it that much. Too unclear at times; slightly surrealistic and confused. For example, there's a full minute of black screen at the beginning, making you think something's broken. There's a firebombing scene in which it takes too long to figure out who's bombing whom. There's the mixing of dreams and reality, and the incongruous jumble of scenes in general, with little to nothing in the way of explanation in between. It was as if someone had taken every third scene from a much longer movie, and presented this one-third; and non-linearly to boot. Not to mention the discordant music. I'm sure all of the above was deliberate, new-age and supposed to convey a message, but I prefer straightforwardness. This is 6/10 for me.

An unfairly overlooked masterpiece

[JAM-616 · 10/10 · 19 April 2007]

I saw Stuart Cooper's 'Overlord' at Seattle's Grand Illusion Theater last summer (before it opened anywhere else in the US) having heard nothing about the movie, and was absolutely floored by it. Its simple story follows Thomas, a young recruit, through his army training until just before he hits the beaches on early morning D-Day, all the while haunted by the spectre of impending death which awaits on Normandy's beaches.

The archival footage which makes up much of the film's most stunning imagery is meticulously chosen and edited; it frequently becomes Tom's dreams and visions of the War as it unfolds, and for the viewer, it is a vision of what WWII was, seen from both German and British sides. Cooper so masterfully situates Tom, an everyman, in visions of the surrounding war, that by the end of this surprisingly short, yet incredibly rich film, the magnitude of the toll the war took on the individuals fighting it becomes overwhelmingly moving.

Many will notice the major influence this movie had on parts of 'Full Metal Jacket' (Kubrick's long time collaborator John Alcott shot 'Overlord,' and Kubrick once commented that the only thing wrong with this movie was that it should have been twice as long). However, 'Overlord' is unique; I've never seen another war movie quite like this. It's a masterpiece of cinematic war poetry, and that it's taken over 30 years to get a release of any kind in the US is really surprising. It certainly holds its own against any of the best movies made about WWII.

Sympathy and Syphilis

[SteveSkafte · 7/10 · 26 October 2010]

"Overlord" is a very good film, but marred by one constantly reoccurring flaw - the editing. The editing is so choppy, so ill-conceived that the film is never allowed to completely get off the ground. The newsreel footage could have been used much more effectively for punctuation as opposed to content. There's so much of it at play here that any new footage seems almost like an afterthought. And for a film whose running time barely tops an hour and twenty minutes, there's quite a lack of dramatic drive behind it. Every time "Overlord" settles into a powerful or gripping sequence (and there are several), five to ten minutes of uninterrupted stock footage breaks up the flow.

Those are the bad points. Now for the good. The acting is the first thing that comes to mind. Brian Stirner plays Tom, the main character. He conveys emotion with such purity, from trepidation to fear to honesty to joy. His face draws you in with its uncomplicated childlike demeanour. The supporting actors are all equally impressive. No one ever feels like anything less than fully real. John Alcott, as far as I'm concerned, is the real star here. His cinematography perfectly mirrors the wartime footage used, but still giving it his distinctly powerful personality. He adds so much to this film. Stuart Cooper brings it all together, but his poor eye for editing sabotages his own best strengths.

This is a very, very good film. But the pacing flaws present throughout make it extremely difficult to get into. If a more linear approach could have been adopted while still maintaining the powerful melancholy poetry of "Overlord", this could have been a great film.

Go and see it

[aeon · 10/10 · 14 November 1998]

If you watched Saving Private Ryan, go and see this film too. It's totally different, but it deals with the personal feelings of a private much better, no battle scenes, just the perfect backdrop about a normal soldier going off to war, knowing what will happen.

great archival footage

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 26 February 2015]

A young British man Tom Beddoes is called up to war. The film follows his training and then finally landing on the beaches of Frances. There are large amounts of archival footage from both Allies and German sources that are intercut with this fictional character. I really didn't care or buy into the fictional account. The characters are interchangeable and not that compelling. The archival footage is another story. They take up about half of the movie and is rather fascinating. They don't actually connect with the fictional story. They create a surreal mood in the movie. The ending does have a poetic touch. However the fictional story still isn't that compelling.

A gentle, heart-wrenching look at one soldier's story.

[heyjay40 · 10/10 · 29 June 2006]

I just saw a screening of this movie and was blown away by it. A simple story told in a "did they film this or is it archival footage" masterpiece. So many movies try to tell a story and piece together bits and pieces of newsreel footage. Woody Allen's "Zelig" and "Forest Gump" put the characters into old newsreel footage. Stuart Cooper created a whole story and filmed new scenes, combined them with archival and newsreel footage to create a haunting and beautiful film. Simple yet telling, the story of one soldier's preparation for WWII and his ultimate participation is riveting. The performances are quiet yet real. The footage found and the new footage filmed are seamless. The director and cinematographer found old German lenses and created the look to match what was filmed back in the 1940's. Criterion and Janus Films are releasing this gem and I hope every serious film lover will go see it. Not seen in the US on the big screen since it was filmed in 1975, now is the time for it to take it's rightful place. With war still an ugly reality and lonely yet brave soldier's giving their life for the country every day, this is a testament and tribute to those who believe in fighting for your country. Patriotism!

Art house war

[campbellmark-39426 · 7/10 · 11 August 2019]

Watched this movie on the strength of the reviews. It is a fascinating pastiche of the real and imagined. The use of newsreel was well done but sometimes blurred the narrative. It reminded me of Joseph Losey's King & Country. The total deconstruction of a person and the detached mechanics of their situation. People become instruments of war, like a plane, tank or gun. They are nothing more than a commodity to be resourced. Probably ahead of its time but will not be everyone's cup of tea. Some of the scenes were striking (Beddoes in the trees) like huge tombstones. The sense on hopelessness is portrayed throughout. Worth watching.

boring and simplistic

[chrissso · 5/10 · 23 October 2015]

There were millions of unknown soldiers in WW2 … some heroic … some cowardly … and some downright stupid. Their stories are compelling … plucked from youth and loved ones … sent to faraway places … dealt an unremarkable death … insignificant in the maelstrom. This is the premise of Overlord. It is a good premise for a film, but that alone cannot save this film from the ash heap.

Overlord has a huge problem … the simplicity of its plot. The film is about 83 minutes long … of which about half is stock war footage. Seriously, it seemed like they started with the stock and wrote a story around it … which led to a very simple plot. Character development is woefully missing in this film. Furthermore there are parts of the film that do nothing to drive the plot forward and leave you wondering what the heck is this about (note the scene with the French money … talk about a waste of 5 minutes).

Overlord is a surreal, meandering, simplistic and often times pointless look at the preparation for the D Day invasion. It specifically focuses on one individual soldier's experience and his sense of futility and doom. It is maudlin … has very little historical context … and uses way too much stock. Finally, it suffers from a downright stupid ending.

In honor of those who fought I begrudgingly give this film a 5 but it deserves a 3!

Disembodied poetry

[Polaris_DiB · 9/10 · 17 May 2007]

"Overlord" is one of the most disembodied and surreal war movies ever created. It's the story of a soldier, Tom, who joins the British Army, trains, then gets sent to the D-Day Invasion (Operation Overlord) and is promptly shot.

What makes the movie remarkable, however, is that it uses stock footage of the war interspersed with original footage, strange and original sound-mixing, and discontinuous editing to trace the soldier's progress of mental states to that moment of clarity right before he dies. Past, present, and future are all collapsed into one moment, and an image that provokes a response earlier has a key relationship with an image that comes later. Death, sexuality, and despair are clumped together as well, creating one of the most artful and poetic works ever made on war--which is important, considering that pseudo-poetic "antiwar" movies are made all the time that often break down into over-indulgent action films. No, this movie shares a lot more with Dziga Vertov's "The Man with a Movie Camera" than "The Sands of Iwo Jima".

--PolarisDiB

A rich and odd little gem

[git011 · 8/10 · 16 May 2005]

I caught Overlord on IFC as a programming homage to Jerry Harvey and the Z Channel (thanx to Xan Cassavetes). If you are a WWII buff who loves the History Channel and interesting experimental films you'll enjoy this movie. The stock war footage is so seamlessly interwoven that it is almost a verite experience. I love when you catch something so offbeat and refreshing that you can't believe you had never heard of it before. Do they still make Fresca soda? I need 10 lines to post this. I hope I never encounter a rabid dingo. I wonder if Spielberg has seen this movie. I wonder if Spielberg digs Fresca soda. I wonder if I should've eaten that last mushroom cap.Check it out.

World War 2 As You Have Never Seen It Before?

[loganx-2 · 8/10 · 30 July 2008]

Mixes archival footage of World War 2, with fictional story of a young man getting ready to go off to war. The archival footage, serves as the young man's thoughts and fears about going into battle. Scenes of air raids and bombings are spliced together with the scenes of sitting on the bus, being polite, and just doing normal everything things.

The film ends with D-Day, where our hero is among the first to storm the beach, the point where fact and fiction finally meet. Strange, and bizarre military weapons you have never seen before(the rocket wheel???), the barbed wire removing vehicle, appear throughout as well as amazing Arel footage.

The most unique and effective "war" film ever seen. Like Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence At Owel Creek", for the WW2 generation. It really puts you in the place, not of a soldier, per say, but of a human being, undergoing the process of becoming a soldier, facing the dread, anxiousness, and absurdity, with a solemn dignity, "Im not frightened", he writes to his parents, admitting he is almost certain he is not coming back.

Overlord cannot easily be place as either a pro or anti-war film. The situation of a gentle, very boyish, nice guy being sent off to the worlds most violent and dangerous conflict in all it's history (he takes a copy of "David Copperfield" with him, so he will have something to read.), is absurd, but it's not handled for irony. There is a scene, where two soldiers are off for R&R and they stumble across a theater, where a young girl is being forced to sing, by her mother in practice for some kind of competition. When the soldiers enter, the mother demands she sing again, though the daughter is even more shaken by the unexpected audience. She sings, and about halfway through the soldiers walk off, in disgust or discomfort, the mother still begging them to stay and listen.

Do the soldiers want to fight? No more than this girl, wants to sing,but for mother and mother country, they both do their share. The reason to watch this film, is because it contains none of the usual images and ideas we come to expect from war and anti-war films. Englad took tremendous beating during World War 2, for years sending their sons to stem,the rising tide of Nazism, inching ever further across the sea between them. Overlord, is thus not the story of heroic victory, or the horrors of war, it's the story of the guy who got sent out, the day-after he made a date(from his level of excitement, maybe his first),and who will probably not be making it back...

A Christmas present which reminds

[jupiter-sen · 9/10 · 4 January 2011]

Someone gave me the DVD of Overlord at Christmas and I thought it might be interesting for those who browse through these reviews to hear from someone who had a very very very small part in the making of this film, but who was in a position to observe some of the work that went into it. I was a young and inexperienced assistant editor at the time and I was present for much of the editing and completion of the film. We were mainly based in Stuart Cooper's house in Notting Hill- then not so fashionable, and moved later to Twickenham studios. I remember a roving showbiz correspondent putting his head round the door there and asking who was in the film, anyone he'd heard of? I couldn't help him and he withdrew in disgust.

Quite rightly, John Alcott is honourably mentioned in reviews and Stuart's commentary for the look of the film and the accomplished matching of old and new. I would also mention Jonathan Gili's contribution, then an editor, who later went on to direct and produce many great and quirky documentaries for the BBC. Jonathan worked with Stuart to construct the rhythm and the blend of the archive and 'live action'. His poetic timing and intrinsic wit added immeasurably to building the motor of the picture, making it purr where it could easily have stuttered. He also shared a sense of perfectionism with Stuart. Paul Glass's score, conjured out of penury of time and money, added a depth and resonance way beyond the means at the production's disposal, and I would draw attention to it. Lastly, but certainly not least, I would mention Alan Bell the sound editor. I will never forget the awe I felt when I stumbled into the dubbing theatre at Twickenham Studios and heard for the first time the all tracks run through of the scenes where bombers are unleashed over darkened cities. Up to then, the archive footage, with which I had become familiar, had been splendid, poignant and distant. Alan's delicacy and imagination combined with the music to turn it into a terrible elegy; for sound editors the brutal and spectacular is sometimes easier, and the more delicate and mysterious more difficult, but Alan managed both. Remember, this was a time before stereo was commonplace and the word digital did not impress. Jonathan is now dead, so is Alan; John Alcott too; and Paul Glass must be pretty senior now.

Overlord was made on a shoestring; I seem to remember that a 2CV was used as a camera car for tracking shots, despite John Alcott's cachet. The formality of the mis en scene can be explained partially by this fact. Faute de mieux, it faithfully -and conveniently- echoes the shooting styles of films of the 40s. But in essence the predictable dialogue and selection of scenes of Tom's life were created to mirror the structure of the Overlord and Bayeux tapestries, if I recall correctly. Not startlingly individual, but about ordinary men in extraordinary times. Where Stuart and Christopher Hudson elaborate this is in the dream and premonition scenes and this is a nod to 'film art'- perhaps the new tapestry format! Stuart, I believe, struggled hard, persuading, inspiring and cajoling, to turn the film into something far more ambitious than planned. And the fact that he did so is to his credit.

what a bore!

[ztammuz · 2/10 · 7 December 2018]

Read some of the reviews as was so hyped up that i was going to see a lost hidden gem of a war movie ( which is my favorite genre ) What i go is a mix of mostly newsreel footage and the most simplistic story about the most uninspiring character possible. Yes it does at the end convey the futility and tragedy of war , but then war is futile and tragic so as in this case it does not take much to convey it stay away unless you are looking for a sleeping pill.

Light Years beyond 'Saving Private Ryan'

[fubared1 · 8/10 · 22 April 2010]

That this film is not better known than all the jingoistic crap that came out of Hollyweed about WWII is nothing short of a crime. Many thanks to TCM and Criterion for making this gem more available. A word of warning to the viewer. There are no huge battle scenes, no stars, no digital effects, no big overblown music, just a simple tale of a soldier inducted into the army prior to D-Day, and the tragic outcome. And I'm not giving anything away. One knows from the first moment what the end will be. Everything about this film is superb. The acting by a cast of unknowns, the realistic script and dialogue, the brilliant cinematography that blends actual documentary footage into the film, the haunting music, etc., ad gloriam. All I can say is that this film affected me far more deeply than the above-mentioned film and it's images will stay with me much longer that anything Spielberg spent millions on to create.

One of the most innovative and devastating war pictures ever made

[tomgillespie2002 · 9/10 · 1 July 2017]

Stuart Cooper's Overlord is a meditation on the mechanics of war and the young souls swept into it. After winning the Silver Bear at the 25th Berlin International Film Festival, the film became incredibly obscure until recently, when it was given the restoration it deserved by the lovely folks at Criterion. Beginning in a quaint English home and ending on the beaches of Normandy for 'Operation Overlord' during World War II, it's a simple yet hypnotic story of a young private named Tom (Brian Stirner) and his slow journey to a death he feels is inevitable. The very first scene shows an out-of- focus soldier running from or towards an unknown threat before being shot down, only to be revealed as a dream sequence. This vision plagues Tom's thoughts, but he nevertheless remains somewhat chipper about it.

What makes this very personal journey so incredibly powerful is the sense of impending doom. Tom always seems to be on the move, be it on a train or an army jeep, as if he is making a slow trek towards his fate, and he chooses this time to daydream. Despite not knowing where the war is heading or if he'll even see combat, he somehow knows he is going to die but remains nonchalant about it. A nice boy, well spoken and slight, Tom is not built for the army, but he does what he is told and makes friends. The only time we really see his personality come to the fore is when he meets a pretty young lady (Julie Neesam) and the pair enjoy what little time they have together. He tells her they'll meet again, but we know they won't. In making Tom such an everyman, Overlord studies the anonymity of battle, and celebrates the millions of unknown soldiers who have charged into certain death without really understanding why.

Starting out life as a documentary, Cooper later made the bold decision to use the startling archive footage provided by the Imperial War Museum and weave a narrative through it. Cinematographer John Alcott (who collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Barry Lyndon) employs grainy black-and-white photography for the central story so it is interchangeable with the stock footage. The result is staggering. By adding sound, scenes of devastating city bombings become hellish nightmares, and a beach landing turns into something out of science- fiction. In a bizarre scene, a water wheel device powered by mini rockets rolls across the water and onto land, hoping to detonate any landmines or unexploded bombs before mightily toppling over. It's World War II like you've never seen it before, and it's real. It's a winning combination of observational and personal, making Overlord one of the most innovative and devastating humanist war films ever made.

Beautiful Film about Awful Events.

[birdrecruit · 9/10 · 1 April 2014]

Just watched this on Amazon Prime and really enjoyed it. It was unusual and original. I found myself struggling to place it in the decade it was made at first. It was so authentic re the war, I thought it was just post war at first, then as the more liberal language came in , I thought it was the sixties. Turns out it was mid seventies.

The film has a wonderful dream like quality with the hero foreseeing his own death. I don't know if the black and white film is shot on Ilford FP4 or not but it seems to have all its massive range of greys from white to black in it. This combined with the music and some of the documentary footage, although quite shocking at times, makes it paradoxically a beautiful film.

Some of the documentary film was outstanding. I have never seen some of the invasion devices shown before. There was one like a huge Catherine wheel that sped on to the beach. There was another that just chewed through the barbed wire defences. Further, there was a shot from a bomber flying low over a coast line which was so clear and real it pulled you in totally to the fictive dream - it didn't have any of the usual distancing of many documentary or fiction films.

Good film - I recommend it.

A rare case of filmed called "original" that lives up to its billing

[gortx · 15 May 2005]

So often, we hear of an "original" film (or other piece of art), but how often do they really live up to that billing? As part of IFC's tribute to Z CHANNEL, it was refreshing that they included Stuart Cooper's OVERLORD (doubly so for myself, since I only watched bits and pieces of it myself when Z CHANNEL aired it back in the day!).

An artful blend of documentary footage and black and white photography (by the legendary John Alcott - how did Cooper get him for such a low budget film?) that tells a very insular story of one British soldier's fateful part in WWII. The film is short on "plot", but it is intended more as a mood piece. The documentary footage is often remarkable. All but the most fanatical WWII devotee is likely to have seen only tiny fragments of the stock film used within.

If I had to describe the film to someone, it would be as a combination of a TWILIGHT ZONE episode, Carl Dreyer's VAMPYR and Peter Watkins' similarly skillful faux doc THE WAR GAME (or Woody Allen's ZELIG if you will).

This movie is a work of art

[scott1-912-252003 · 10/10 · 8 May 2014]

Fantastic, hidden gem of a movie with artistic elements you will only find in very rare 21st century indie films. But this film is more than just artistic, it weaves superb acting with abstract imagery. Cinematography beyond compare. I've never seen anything like this...absolutely stunning black & white with mixed real WWII footage integrated into the movie. And the British Imperial war footage is not the expected randomized grainy short clip montage, in no particular pattern. These film reel shots are crystal clear, HD quality close ups of casualties, airplane machine gun attacks, explosions, bomb runs, fires from aftermath, foot soldiers, vehicles, all in context of the artistic goal, related intimately with the main character's fears, and with greater context of the current and desperate situation the Allies faced in Europe. I highly recommend this work of art for any and all film buffs.

Lame Duck

[ETO_Buff · 2/10 · 6 January 2024]

Beginning with a premonition of his death, the film follows a young soldier through his call up to the East Yorkshire Regiment, his training, his meeting a young girl, his journey to France, and his death on Sword Beach. Calling this picture "thought-provoking" is clearly an attempt to get people to watch a lame-duck film. Bad acting and poor production quality contribute to a film that I wish I had missed. It's difficult to believe it was produced in 1975 because of the poor quality. The filmmakers used archive film from the actual battle, especially from Germany, and combined it with their own new footage. It was a noble attempt, and for the most part, it worked on a strictly technical level. However, the film as a whole seemed more like a 1950s film from behind the Iron Curtain.