They Shall Not Grow Old

Peter Jackson was given access to over 600 hours of audio and 100 hours of archival film from World War One which varied in quality. He turned it into an excellent film for BBC which was given a small theatrical release this week. I love history and was curious how Jackson would work to restore the footage so I headed to the movies.

Jackson and his team did a superb job. They decided to use the footage to tell the story of the average British soldier’s experience in the Great War. The entire film is told by the people who were actually in the war, and his team did a fantastic job of colorizing some of the footage. Jackson believed that since the soldiers fought in color, telling their story as accurately as possible was best done in color. At the end of the screening, there’s a half hour explanation of how they brought the film to life with color, audio, and good old fashioned detective work. It’s really interesting so if you catch the film, be sure to stick around afterward.

While the movie lets the soldiers speak for themselves, there are some themes that occur throughout the film. Many of the soldiers were excited to go fight, but quickly realized (along with their German enemies) that war is useless. After hearing of their victory on November 11th, 1918, the men didn’t celebrate – they asked, “well, what next?”

As many who fought in the war suggest, they were simply too far gone by that point. When the soldiers returned to Britain, the people back home didn’t understand what they had gone through. The film ends on a great example of this that I won’t spoil here.

In the end, Jackson hopes They Shall Not Grow Old encourages audiences to ask their families if they had loved ones who fought in the Great War.

Odds are, you did.

It’s a great film. Jackson turned something old that we’ve all seen dozens of times before in history documentaries into something unique. This is as close as you’ll get to knowing what it was like to fight in the Great War.

My Rating: 7.8/10