They Shall Not Grow Old

 

Visual history has always provided us with a means to gain a better understanding of the past. It’s much easier to interpret something if we can see it for ourselves rather than trying to imagine it second hand. Even motion pictures have their use because they not only provide an understanding of the period they were made but they also provide an emotional understanding of the period they are set. Documentaries, books, journal articles give you the vital insight to critically analyse the visual medium of history.

Peter Jackson’s incredible and painstakingly put together documentary manages to combine positive elements of the three types of history above. It is a first and foremost a visual and oral history of the First World War using archival interviews to provide context to the images. It’s a revealing and fascinating documentary that not only provides an insightful account of life on the front lines but is also backed up by an emotional backbone that would resonate powerfully with anyone with any connection to a country who waged such a terrible battle.

What is most revealing is that the majority of the boys who fought bounded on the battlefield with what could only be described as enthusiasm but this would change. The fighting was tough, but they preserved due to the sense of comradeship knowing full well that the men beside them were going through the exactly the same thing. What is terrifying though is the longer the war dragged on the less things began to shock them. They became accustomed to the violence around them.

There’s also something terribly British about the oral interviews that is heartening and amusing. As wrong as it sounds an interview with a soldier which described how his friend’s head was blown up right next to him was amusing because he described the whole event as not ‘very assuring’. This classic sense of British understatement really does warm you the interviewees and turns men of the past to something that feels remarkably present.

Technically the film is a marvel. The painstaking process to colourise archive footage over 100 years old must have been a long and arduous one but the result is staggering. Colourisation has had its critics (people are still outright rejecting it), but in this case, it brought history to life and made the experience more vivid than it would have been if the footage was left untouched. The moment in which the film transfers to vivid colour is perhaps similar to the amazement people felt then the Wizard of Oz changed from Black & White to glorious technicolour.

Similar painstakingly effort went into lip reading what the subjects of the footage where saying and using actors to reproduce the dialogue. This, coupled with the colourisation, has the remarkable effect of bring these men back to life. They almost feel real or like characters from a film who we engaged with on an emotional but with added poignancy because these were real people who made a great sacrifice. Never is this more apparent than when images of men smiling at the camera were followed by similar looking men dead on the battlefield. It’s a harrowing sequence.

They Shall Not Grow Old is up there with Lord of the Rings as Peter Jackson’s greatest achievement. I’m hoping it doesn't pave the way for colourisation of films or images that do not need it, but for now it’s a technical wonder that enriched the experience.

4.5/5