• Home
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • Lists
    • Yearly Top Tens
    • Trailers
    • Contact
    • Hire Me
    • About
Menu

World of Reel

Street Address
City, State, Zip
Phone Number
Home
IMG_5672.jpg
Keanu Reeves “Not So Happy” With ‘Constantine 2’ Script
IMG_5665.jpg
Nadav Lapid Says ‘Yes’ Was Too Radioactive For Cannes: “Maybe Someone Was Afraid”
IMG_5663.jpg
Alfonso Cuarón No Longer Directing Bond 26?
IMG_5661.jpg
Damien Chazelle’s Untitled Prison Movie Sets October Shoot in L.A. — Cillian Murphy & Daniel Craig to Star
IMG_5662.jpg
Zellner Brothers’ ‘Alpha Gang’ Recasts with Chris Pine, Lily-Rose Depp, and Cate Blanchett in Sci-Fi Biker Comedy
Featured
Capture.PNG
Aug 19, 2019
3-Hour ‘Midsommar' Director's Cut Screened in NYC
Aug 19, 2019

This year’s 12th edition of the Scary Movies festival at Film at Lincoln Center premiered Ari Aster’s extended version of “Midsommar” this past Saturday.

Aug 19, 2019

World of Reel

  • Home
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • Lists
  • More
    • Yearly Top Tens
    • Trailers
  • About
    • Contact
    • Hire Me
    • About

Peter Jackson's Landmark “They Shall Not Grow Old" [Review]

March 4, 2019 Jordan Ruimy
peter-jackson-world-war-i-documentary-slice.jpg

Peter Jackson’s "They Shall Not Grow Old" uses never-before-seen archival footage of the "great war," which then colorizes and restores them in 3D format. This is an incredibly fascinating project which was originally screened in the U.K. last fall but has only come out this past month in the States. The result is nothing short of a landmark cinematic event.

What’s ironic about They Shall Not Grow Old’s success at the box-office is that its total domestic tally thus far of $17.8M has outgrossed the $15.9m of the Jackson-produced “Mortal Engines,” an underseen $100m-budgeted YA fantasy flick that cost Universal a $100m loss.

And so, what to make of the success of this colorized World War I documentary? After having seen “They Shall Not Grow Old” this past weekend for a second watch, but this time around in 3D and with a leaner length, it’s quite easy to see why America has been so smitten-ed by this film.

Using dubbed voices and archival images, this is the closest to a legitimate time-machine the cinema has ever given us. The first few second of colorized film depicts these soldiers in mushroom-cap helmets, all but pink-cheeked youth,some as young as 14, staring back at us through the camera lens. It re-captures the feeling that must have run through the veins of movie audiences, more than 100 years ago, gasping at the miraculous invention of the movie camera — we’re as excitedly hypnotized at the images that we are seeing on-screen as they must have been when they saw the first batch of Lumieres home movies rummaging through the screen during cinema’s infancy.

What we know about World War I was that it was a new kind of war; planes, tanks, and artillery were being used for the first time, but the insufferably horrific conditions of trench warfare were still very much present. In the film Jackson shows how these men had to live in their own filth, sleeping in lice and rat-infested trenches, and alongside piles of decomposing dead friends as part of a daily ritual of survival.

The moving images of camaraderie between the soldiers, whether it’s the simple pleasures of having new jam to spread on their toasts or lining up for stew being shared among hundreds of men, is served to us in a smartly delivered 24 frames a second (retimed from the original 13 frames a second). Jackson has also removed the dust, scratches and tears from the original prints. The result manages to take your breath away.

Having Jackson, known as a tech wizard in the film industry, is a priceless gift for history buffs, but it also results in a major feat of storytelling, one that doesn’t follow a particular story as much as a universal experience of being there, in the trenches. There are no dates, places. names or famous battles mentioned in the film’s 90 minutes but there is a sense of experiencing history, as seen through a visually staggering thought experiment which tries to recreate the impossible.

Taking its name from Laurence Binyon’s 1914 poem “For the Fallen,” “They Shall Not Grow Old” has a touchingly rendered interlude, British soldiers peacefully interacting with German prisoners of war, during a cease-fire, which deconstructs the fabricated notion of the “other side.”

In REVIEWS Tags They Shall Not Grow Old, Peter Jacksaon, Documentary
← Review Tomorrow ...Mark Hamill on Disney's “Star Wars" Trilogy: They Are Doing A Good Job of Killing the Past →

FOLLOW US!


Trending

Featured
IMG_5600.jpg
Lynne Ramsay & Ezra Miller To Reunite for New Vampire Film
IMG_5593.jpg
Martin Scorsese to Direct ‘Midnight Vendetta’ — Tackles 1890 Mafia in New Orleans
IMG_5575.jpg
Jafar Panahi’s ‘It Was A Simple Accident’ Wins the Palme d’Or [Cannes]
‘Madden’ Actor Exits Set After David O. Russell Uses N-Word
‘Madden’ Actor Exits Set After David O. Russell Uses N-Word
IMG_5490.jpg
Confirmed: Damien Chazelle’s Next Film is Prison-Set Thriller — His ‘Evel Knievel’ Project With DiCaprio Canned

Critics Polls

Featured
Capture.PNG
Critics Poll: ‘Vertigo’ Named Best Film of the 1950s, Over 120 Participants
B16BAC21-5652-44F6-9E83-A1A5C5DF61D7.jpeg
Critics Poll: Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ Tops Our 1960s Critics Poll
Capture.PNG
Critics Poll: ‘The Godfather’ Named Best Movie of the 1970s
public.jpeg
Critics Poll: ‘Do the Right Thing' Named Best Movie of the 1980s
Critics Poll: ‘Mulholland Drive' Named Best Film of the 2000s
g4.jpg
Critics' Poll: ‘Goodfellas' Named Best Movie of the 1990s
Critics Poll: ‘Mad Max: Fury Road' Named Best Movie of the 2010s
World of Reel tagline.PNG
 

Content

Contribute

Hire me

 

Support

Advertise

Donate

 

About

Team

Contact

Privacy Policy

Site designed by Jordan Ruimy © 2023