Blitz (2024)
Country: GB/US
Technical: col/2.39:1 120m
Director: Steve McQueen
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Elliott Heffernan, Harris Dickinson, Paul Weller, Benjamin Clémentine, Stephen Graham
Synopsis:
1940, and during the London blitz a single mother is persuaded to do the right thing for her child and evacuate him to the countryside. However, she does not reckon with his determination not to be reduced to a name tag and a suitcase.
Review:
McQueen's film operates on many levels: as a catalogue of Blitz clichés somehow erased by the recurring image of a falling, spinning bomb, as a rewriting of official history with parts for black actors, and as a debunking of old assumptions about Great British solidarity and the honest cockney. Half of the screenplay is given over to a long night's journey into day, as the half-caste outcast must constantly decide whether to trust the adults he meets, and London becomes a fairytale nightmare of hell and high water. It's an engrossing production which might invite disdain in certain circles (were stationmasters really allowed to lock citizens out of Underground bomb shelters?) but is a timely plebeian antidote to Darkest Hour.
Country: GB/US
Technical: col/2.39:1 120m
Director: Steve McQueen
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Elliott Heffernan, Harris Dickinson, Paul Weller, Benjamin Clémentine, Stephen Graham
Synopsis:
1940, and during the London blitz a single mother is persuaded to do the right thing for her child and evacuate him to the countryside. However, she does not reckon with his determination not to be reduced to a name tag and a suitcase.
Review:
McQueen's film operates on many levels: as a catalogue of Blitz clichés somehow erased by the recurring image of a falling, spinning bomb, as a rewriting of official history with parts for black actors, and as a debunking of old assumptions about Great British solidarity and the honest cockney. Half of the screenplay is given over to a long night's journey into day, as the half-caste outcast must constantly decide whether to trust the adults he meets, and London becomes a fairytale nightmare of hell and high water. It's an engrossing production which might invite disdain in certain circles (were stationmasters really allowed to lock citizens out of Underground bomb shelters?) but is a timely plebeian antidote to Darkest Hour.
Country: GB/US
Technical: col/2.39:1 120m
Director: Steve McQueen
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Elliott Heffernan, Harris Dickinson, Paul Weller, Benjamin Clémentine, Stephen Graham
Synopsis:
1940, and during the London blitz a single mother is persuaded to do the right thing for her child and evacuate him to the countryside. However, she does not reckon with his determination not to be reduced to a name tag and a suitcase.
Review:
McQueen's film operates on many levels: as a catalogue of Blitz clichés somehow erased by the recurring image of a falling, spinning bomb, as a rewriting of official history with parts for black actors, and as a debunking of old assumptions about Great British solidarity and the honest cockney. Half of the screenplay is given over to a long night's journey into day, as the half-caste outcast must constantly decide whether to trust the adults he meets, and London becomes a fairytale nightmare of hell and high water. It's an engrossing production which might invite disdain in certain circles (were stationmasters really allowed to lock citizens out of Underground bomb shelters?) but is a timely plebeian antidote to Darkest Hour.