War has long been a constant theme in movies. Memories of childhood life are also not uncommon techniques and perspectives in movies from all over the world. But the famous British director Boorman's "Hope and Glory" also brought something of his own to both.
The World War II portrayed by Boerman in the film is not only everyday—it does not capture the deaths and sacrifices of soldiers, nor does it depict the real fire and smoke—but it goes against “common sense.” In the eyes of the little protagonist Bill, the memory of the most brutal war in human history left him with liberation and joy rather than blood and terror. The war brought him many novelties that he had never heard of before. From the huge silver-gray anti-aircraft balloons floating in the sky, to those peculiarly shaped shrapnel; from those soldiers from foreign countries, to the German pilots who parachuted. It even includes the shabby jar of German jam his dad brought back and the festive firework-like flashes of bombs in the night sky. All this opened up a magical world in the eyes of little Bill. Thus, the war provided not only Bill, but also almost all the children a paradise of novelty and freedom. They ran from crater to crater and built their kingdom out of the rubble of destroyed houses (in one scene, a child even dressed up as a king and sat on a On the abandoned bed, "leading" the group of children in the ruins). War also inspired children's fantasies. Little Bill imagined plane fights several times in his sleep. War even gives children the chance to face deaths that are somewhat mysterious to them. When Pauline's mother was killed, the children seemed to have a "secret" of their own, passing this "legendary" message to each other with a somewhat mysterious look. And then, its client Pauline also became a "news" figure. The boys began to line up and take turns to see her body. For little Bill, the war was like a big holiday for him. It seems like a metaphor for this in the film, which places the best part of his life in the war (the days at his grandfather's house) on his summer vacation. In one of the more meaningful scenes related to this, a bomb fell in the river in front of my grandfather's house. Instead of causing any damage, it killed many fish. So, little Bill and his grandfather returned with a full load of fish without much effort. From this, it is not difficult to understand the climactic scene at the end of the film - the children cheering for the bombing of the school.
If this "war equals liberty and joy" formula is established only for children, Boorman's perspective is not yet bold. In fact, he applied this rule to adults as well. Like the images of homes that have been bombed to ruins, the war has given adults who were trapped in their families the opportunity to "liberate" and build new lives. Soldiers from foreign countries gave women a freedom of choice. Bill's sister, Don, gained love through the war (this "acquisition" was twofold: not only did she get to know Bruce from Canada because of the war, but, as the film shows, it was because of the specific period of the war and the situation, she won her mother's approval of her love). And her mother also got the liberation of love because of the war - the departure of her husband. In this regard, in the later part of the film, when she tried to relive the old relationship with Mark, a dialogue between the two seemed to represent the director's thinking. Here, when Mark tells her that "war destroys people's normal lives", Grace replies: "It does. When we try to build a normal life, we lose love. And the war makes this Everything becomes possible again." And Mark obviously did not really understand the "true meaning" of the "abnormality" of the war as stated by the director (in fact, it was because of this abnormality that his wife had abandoned him). He still told Grace in a normal way that he couldn't reconnect with her because he was out of a job.
Finding this unique perspective on life and emotion is as important to a successful film as building a narrative about it. One of Boorman's successes is finding a good narrative pivot for his content, the point of view of the film's little protagonist, Bill. Bill actually became the master of the film's structure. His child's perspective, his off-screen narration, justifies this "joyful" life of war. At the same time, through Bill's point of view and this abnormal life, the director is also a metaphor for the hypocrisy in human behavior. Growing Bill had to learn to master this. In this regard, an important metaphor in the film is the plot of the father teaching Bill to play cricket. When his father first taught him the curveball method, Bill exclaimed, "It's a lie." Later, he found himself surrounded by lies. When his father was getting ready to join the army, his mother said that if her husband went to the army she would not be able to handle everything, but in fact she was very happy and wished him to leave. And his sister lives a dizzyingly conflicted life with her boyfriend, family, and herself. Even Bill himself couldn't resist the lie. He was reluctant to be evacuated to Australia, but when his mother brought him back he fought desperately. Probably one of the biggest lies in the film is the war itself. Those ruins and frequent air raids made the war indeed look like a disaster. But in reality, it was full of joy. It was in this life that Bill grew up. Later in the film, he beats his maternal grandfather by using the curveball method taught by his father, and later, his father himself, who came back home. This peculiar war life finally brought him to maturity.
The film's director, John Boorman, began filming feature films in the mid-1960s. Although his filming career includes both the United Kingdom and the United States, and he has made many commercial films for American producers, such as the sci-fi film "Zardoz" and the horror film "The Exorcist Episode 2: Pagan" etc., but he still has the European film culture in his most successful films. In 1970, he won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival for directing the British film "The Last Leo". In this film, he once again showed his "true character" as a British director: good at capturing fascinating things in the narration of charming, smooth and natural details of life; The film is different, it clearly rejects a standard taste of "internationalization". This is not only reflected in its description of a "joyful" war life, but also in its attitude towards the savior of Europe in that traditional history, the United States. The film's story ends in 1942, just before the U.S. made a big move in Britain. And the famous Pearl Harbor incident and the American participation in the war are not even mentioned at all.
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