The best thing about "Hurricane" is that it was made, since there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the Poles made a disproportionate (i.e. daring, innovative and super-efficient) contribution to the winning of the Battle of Britain by the RAF in 1940, and that that contribution is somewhat under-covered in films, and somewhat under-remembered by those who should remember it (and be grateful for it).
I say "somewhat" because, while they may be a bit vague on the details, few middle-aged, elderly or old Brits (as well as pretty much everyone from the era now lost to us) are unaware of the valour of the Poles as soldiers, sailors or in the air and - indeed, as I was growing up in the England of the 1970s and 1980s, there was no question that the stereotype of Poles was positive, and that word number 1 associated with it was "brave".
So if this movie has a starting point, it might be in educating the young or the foreign uninitiated, as well as supplying more details, impressions and emotions to a story known in part only by most.
If a further goal is to make the Poles feel good about themselves - and remembered - that's OK; but if that means making the British look worse ... well that's only OK when it relates to what we might call "the truth", as opposed to things purporting to be truth which aren't.
So, OK, there WAS some hostility towards Poles (and the smaller number of Czechs), some jealousy of their skills and good looks and battle-hardened credentials, some belief - probably justified - that they were chaotic and under-disciplined. Then, given a Mr Atlee as the new PM who maybe still hadn't fully learnt to hate communism and ally "Uncle Joe" Stalin as he ultimately did with a vengeance, it is true that Poles were excluded from the vast June 1946 Victory Parade through London - much to Britain's shame, but nevertheless somewhat/minimally accountably given irreconcilable problems with determining if the real Poland was now the Polish state in exile or the Soviet puppet-state back home.
But I knew Poles, and knew of Poles when growing up in Britain because many stayed after the War - in fact over 120,000 - later joined by family members and others. So if the film is trying to suggest it was normal or typical for brave Poles who had fought with Britain to be sent back home to suffer or die at the hands of the communists, that is simply not true - thanks to Churchill's House of Commons "pledge" of February 27th 1945, the Polish Resettlement Corps founded in 1946, the UK's Polish Resettlement Act of 1947 and the Committee for the Education of Poles set up in 1947.
Sadly, when a couple of sentences appeared on the screen after the film's end and before the roll of the credits, the opportunity to mention the above measures - considered exemplary by many around the world - was lost.
I don't think Director David Blair behaved correctly at all in this way.
Otherwise his film is moderately well-acted (though Iwan Rheon as the real-life ace Jan Zumbach speaks (his native) English with a Russian, not Polish accent. Milo Gibson as "Kentowski" is a sympathetic character. The recreations of battles are OK, especially when they make it powerfully clear how one minute a pilot could be flying along in "heavenly" conditions, only for this to deteriorate with no warning at all into a plummet towards land or sea, to blood appearing for nowhere, to parts of a plain coming off, or to death itself. This all makes its strong impression.
But this could have been a film to unite and celebrate. Instead, it stokes some Polish-British division after all this time, and feeds into the worst and most negative Polish stereotypes about Brits, undeservedly to a great extent since it conceals the main part of the truth about Poles in Britain in the aftermath of the War.
Not right.
I say "somewhat" because, while they may be a bit vague on the details, few middle-aged, elderly or old Brits (as well as pretty much everyone from the era now lost to us) are unaware of the valour of the Poles as soldiers, sailors or in the air and - indeed, as I was growing up in the England of the 1970s and 1980s, there was no question that the stereotype of Poles was positive, and that word number 1 associated with it was "brave".
So if this movie has a starting point, it might be in educating the young or the foreign uninitiated, as well as supplying more details, impressions and emotions to a story known in part only by most.
If a further goal is to make the Poles feel good about themselves - and remembered - that's OK; but if that means making the British look worse ... well that's only OK when it relates to what we might call "the truth", as opposed to things purporting to be truth which aren't.
So, OK, there WAS some hostility towards Poles (and the smaller number of Czechs), some jealousy of their skills and good looks and battle-hardened credentials, some belief - probably justified - that they were chaotic and under-disciplined. Then, given a Mr Atlee as the new PM who maybe still hadn't fully learnt to hate communism and ally "Uncle Joe" Stalin as he ultimately did with a vengeance, it is true that Poles were excluded from the vast June 1946 Victory Parade through London - much to Britain's shame, but nevertheless somewhat/minimally accountably given irreconcilable problems with determining if the real Poland was now the Polish state in exile or the Soviet puppet-state back home.
But I knew Poles, and knew of Poles when growing up in Britain because many stayed after the War - in fact over 120,000 - later joined by family members and others. So if the film is trying to suggest it was normal or typical for brave Poles who had fought with Britain to be sent back home to suffer or die at the hands of the communists, that is simply not true - thanks to Churchill's House of Commons "pledge" of February 27th 1945, the Polish Resettlement Corps founded in 1946, the UK's Polish Resettlement Act of 1947 and the Committee for the Education of Poles set up in 1947.
Sadly, when a couple of sentences appeared on the screen after the film's end and before the roll of the credits, the opportunity to mention the above measures - considered exemplary by many around the world - was lost.
I don't think Director David Blair behaved correctly at all in this way.
Otherwise his film is moderately well-acted (though Iwan Rheon as the real-life ace Jan Zumbach speaks (his native) English with a Russian, not Polish accent. Milo Gibson as "Kentowski" is a sympathetic character. The recreations of battles are OK, especially when they make it powerfully clear how one minute a pilot could be flying along in "heavenly" conditions, only for this to deteriorate with no warning at all into a plummet towards land or sea, to blood appearing for nowhere, to parts of a plain coming off, or to death itself. This all makes its strong impression.
But this could have been a film to unite and celebrate. Instead, it stokes some Polish-British division after all this time, and feeds into the worst and most negative Polish stereotypes about Brits, undeservedly to a great extent since it conceals the main part of the truth about Poles in Britain in the aftermath of the War.
Not right.