When 'ze Germans' inaugurated the Blitz on the last fortress of the European free world, Churchill laid the cards fairly quickly promising nothing but "blood, toil, tears and sweat" to his fellow countrymen. And that's precisely what you will NOT get from John Boorman's "Hope and Glory": a recollection of his memories as a young boy during the Blitz and a series of family vignettes that make the film closer to Fellini's "Amarcord" than any World War 2 drama. There's indeed a great deal of fun, laughs, joy and even sex (whether you consider adult's basic needs or the awakening of a young boy on the little spices of life)... and occasionally, you'll get some bombings and explosions, mainly featured as backdrop events.
"Hope and Glory" might surprise viewers who have ingurgitated so many WW2 epics they would experience the first act with the certainty that there's a catch, that all these laughs wouldn't last for long and we just have to wait for the second one to witness or learn the heartbreaking death of one family member ... but Boorman did pick the lighthearted angle and it's so seldom used that it elevates "Hope and Glory" to an unsuspected level of charm and enjoyability. It's disconcerting at first but once you've got the notion that the film isn't interested in making you weep, you enjoy its lightness and capability to make you forget about the war, which is an act of resistance on its own... so in a certain way, we get back to the good old 'stiff upper lip' spirit after all.
The story centers on the Rohans: an ordinary middle-class family composed of the father Clive (David Hayman), his wife Grace (Sarah Miles with an oddly sensual maturity) and their children Billy (Sebastian Rice-Edward), the big sister Dawn (Sammi Davis) and little Sue (Geraldine Muir). Billy narrates the event through the perspective of a little boy who didn't let war destroy the one childhood he had. When the newsreel in the theater announces the war's imminence, the kids in the audiences don't care and are only waiting for "The Lone Ranger", 'the real deal', to begin. The narration has that truth-to-life quality you can find in other gems such as "A Christmas Story" or "Radio Days". Later, the narrator says he's capable to remember the start of the war like we'd remember September 11 or baby-boomers Kennedy's Assassination. After even when things get serious after the phoney war, the kids take the war all in stride and carry on as if their childhood was their stiff upper lip. (Of course, it would have been a whole different story if one of the bombs hit their house but the film isn't interested in melodramas.)
What makes "Hope and Glory" so interesting is that the family members are played like average people with average needs, daily antiheroes, Clive joins the army but comes back freezing to death and throwing his uniform because he was too old when the training stopped, Grace befriends Mac (Derrick O'Connor) and there's a subplot that he might have been the one she loved before marrying Clive out of necessity and it seems that Dawn, the girl who discovers her own sexual impulses might follow the same path, and yes, even the Blitz wouldn't prevent the mother and daughter to have thir little records to settle. Billy, meanwhile, collects shrapnels after the bombings, plays with his friends in a destroyed house and there's a scene involving a girl who's just lost her mother and what she does in exchange of jewellery isn't funny but Boorman treats it in a sort of matter-of-factly "all's fair in love and war" way.
"Hope and Glory" shows us that war has an effect of children and it seems rather natural that they would behave that way, and in fact that children remain children is a great victory in itself. Another subplot involves Jean-Marc Barr as Bruce, a Canadian soldier who falls in love with Dawn and creates the kind of situation that make marriage a necessity. The film is actually made of little moments that are so odd and exuberant they can't not be authentic. After a speech from the king where everyone keeps a straight face, I absolutely loved the comment about his stuttering and that their solemnity was only the sign of their agonizing patience. Another scene involves an argument about whether or not they should eat German jam, the arrest of a German pilot, the wink he gave Dawn and the hilarious women's precipitation to get the silk from the parachute. Another well-written scene involves women talking about cheating and you can tell the mother is turned on. The sexual heat is so omnipresent in this film that it's no wonder there was a baby-boom generation after.
Then the film shifts to a second part set in a rural farm occupied by the histrionic grandfather George (Ian Bannen) and Grandma (Annie Leon) and in fact these scenes with their bucolic charm almost makes you forget that there is a war going on and I wonder if, after all, this isn't the right feeling, it's not like everyone woke up every day thinking of the war. Ian Bannen gives the film its energy and and you can tell he was a sort of Churchillian influence on his son who was raised by a rather Nevillian father. Still, he learned the art of the googly from the two figures.
Overall, this is a very well-shot, well-written and agreeable film that rings a certain truth about the power of children to find within the chaos of war, a little breech to get a few glimpses on adulthood. It comes to a point where the saddest moment for Billy isn't when the house burns but because his lead soldats have melted, quite an eloquent irony!
"Hope and Glory" might surprise viewers who have ingurgitated so many WW2 epics they would experience the first act with the certainty that there's a catch, that all these laughs wouldn't last for long and we just have to wait for the second one to witness or learn the heartbreaking death of one family member ... but Boorman did pick the lighthearted angle and it's so seldom used that it elevates "Hope and Glory" to an unsuspected level of charm and enjoyability. It's disconcerting at first but once you've got the notion that the film isn't interested in making you weep, you enjoy its lightness and capability to make you forget about the war, which is an act of resistance on its own... so in a certain way, we get back to the good old 'stiff upper lip' spirit after all.
The story centers on the Rohans: an ordinary middle-class family composed of the father Clive (David Hayman), his wife Grace (Sarah Miles with an oddly sensual maturity) and their children Billy (Sebastian Rice-Edward), the big sister Dawn (Sammi Davis) and little Sue (Geraldine Muir). Billy narrates the event through the perspective of a little boy who didn't let war destroy the one childhood he had. When the newsreel in the theater announces the war's imminence, the kids in the audiences don't care and are only waiting for "The Lone Ranger", 'the real deal', to begin. The narration has that truth-to-life quality you can find in other gems such as "A Christmas Story" or "Radio Days". Later, the narrator says he's capable to remember the start of the war like we'd remember September 11 or baby-boomers Kennedy's Assassination. After even when things get serious after the phoney war, the kids take the war all in stride and carry on as if their childhood was their stiff upper lip. (Of course, it would have been a whole different story if one of the bombs hit their house but the film isn't interested in melodramas.)
What makes "Hope and Glory" so interesting is that the family members are played like average people with average needs, daily antiheroes, Clive joins the army but comes back freezing to death and throwing his uniform because he was too old when the training stopped, Grace befriends Mac (Derrick O'Connor) and there's a subplot that he might have been the one she loved before marrying Clive out of necessity and it seems that Dawn, the girl who discovers her own sexual impulses might follow the same path, and yes, even the Blitz wouldn't prevent the mother and daughter to have thir little records to settle. Billy, meanwhile, collects shrapnels after the bombings, plays with his friends in a destroyed house and there's a scene involving a girl who's just lost her mother and what she does in exchange of jewellery isn't funny but Boorman treats it in a sort of matter-of-factly "all's fair in love and war" way.
"Hope and Glory" shows us that war has an effect of children and it seems rather natural that they would behave that way, and in fact that children remain children is a great victory in itself. Another subplot involves Jean-Marc Barr as Bruce, a Canadian soldier who falls in love with Dawn and creates the kind of situation that make marriage a necessity. The film is actually made of little moments that are so odd and exuberant they can't not be authentic. After a speech from the king where everyone keeps a straight face, I absolutely loved the comment about his stuttering and that their solemnity was only the sign of their agonizing patience. Another scene involves an argument about whether or not they should eat German jam, the arrest of a German pilot, the wink he gave Dawn and the hilarious women's precipitation to get the silk from the parachute. Another well-written scene involves women talking about cheating and you can tell the mother is turned on. The sexual heat is so omnipresent in this film that it's no wonder there was a baby-boom generation after.
Then the film shifts to a second part set in a rural farm occupied by the histrionic grandfather George (Ian Bannen) and Grandma (Annie Leon) and in fact these scenes with their bucolic charm almost makes you forget that there is a war going on and I wonder if, after all, this isn't the right feeling, it's not like everyone woke up every day thinking of the war. Ian Bannen gives the film its energy and and you can tell he was a sort of Churchillian influence on his son who was raised by a rather Nevillian father. Still, he learned the art of the googly from the two figures.
Overall, this is a very well-shot, well-written and agreeable film that rings a certain truth about the power of children to find within the chaos of war, a little breech to get a few glimpses on adulthood. It comes to a point where the saddest moment for Billy isn't when the house burns but because his lead soldats have melted, quite an eloquent irony!