Blitz
At the very beginning of world war 2, Hitler attacks Britain and the best locals can do is retreat into underground tunnels and bunkers and wait for air raids to pass. There was a lot of devastation and destruction and Steve Mc queen the director of this movie takes the audience back to that time and state by starting the film in the middle of an attack with the new release “Blitz”. It is the very height of the attack, and the fire brigade is trying to put out a fire, but the situation is critical with less time and many more bombs expected. Afterwards, we observe a collage of various images the first one water in turbulence, with static and then black and white, aMotionlessclose up daffodils, and only then the soft piano melody changes to the house of the main characters. It’s most reassuring that McQueen is still creative and experimental, but those scenes hardly lighten the harsh impression of a war seen through windows.
A working class family in London, Rita (Saoirse Ronan), her father Gerald who is a professional musician (Paul Weller) and her 9 year old son who is mischievous named George (Elliot Heffernan), are trying to hold fort in a war torn neighborhood constantly facing Luftwaffe raids. Rita, worried for George’s safety, sends him out to the country, however, once there, George, already worn out from being picked on by boys on the train and wanting to go home, gets off the train and starts his wretched road home.
In the meanwhile, Rita is carrying on with factory labor, is helping her out grandmother and the other shelter bound neighbors, and is also retrieving memories of the father of George, the man with whom she spent a little time before learning that her son was missing, which adds more disorder to her life.
Of course, other movies have dealt with the Blitz, such as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Hope and Glory, Atonement and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and Wardrobe, which starts with children being evacuated to the countryside. But here the Blitz is not subtext, a peripheral menace, or a long showdown few would care about. This film of McQueen’s is to a large extent about the reality of commuting from one day’s horror of death and destruction to the next. The events are punctuated by the score provided by Hans Zimmer consisting of harsh squeaky and metallic sounds as if the sound was generated from bombs and trains colliding. George’s narrative has the qualities of both Oliver Twist and Empire of the Sun where the young character suffers and has to endure terribly adverse situations and circumstances. He acts with resolutiveness as he walks past dead bodies, real danger, and the bewilderingly complex bus system remaining alert to the possibility of being sent back to the countryside again by British authorities. As George, Heffernan plays the role wonderfully. Sheffernan’s acting is expressive varied, entertainer like, questioner-like, then courageous, cool headed and straight faced.
The movie continuously raises the stakes for the audience till just before the end credits touch the screen. He shares his journey as closely as Rita does; the mother, plagued with a plethora of problems.
Every frame is shot around Ronan, where Russian-born actress, McQueen came across as a determined and touch mother who will do anything for Ronan’s character, as well as those in charge of making sure the sets, costumes and make-up were all focused on her, director McQueen and the evens portrayed by cinematographer Yorick Le Saux. The film’s production designer Le Saux, who had also previously worked on ‘Little Women’, ‘High Life’, and ‘Only Lovers Left Alive’, renders this particular sumptuous note in the lighting design, enhancing the rich colours and period’s details such as dark wood of a busy dancing hall or factory blue or countless numbers of brown brick walls.
Rita’s scarlet lipstick and jacket are strikingly brought to focus in the movie just like the little red coat in Stephen Spielberg “Schindler’s List”. The camera uses several close ups so as to make the characters’ lives more relatable, such as viewing the mud on George’s shoes after moving for several hours, or seeing Rita’s colleagues shade their eyes with an ultra-thin lining to appear refined to bar’s male customers. The most enthralling part of the movie is the intense all out dance segment where Rita along with George’s father go out to a club. Once again, as in “Lovers Rock”, McQueen captures the fantastic dance that Brian, Rita, and Judith performs and can still be engaged in the spectacular dance even after there’s a backdrop of dreadful happenings. All these images though not necessarily related to the plot serve to help the audience relate to the time, feelings as well as the place of the characters.
“Blitz” written and directed by McQueen goes beyond exploring the emotional and physical conflict that was pervasive during that time. He also of course went into the racial bias in Britain in that time, which is something he has also tackled in his powerful “Small Axe” series. George, being a young mixed-race boy suffers terrible bullying from white kids because he is not like them.
More years ago, the man’s father was assaulted on the street and subsequently arrested and deported back to Grenada. When George encounters Ife (Benjamin Clementine) a Nigerian soldier, he tells him quite bluntly that he isn’t Black but in a short while when he sees Ife supporting others in the shelter, George changes his narrative taking up the identity he almost rejected. The onscreen depiction of the Black British experience in this period is virtually absent, and it becomes one of the deeper threnodies of the story, although at times it does seem to be jarring. Some of McQueen’s writing can be described as overly clumsy or inept, but these are poles to a drama whose images are the strong hand of the creator.
Very good, dramatic evaluation of events depicted in the novel where the plot line is action packed with the events in the life of the character. There is always a feeling of suspense in the atmosphere, as thick as the air in London. It is impossible to escape the eerie sounds of the sirens announcing air raids. There is always the fear that a party, a dinner, or even an evening has always been interrupted by something ominous from the sky. Still, the world does not come to an end.
Rita gets back to her job in the factory, Gerald has the radio on, and George is entertaining his cat, till monotony gets the better of them all. The motion picture isn’t merely a beautiful grande dame; it’s a deeply moving account of human defiance very much a contemporary of ours, though almost a hundred decades have passed.
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