Hope and Glory

Sean Baker

That one shot when the German plane goes down in the background while the British fighter flies over the street as the residents cheer... WOW. That's next level precision. Expert camera operation... panning up to keep that plane perfectly framed.

Mike D'Angelo4.5

84/100World War II as the bonfire party from Cold Water. Boorman's camera is frequently just that supple, taking undulating paths across piles of rubble as kids clamber in and out of frame, and the film's emphasis on blissful adventure in the midst of destruction has lost none of its counterintuitive power over the years—indeed, I can't think of another wartime reminiscence that's even remotely similar. Every anecdote teems with memorable specificity, and while I still think the movie permanently downshifts one gear when it moves to the country, even that material is severals cuts above the standard summer-that-changed-everything strain of autobiographical cinema. Got a little worried by the voiceover narration at the outset, which is superfluous and kind of terrible, but turns out I had no memory of it because it quickly goes away (and I do like its reappearance in the final seconds). Haven't yet seen Queen and Country (stay tuned), but I can't imagine it not being a letdown.ALSO: I was too green in '87 (age 19) to even wonder about filmmaking logistics, but this time I paused the film about half an hour in to research how the hell Boorman managed to either find or build an entire city block that he could gradually demolish. A: He constructed the whole thing on the runway of a disused airport. Amazing. The rogue blimp scene is another fine example of pre-digital wonderment.

chavel3.5

Some bomb blasts, firestorms and fearsome German parachuters aside, there is relatively little consequential impact in John Boorman’s Hope and Glory that you could easily dismiss it as a non-essential in the World War II subject canon, yet it’s so unusual in capturing a different side of the war that I find it decidedly essential.The British have declared war on Germany, and the community of a London suburb now prepares for daily bombing raids. When it’s too late at night and freezing, the Rowan family ducks in the stairwell and crosses their fingers that a bomb doesn’t hit their place. After multiple nights of coming out OK, the “fireworks” the bombs create turn into a visually exciting pleasure to run out and see.Some neighbors are unlucky as the bombs do hit other homes, but out of it Billy (Sebastian Rice-Edwards) collects shrapnel as souvenirs. His buddies smash up remaining wreckage with pipes and crowbars. A zeppelin, meant to have cables that will slash German fighter pilots in mid-air, goes loose and incites a frenzy through the neighborhood. The schools, when open, are run by tyrants and harridans as educators, so when the horns blare for incoming bombs the kids run jolly for the shelters to escape learning.What’s happening here that’s unusual is that everybody’s lives are better because of the war: The Drama, The Laughs, The Family Closer in Reliance Congregations, The Adventure. The father Clive (David Hayman) does enlist in the war, but he comes back cheery, unaffected, for every R&R dismissal. One time he comes back on motorcycle in the freezing cold, nearly frostbitten, with his aviator helmet and goggles, and his children flinch at the sight of this odd Frankenstein creature who looks nothing like their dad. It’s a funny moment, and there are many likewise funny moments such as that.He goes back to serve, and the mother Grace (Sarah Miles) is on a train with her young ones and a neighbor she longed amorously with when she was young. She talks about her feelings for this man in “ambiguous” codes, but her son Billy seems perceptive enough to realize, hey, my mother was really more in love with this neighbor than she was with father. Meanwhile, the oldest daughter in the family, Dawn (Sammi Davis), has a love affair with a Canadian airman and while there is brief resistance to hold her back, the mother relents and lets her daughter have sex in wartime.Billy stands in for director John Boorman and his memoirs. With the film being filtered through that character’s point of view, he sees the nostalgia in the disruption and chaos of his youth which so happens to have occurred during World War II. Hope and Glory can feel a little aimless and like a patch of episodes, but there’s an irregular buoyancy to it all. The final scene is full of irony in finding happiness during the London Blitz. Make as you wish of it.Note: The adult characters comment that the radio speeches by King George VI are improving each new time with diminished stuttering.