They Shall Not Grow Old

I really wanted to see this show on the big screen and it was worth it. What makes this film great is the motives and passion for making it. Director Peter Jackson has a passion for this era of history (he owns period cannons and ended up using them to record sound for the documentary). Consequently, he threw himself into this film as much as he did with his past works. There have been WWI documentaries made previously for academic and historical reasons. "They Shall Not Grow Old" is made by a talented, passionate filmmaker for film lovers. This documentary is more story-oriented and that story is supported by the technology we see being utilized. I love the title for this film, quoting the poem "For the Fallen". It is a metaphorical choice because thanks to modern day technology, the men in this documentary will be forever frozen in time as young men but come alive before our eyes.

So many aspects of WWI could have been covered in this film but Jackson decided upon depicting the daily life of a common British soldier, from enlistment to release. The footage starts small and is in the format we are accustomed to. The frame rate is low and the footage is black and white of course but the film is restored quite well. Gradually, the frame gets bigger over the course of a few minutes and you don't really notice. Once the story arrives at the war itself, the footage fills what is left of the entire frame. Simultaneously, the frame rate is converted to 24 frames per second and the colorization appears. Suddenly, things are a lot more real and relatable. After the Armistice is signed at the end of the documentary, the effect is reversed and the last shot of the film matches the format and size of the first. This symbolizes a common narrative structure: intro, inciting incident, rising action, climax and falling action. The use of sound was noteworthy such as when the Brits are under enemy machine gun fire. There is no actual footage of trench raids or from the middle of no-mans-land so in this case, we only hear what it must of sounded like against a black screen. Another noteworthy moment using sound was when the shelling stops at the 11th hour to mark the end of the war. The Germans were depicted not in this documentary as bad people but as men fighting for the same reasons as the British: because their leaders declared war. It reminded me of the Christmas truce stories.

The story of making this documentary is almost more entertaining than the film itself. You appreciate this show a lot more when you see what went on in creating it. Colorizing old movies can be controversial because sometimes, the original vision of the director was a black and white film. Imagine the backlash that would occur if "Psycho" or "Schindler's List" were colorized. With archival war footage however, those capturing it were using the latest technology of the time and would have gladly welcomed cameras that could have recorded sound and color. This justifies Jackson's enhancement of the footage but this wasn't your usual colorization. Jackson and his team researched meticulously to make sure every color was accurate. He even flew to France and took photos of the countryside and flora for reference, even visiting actually sites. Some of the locations have not changed for over 100 years and this helped get the colorization right. Some shots were very dark before being restored, including a shot of a cannon firing. I saw the original footage and you can tell it is a cannon because it is silhouetted against the bright background but nothing else is visible. The final shot looks perfect, as if nothing was wrong to begin with and you can see men working the cannon that you couldn't see before. That left me speechless because I can't believe an old camera could capture anything in that kind of darkness nor can I believe the restoration is so good that you wouldn't think anything of it unless you saw the original. Of course the conversion doesn't turn out perfectly every time. Some shots look amazing while others have too much grain. WWI footage has a square aspect ratio as you can see at the start and end of the documentary and this requires the filmmakers to zoom in to the enhanced footage to get a modern-day aspect ratio. Zooming in also allows the filmmakers to create artificial camera pans that are more commonplace today. This makes the old footage come alive even more. Original sound was recorded for this film and wasn't obtained from a studio library. For example, the New Zealand army shelling drills were used to record sound for the film. Not only were the big guns recorded but also microphones were placed in the firing range to capture shells whizzing past and hitting. The army would aim the shells right next to where the microphones were out in the range. Lip-reading was undertaken and dialogue was dubbed in for the restored footage but not without research first to find out which army divisions were in a particular shot and where in Britain they came from. This allowed the filmmakers to get the accent right. The filmmakers went through a hundred hours of footage and six times as much interview footage to use as narration. The filmmakers obviously didn't include all one hundred hours of war footage they were given, nor was it all enhanced with color and sound. To enhance that much film would take almost a decade I would imagine. The only footage WingNut Films enhanced with color and sound is what you see in the documentary but they did however restore all 100 hours without charge for preservation purposes. I was glad to hear that. This would also make it possible for subsequent filmmakers and historians to enhance the footage with future technologies. I saw this film on the big screen as mentioned and in 3D but I can't tell whether it would be better in 2D. The 3D did disrupt my suspension of disbelief a bit in that I became aware that I was watching a film that someone had pieced together. Even old still photos were converted to 3D. As is traditional with any Peter Jackson film, he was working on the movie right up until the last possible minute. In the case of this documentary, he wanted some music during the end credits and had to recruit diplomats at the British Embassy in New Zealand to sing "Mademoiselle from Armentières".

Now that I know what went into making this documentary, I feel I need to see it again to really appreciate not only the work undertaken to make the film but also those who gave their lives in "The Great War". Peter Jackson and his crew made a WWI documentary that will excite film fans, history buffs and will certainly help in the preservation of four years of world history. Jackson attacked this project with the same drive as "The Lord of the Rings" and "Tintin" for example and it shows. I like it when technology supports the film story being told instead of the other way around.

4 Stars out of 5