Own the rights?
This is what we would now call a docudrama about the battle in and around Arnhem during the closing days of the Second World War. Mixing actual footage of the battle with new footage shot a year after the war in and around the ravaged city with many of the surviving soldiers playing themselves, this tells the same story that was told in the big Budget A Bridge Too Far. Its very much a you are there sort of film that pretty much seems to tell it like it was.I ran across this film in a budget collection of World War two films and since I'm a big fan of a Bridge Too Far I thought I'd pick it up. I'm not sure which is the better movie. One is a huge Hollywood financed production, the other is a small scale gritty in your face film that certainly shows what it must have been like. One I like because I like the story and the spectacle, the other I like because it shows what it was really like, and how Hollywood's version was too neat and clean.As good as this film is it has two problems in my eyes. First off its a bit disjointed. The film is telling the whole story about what happened in and around Arnhem and things get lost, "characters" blend into one another. Part of this seems to be the result of the fact that the film seems to have been dubbed after the fact and it seemed to me that several people have the same voice. Its not bad but I began to feel awash in the proceedings.The second problem with the film is that its awfully stereotypically "British". Everyone is low key and even keeled. Everyone takes everything in stride, even the fact that they are surrounded with seemingly no way out. Its all greeted with a levelness that seems wildly out of the "ideal" notion of the British soldier rather than reality. The attitude is fine for a while, but buy the half way point into the film I was shaking my head and giggling at the calmness of it all. For me it severely detracted from the proceedings and left me feeling very disappointed.Flawed or not this is a must see, especially for those who like the later inflated epic film.
You may report errors and omissions on this page to the IMDb database managers. They will be examined and if approved will be included in a future update. Clicking the 'Update' button will take you through a step-by-step process.
