They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) Review

“There was a boy who got hit with an artillery shell. Left arm, leg blown off, eye dangling on his cheek. Crying out for his mommy. So I shot him… I had to.”

 

    In 2015 Peter Jackson, the director of Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong, was approached by 14-18 NOW and Imperial War Museum to do a documentary on World War I. He was given over 600 hours worth of interviews and over 100 hours of original film stock.

    ‘They Shall Not Grow Old’ was a true experience. I wish the film was at least ten more hours. I was transfixed by what I was watching.  It’s not like most documentaries. There is no narrator, it’s just voices of the soldiers describing their experiences— from training, being shipped to Germany, life in the trenches, how they feared bombardments and tried to keep out of the way from snipers, getting lice, having their feet freeze and having to get them amputated, how those they were close to died right in front of them, taking prisoners, how they were treated when they arrived home, and more. I thought it was a wise choice on Jackson’s part to use just the voices of the soldiers describing their experiences. So there are no dates of battles or who was in charge. It’s just about the soldiers.

   The film submerges the viewers in the war through World War I footage never seen before along with photographs and drawings from magazines describing the war at the time. Jackson went to the most extreme and colorized the footage. He went to sites of where the footage took place, photographed it in order to match it, and then went to the lab. The result is outstanding and in a way unnerving. It’s like when The Wizard of Oz went to Black & White to color. Jackson took his time colorizing it unlike people behind TV documentaries who hurry to get the job done so that the end product isn’t flattering.

   The thing that stood out the most for me was the personalities of the soldiers. They seemed so friendly and had a positive outlook. They were full of smiles and life. They were trying to make something good out of a bad situation. They had a good sense of humor and were optimistic. On Peter Jackson’s commentary after the credits he states that basically everyone on the footage will either be dead or wounded. It’s haunting. I don’t know how the Academy could not nominate this film and Won’t You Be My Neighbor for Best Documentary, but then again they’ve made a lot of stupid decisions.

4.8 out of 5