Don't Mention The War?

Warhorse is not a film I would usually be galloping my way to the cinema to see but given I was able to take my little honey bee and let him wriggle about to his hearts content, I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity.

Warhorse, as I am sure you have already heard, is Spielberg at his best, beautifully shot scenes paired with an equally beautiful score from John Williams – this is Classic cinema. There is no challenges here just simple storytelling of Joey – the symbol of the human spirit.

The opening scenes are a delight; they cascade over fresh countryside in a muted spring sun with an uplifting orchestral overture, a newly born foal bounds into life. The film begins with something that wouldn’t look out of place in a Catharine Cookson novel, there is gentle humour and rosy cheeks when the characters are exposed to hardship.

Overall acting in the entire film is good but you get exactly what it says on the tin with British sapiens so anything less and there would be uproar. It was the characters that left you a little dry-eyed and distant as they seemed stereotypical and predictable, who would have ever thought that a German commander wouldn’t give a hoot about the well being of a horse? I know, me neither, shocking!

The film canters on at a moderate pace and I did check the time twice, although it wasn’t groundbreaking or particularly memorable it feels like a film secondary school children might enjoy being shown in a history class.

Two parts of the film try very hard to question the morality of war and you find yourself willing it to go further but it is only a 12A. The Reader, however, is not. With full frontal nudity and nipples tossed about in countless shots you would be right to question if this was a film about the Holocaust. Nonetheless I did not feel as though the tasteful nudity or sex scenes detracted from the story, which was perhaps not as seamless as Warhorse. A far more quietly shot film with three pleasing performances from Kate Winslet, David Kross, and Ralph Finnes, The Reader settles the audience into a love story that is oddly dull and oddly charming.

Hanna Schmitz is as dull and mediocre as your evildoers come and that helps to carry the film slightly apart from other films about the Holocaust. Watching the main characters shared love of great literature is beautiful, even if I was sick of seeing Winslets’ nipples by the end.

I enjoyed the twist in the story, the shame, of which, Hanna felt heavier then her guilt in participation of the atrocities of WWII, this was intriguing but never explored. It ends bittersweet, but this is the best you can hope for from a Holocaust movie and I’m not complaining as it fits well into the bitter sweetness of the love story. This is a film that attempts serious moral questions but doesn’t have the courage or pace to do it strongly enough, however the films quietness seems to be a defining feature that works.

Having not read either of the books that these films have sprang from, all I can conclude is that there is a great willingness to question the black and white of war, which audiences seem to be really enjoying.