Blitz
Louder than the usual sound, with impressive visuals and a huge dash of Dicken’s novels, we enter the world of Londoners in the 1940’s as Hitler’s morale attacking Blitzkrieg rains down havoc on them.
Oliver Twist or David Copperfield-like, we track a small boy George (Elliot Heffernan) and his Mum as he’s evacuated to safety in the countryside, then resists evacuation and works very hard to get back home to Stepney. And why wouldn’t you when you Grandad is the Grandad of dreams, Paul Weller, and your Mum is Saoirse Ronan, and there are singalongs around the piano?
Though it would be easy to pick up the Commonwealth/Empire contributions and expressions of racism here alone, this is very much a film about classicism in World War Two too. Urban working class people don’t have access to large gardens or gardens at all, so can’t build shelters. Instead they’re desperately trying to rush the underground stations — which are locked against them. Or even worse, opened and then locked once they’re full of people.
A wonderful East End Jewish man Clive (Joshua McGuire) offers cellars of shelter and startingly celebrates Christian compassion. Clearly Jesus was a Red! I couldn’t help, but clap him — such refreshing kindness and humanity in these ugly times now (and in those unprecedented terrifying times). Intriguingly, this is a film which takes faith and people of faith (and expressions of faith) seriously, which I didn’t expect at all.
Meanwhile, those that have cash and privilege party on despite the bombs and the rationing. Glittering, they fine dine and wine. Recalling the terrible deaths in the Cafe Royal bombing (I’m not sure if this is the actual Cafe Royal), one minute there’s raucous, flirty, stylish jazz and jiving — the next people’s lungs have burst in the explosion and they look like they’ve fallen asleep for a moment. Remaining in situ loaded with all their bling for the most part, ripe for the taking. And just like a Dickens novel, there are gangs ready to do just that.
Resentfully put on a train, George bravely jumps off and starts to make his way back. Leaping onto another train back, he encounters three brothers who dare him to get onto the roof of the carriage — and he does. And they do — and it’s all Swallows and Amazons, but not for long. Horror and tragedy strike as the boys are pursued by the authorities who want to evacuate them again.
George then uses his emergency money, gifted to him by his Grandad for a bus fare — and encounters equally horrifying directions about the bus to get home. He ends up around Oxford Street to begin with.
Meanwhile, his Mum is raising morale by singing as the BBC pay a live visit to the factory where she and a whole squad of women are working, creating the weapons to defeat the Nazis. In a way I’ve never seen before the camera focuses, close-up, on the hard, labour intensive work they’re doing — and the general lack of health and safety. Whilst there are visors and aprons, PPE is minimal and you wonder what on earth they’re being exposed to. On the other hand, they’re creating a new world as working women now have better paid, skilled jobs in the factories — and can buy their own pints.
At the same time, the BBC visit is a vital moment to mic drop and urgently demand proper shelters for all. Authority figures want to keep them silent and down, but they won’t!
To take her mind off things, Saoirse Ronan’s Rita goes to help in Clive’s shelter, whilst Paul Weller’s Grandad Gerald stays home, waiting for their boy to return and keeping the family cat safe. The girls whisk her off on a night out, stockings drawn on their legs in style, and find some chivalrous sailors with cash to spend. Jack (Harris Dickinson) their neighbour is also at the pub, defending George and Rita from the casual hurtful racism thrown around.
Seeing her friend flirting with the sailors, Rita reminisces about meeting George’s Dad Marcus (CJ Beckford); the glorious jazz and Lindy hopping. And the terrible night when he defended himself from racist attack, and was marched away by the police — who should been defending him.
George, meanwhile, encounters horrible caricatures of black and brown people as the riches of the British Empire are extolled, still available for purchase, pre-convoy attacks. A small boy is easily overlooked and pushed away — such as when he loiters outside of Hamley’s. It’s quite fun to try and track where George is around London at any moment.
However, he encounters warden Ife (Benjamin Clémentine) on his rounds and learns how to be a man. A compassionate Christian, Ife also steps in to do what is right, to use his power to protect and defend, stopping people segregating themselves and behaving offensively. Not only does Ife stop this, but he educates and inspires, reminding people not to do Hitler’s work here and now. And they sing, songs of praise, around the streets. Leaving George safely in the shelter, Ife goes on to do his rounds — and sadly doesn’t make it back.
George keeps moving on, hungrily finding an apparently friendly young woman Jess (Mica Ricketts). Only she’s on the make — leading him to a gang who want to use him, Oliver Twist-like, to rob bombed out shops and even the Cafe Royal. Unlike Ife, the wardens are shown to be just as corrupt — seeing and overlooking the thefts, and ignoring a small terrified boy stumbling around. Horribly, George encounters the brutal and disturbed Albert (Stephen Graham) and unrecognisable Kathy Burke as his consort, Beryl. Cruelly they join the dead diners, ripping off their jewels, disrespecting their deaths and mocking away, supping their champagne. Sent into a collapsing shop to get what he can, George is almost found by two wardens properly doing their job — and uses his wits and guile to evade them. Thankfully, he’s able to use the unstable building to his advantage.
In a world turned upside down, George stumbles into a fragile world, fighting for survival. Depending on the Air-Raid Wardens, some access to the tube stations is allowed. Vulnerably, George sleeps on the track, along with hundreds of others, sees things he shouldn’t see and doesn’t really understand, and dreams of walking along the tunnel back to light, Ife, his train brothers and the beauty of music and singing again.
Instead, the puddles of water hinting at what is to come, there is a new horror. The smallest, George is able to push his way out through the locked gates and summon helping, saving people from drowning. Awakening in a dry bed with an apparently kind matronly lady, George contemplates going home at last, being warm, dry and fed. However, this isn’t the case as this lady is just another authority, about to bring George in.
Fleeing, George finally realises where he is and whisks through the streets home. Only to find a scene of devastation. There is reunion, but you’re left weeping as you start to think what the people of Britain (London, Southampton, Liverpool, Coventry, Glasgow, Belfast, Portsmouth, Manchester and more) went through, something of what they suffered. And so close to Remembrance Sunday when I watched it, goodness you want to stand and cheer these ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances doing the best they can to care, to stay alive, to live ordinary lives and do normal things, like working, raising families and getting married. Standing up for what is right.
There’s a fair bit of Blitz busting here, such as the Trade Unions militantism and hints of strikes, the class clashes, the Black Market and racketeering, most definitely a lack of stiff upper lip. Still, people do keep carrying on; some do care for others — and encourage others to do so. Thankfully, due to those same values, we’re all still here and living in degrees of freedom.
The courage, the tenacity of ordinary people is thoroughly celebrated. The child actors are extraordinarily vivid — astoundingly this is Elliot Heffernan’s first movie. He has a beautifully naturalistic rapport with Saoirse Ronan and Paul Weller creating a thoroughly believable family. Equally believable are the fragile lives fighting back against terrible scenes of destruction — the firemen battling a broken stand-pipe and out of control hose. The Docks blaze, a horse rears away, and a small boy skitters amongst them all. The sound and feeling of the bombs appearing overhead and stopping, dropping is visceral — and will have you jumping. The saturation of water into the tube station is the stuff of nightmares — and sadly based on real events. Thankfully, though suggested, we are spared the horror of crushing as people hurtle down the stairs to safety — again another real event of the time. As we get overhead shots of the burning, battered city — and the intact buildings the bombs missed, you can see why 1960’s architects wanted to knock it all down and start again, with cities in the sky. The scale of it is beyond imagining.
You also start to think about the way people lived, unequally and why the houses were easily destroyed or burnt. A third of homes still didn’t have electricity, or indoor utilities; many houses might not have been robustly built, but based around older buildings carved up for new and multiple uses. Industry and factories were also mixed in with domestic housing adding to the carnage. All leading to every public space possible being dug up for ‘victory’ planting and the creation of the NHS based on the previous inequalities occurring in society.
Fascinating though to see the Air-raid patrols, wind-up sirens and all in action. As is the focus on women in factories — I’ve never seen this in a war movie before. Look out for the admirable Hayley Squires as one of Rita’s friends and workmates, Tilda and Alex Jennings doing his best BBC voice. Equally uniquely portrayed is the East End pub culture and community, the group sing-alongs to raise spirits in the shelters during the bombings and the bewildered scattered children, rescued from ruins and the loss of families. But bewildered, open to mothering from kindly women such as Rita or perhaps exploitation from Albert and Beryl or bullying.
I think what I wanted a bit more of was the Blitz itself. We saw a little of the after-effects in half standing houses, a man sitting stunned in his favourite chair and a woman defending her home, sweeping up the glass from a shell of a room. We didn’t really see the improvised meals through rationing or apart from through Ife’s intervention, how important the Blackout was. Rita casually leaves the lights on and looks out of the window, curtain thrown back — which doesn’t quite ring true. Nor does the series of evacuations of children get a fair evaluation — it’s seen very much as a bad, authoritative thing. Whilst it did go wrong, leading to abuse and cultural disconnect, it could also go right and lead to lifelong friendships and new aspirations. This part could have been deeper — though whilst we see how people are treated, we should be taking pause to reflect on parallels and differences with our own recent COVID/Pandemic times.
Though, most of all, as we’re encouraged to notice and see those we’d naturally overlook, that we should also stand up to to bullies, for they’re all mouth and no trousers. George’s puzzle about how to deal with racism is modelled by Ife, who shows George how to be a man, a proud black man and to use his power and personality for good, even with the unreasonable and the hostile. All the while defeating the racist bullies and being seen and heard.
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