Film Review
A remarkable film that tells a remarkable story.
The Dam Busters is quite possibly
the best loved of British war films, offering both a gripping account
of a fascinating war time exploit and a theme that, once heard, you
will end up humming for the rest of your life. The film and the
story it tells are quintessentially British - who but a Briton could
rig up an altimeter from a pair of spotlights and make a bombsight from
what looks like bits of an old coat hanger? The theme is so
well known that it has become a surrogate national anthem, and quite
frankly most people in Britain would rather hum a few up uplifting bars of "daaa da
da, da da-da da da" like a jingoistic Morse code transmitter than
intone "God save our gracious Queen/King" to the tune of what sounds
like a death march.
Yet
The Dam Busters is not a
war film in the traditional sense. There are no battles, we don't
see the enemy, indeed there is hardly any sense that a war is taking
place. It is fair to say that this is not so much a war film as a
celebration of those virtues - initiative, courage and resolve - which
allowed Britain and her allies to win the war against Fascism.
This is how the British people like to think of themselves - brave,
resilient and resourceful, but on an amazingly low budget.
Hard as it may seem at times,
The
Dam Busters is a pretty accurate account of the true story which
Guy Gibson relates in his book
Enemy
Coast Ahead. Playing Gibson in the film is Richard Todd,
who had himself seen active service during WWII, being one of the first
British officers to land in Normandy on D-Day. As in his other
war films, Todd's military background allows the actor to bring a
natural authority and realism to his performance, but he also shows us
a more fragile, human side in the film's quieter moments.
Equally, Michael Redgrave is well chosen for the part of Barnes Wallis,
portraying him as a complex man who, whilst committed to his work, was
deeply troubled by its consequences. That 56 men died
during the dam buster raid is something that distressed Wallis greatly,
and Redgrave conveys this very succinctly, and with great poignancy, in
the last scene of the film.
It is interesting to compare
The Dam
Busters
with the kind of war films that had been made in the previous
decade.
During the Second World War, most, if not all, British war films had an
obvious propaganda dimension, so there was always an unequivocal
anti-German, pro-British slant. Characters were often portrayed
as
caricatures: the British as courageous salt of the Earth types who
always did the decent thing, the Nazis as soulless gun-toting villains
who hadn't even heard of the Queensbury Rules. The war films of
the
1950s gave a more balanced and accurate view of things and were less
drum beating melodrama and more realistic docudrama.
One thing that these later war films did not shy away from was the
human cost of the war - on
both sides.
It is interesting that
The Dam
Busters
ends not with a jingoistic flourish of self-congratulation (of the kind
that still featured in American war films) but with a solemn meander
through the now empty dormatories of the men who had not returned from the
bombing raid. The British filmmakers had the right idea - this
was a
time not to celebrate the victory that had been won but to reflect on
the enormity of the sacrifice which that victory had
demanded. The message was simple: this must never happen again.
A remake of
The Dam Busters
is currently in preparation, with the actor-writer Stephen Fry working
on the screenplay. This film is likely to be released in
2011, unless it gets - er - torpedoed.
© James Travers 2009
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
In 1942, at the height of WWII, aircraft engineer Barnes Wallis has
become obsessed with the idea of flooding the Ruhr valley by a single
bombing raid on its dams. If this could be achieved it would
inflict a palpable blow on the Nazis, wiping out an entire industrial
complex at a single stroke. Despite the scepticism of his
superiors, Wallis perseveres and develops a bomb that can bounce across
the surface of the water, thereby avoiding torpedo nets, and explode on
impact with the wall of the dam. When Barnes's trials prove
successful, the war office authorises the project to go ahead.
The man who is assigned to lead the mission is R.A.F. Wing Commander
Guy Gibson, who immediately begins to assemble a squadron of men whom he
trains without yet knowing the intended target. Many technical
problems still have to be solved, however. The aircraft have to fly
at a very low altitude, but at this level the existing altimeters are
unreliable. The bombs have to be dropped at a precise distance
from the dam, so the crews needs to know when to drop the bomb.
And the bomb casing must be strong enough to withstand the impact when
it hits the water. Wallis is confident that these obstacles
can be overcome. If not, the mission is doomed to failure...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.