Oh! What a Lovely War

Certificate: A
Director: Richard Attenborough
UK 1969. 144 minutes.

This film is truly a masterpiece, and one of the best anti-war films ever made. None of the great actors in it delivers a weighty pronouncement on the evils of war; it is enough to see the awful toll posted on the cricket scoreboard that keeps the daily tally of dead. The ordinariness of the Smith family, who lose every last one of their young men to the conflict, and the stupid banalities of the officers who daily send their men out to be killed only serve to highlight the absolute futility and waste of WWI and all the wars that followed. Sadly, it is just as relevant now as it was then - a testimony to our inability to learn from our mistakes.