Lest we forget: today is Armistice Day. This year marks 100 years since the commencement of the First World War. It’s a war that was triggered by the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary by a Yugoslav nationalist called Gavrilo Princip. This set off a diplomatic crisis that escalated into a war where the United Kingdom (with Australia, Canada, India, Newfoundland, New Zealand and South Africa supporting, as they were part of the British Empire at the time), Russia (1914 - 1917), Italy (1915 - 1918), United States (1917 - 1918), Japan, Serbia, Montenegro, Romania (1916 - 1918), Belgium, Greece (1917 - 1918), Portugal (1916 - 1918) and other countries went to war against Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria (1915 - 1918) and other countries. The result was the death of more than nine million soldiers, the death of more than seven million civilians and an immeasurable amount of damage in countless lives that defined a generation no longer with us. All that is left are the stories told over the century.
One such story comes from the memoir of Vera Brittain called Testament of Youth. The memoir was published in 1933 and it covers her life from the age of 7 in 1900 till the age of 32 in 1925. Her only brother, Edward Brittain MC, who was her closest companion during her childhood, her fiance Roland Leighton and two of her close friends, Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow, were all killed during the First World War. She delayed her English Literature degree at Oxford university in 1915 to volunteer as a nurse, tending to the wounded. She found it incredibly hard to adjust to life in the post-war generation. She went on to become a prominent pacifist and feminist until her death in 1970.
This trailer portrays a film that looks at the struggle of a young Vera whose priority in life is not to get married as her parents wish, but to become a writer. It shows her friendships, her romantic relationship with Roland and her relationship with her brother Edward all thrown into peril because of the onset of the War with brief hints of the propaganda of the time that pressured young men into joining in. As Wilfred Owen put it in his greatest poem, they all fell for the lie: “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”, which translates as “It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.” The trailer seems to be mostly focused on the romantic angle. Normally this would totally put me off, but there’s something woeful about their plight that I can’t help but feel awful for their situation. I’m quite looking forward to seeing this film when it comes out. It looks like it may be worth a watch.
Testament of Youth will be released in cinemas on Friday 16th January 2015.
One such story comes from the memoir of Vera Brittain called Testament of Youth. The memoir was published in 1933 and it covers her life from the age of 7 in 1900 till the age of 32 in 1925. Her only brother, Edward Brittain MC, who was her closest companion during her childhood, her fiance Roland Leighton and two of her close friends, Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow, were all killed during the First World War. She delayed her English Literature degree at Oxford university in 1915 to volunteer as a nurse, tending to the wounded. She found it incredibly hard to adjust to life in the post-war generation. She went on to become a prominent pacifist and feminist until her death in 1970.
This trailer portrays a film that looks at the struggle of a young Vera whose priority in life is not to get married as her parents wish, but to become a writer. It shows her friendships, her romantic relationship with Roland and her relationship with her brother Edward all thrown into peril because of the onset of the War with brief hints of the propaganda of the time that pressured young men into joining in. As Wilfred Owen put it in his greatest poem, they all fell for the lie: “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”, which translates as “It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.” The trailer seems to be mostly focused on the romantic angle. Normally this would totally put me off, but there’s something woeful about their plight that I can’t help but feel awful for their situation. I’m quite looking forward to seeing this film when it comes out. It looks like it may be worth a watch.
Testament of Youth will be released in cinemas on Friday 16th January 2015.
RSS Feed
