BFI London Film Festival Premiere: Steve McQueen’s ‘Blitz’
World War II is a worn-out subject, trampled with the footprints of earnest filmmakers continually interested in the most pivotal point in modern history. There’s often an audible sigh that accompanies one of these films: Do we need yet another? As it turns out, we do. Steve McQueen, one of Britain’s most thoughtful filmmakers, has shifted the perspective on the war in Blitz, offering a new lens through which to examine the perpetually-discussed moment.
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BLITZ ★★★★ (4/4 stars) |
McQueen, who conceived the film after seeing a photograph of a young, mixed race boy being evacuated from London during the Blitz, uncovers elemental and essential truths about human nature by telling a story we’ve never seen before. He allows us, as the audience, to discover how common Londoners both suffered through and prevailed during the constant German air raid on the city through the experience of nine-year-old George (brilliant newcomer Elliott Heffernan). George, a tenacious kid dealing with the casual racism of the neighbor children, lives with his single mother Rita (an equally brilliant Saoirse Ronan) and grandfather Gerald (Paul Weller). Rita puts in long hours at a munitions factory, but loves her son deeply—so much so that she reluctantly agrees to send him to the countryside to keep him safe.
George is horrified to leave East London, as well as his family, and storms onto the train in anger, only to leap off somewhere outside the city when he realizes he needs to tell Rita he loves her. It’s George’s journey back home that reveals the highs and lows of London during the Blitz, a period of the war that resulted in huge destruction and loss. Along the way, George encounters a Black air raid warden named Ife (Benjamin Clementine), a kind-hearted man who helps George to understand his identity and who encourages the diverse inhabitants of the underground shelters to leave the fighting outside. The character, one of the film’s best, is based on a real man, Ita Ekpenyo, and McQueen pays a sincere homage to his efforts to bring the spirit of cooperation into the shelters.
There are other real-life figures, too, including Mickey Davies (Leigh Gill), who runs a shelter where Rita volunteers at night. Also true: a poignant depiction of nightlife hotspot Café de Paris, where elite Londoners drank champagne and caviar as other suffered. McQueen shows the before and after of Café de Paris’ horrific destruction, which resulted in 34 deaths. George finds himself enlisted by a gang of thieves, led by Albert (a perfectly-cast Stephen Graham), and forced to pull jewelry from the bombed corpses. It’s devastating, as is Rita’s realization that her son went missing from the train. She scours London for him with the help of a firefighter named Jack (Harris Dickinson) as George escapes Albert’s grasp only to fall into peril again when a Tube shelter floods with him inside. It’s an emotionally-fraught roller-coaster of film, with near miss after near miss, and McQueen grips you until the final moments.
Everything about Blitz is perfectly crafted, from the precise, historically-accurate production design to the tension-inducing special effects. Hans Zimmer’s score is fraught with feeling, augmenting the already-intense sequences to something almost harrowing. The performances, led by Heffernan, are vulnerable and honest, as if McQueen pushed each actor to do their very best with the role they were given, no matter how small.
McQueen, who won Best Picture for his 2013 film 12 Years a Slave, is a masterful director. He understand that we can only look forward by looking back, as he has done in Hunger, 12 Years a Slave, and, mostly recently, his evocative mini-series Small Axe. He’s reflected on World War II previously, in last year’s documentary Occupied City, but Blitz asserts him as a filmmaker on a whole new level. It is both empathetic and brutal, but at the core is a hint of optimism. That despite our human instinct to create conflict, we could do better. In conveying this in such an original way, McQueen proves that there is always a new way to navigate a well-trodden path.