They Shall Not Grow Old

They Shall Not Grow Old sounded like a “bad idea”: Peter Jackson had worked his way through days’ worth of footage documenting WWI – from which he then selected parts and had them colourised. Add the creation of a massive, multi-channel soundscape, plus the conversion to 3D, and it sounds like every film-lover’s nightmare.

WRONG! If – if – you are not a dogma-driven diehard, but rather curious, and therefore perhaps able to see the film for what it might truly be: not merely a fine commemorative documentary about the fighting men’s experience, but arguably the most expensive experimental film of 2018; an audacious work that offers new perspectives on non-fiction filmmaking. For what Jackson did was to treat the original material as if it was motion-captured, which he could then shape. That colour, stereoscopy, and all kinds of sounds were used a century ago to capture and render the war seems almost besides the point. 

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