They Shall Not Grow Old

A Look Into The Life Of A Soldier

I recently witnessed the documentary They Shall Not Grow Old with a friend at my local movie theater. In all honesty, this isn’t necessarily the type of film that I like to watch on the big screen. I prefer to watch documentaries on PBS, National Geographic, or TLC where they belong. Knowing that Peter Jackson had a hand in this particular documentary, however, had me intrigued.

Using actual footage shot during the Great War and interviews recorded by the BBC and the Imperial War Museum, Peter Jackson and his production team painstakingly spliced a story together that gives the viewer an uncensored and blunt look at life in the trenches. It is humorous, horrible, and humbling to watch this documentary play out in front of me.

The documentary starts off in black and white with footage playing of normal life in England just days prior to the war. It then moves into footage of young men (some lying about their age) joining up for the cause and then going through basic training.

It is at this point that the black and white footage comes to life in color as the war starts. The rest of the documentary goes on to show the day-to-day lives of soldiers as they march to the front line and face off against an enemy that many of them didn’t understand why they were fighting in the first place. They also battle frostbite, snipers, artillery fire, mud, blood, and muck.

We also get to see life away from the front. We witness soldiers goofing off, playing soccer, boxing, prepping equipment and weaponry for the soldiers currently in the field of action, etc. They tell us about experiences in brothels and bars and how many times those places (humorously) were just as dangerous as the warzone.

We then return to the front and experience the final push through No Man’s Land and into the German trenches. We see soldiers from both sides interact with one another and listen as the interviews talk about how all of the men got along with one another for the most part. We then get a brief glimpse at their return home and learn about the ill treatment that they received for fighting in the war.

Peter Jackson and his crew outdid themselves. This documentary is simply brilliant. If you do get a chance to see this film, I highly recommend staying for the Making Of documentary that takes place after the credits. It goes into great detail about how each voice, each sound, and each visual was worked on in order to give the viewer the truest visual and audible presentation of life in the trenches. This documentary has moments of great happiness, great sadness, and outright horror.

It’s brilliant. Go see it.

Thanks for reading this review. I’ll be heading to Louisiana Comic Con in just a few weeks and I’ll also be attending CyPhaCon in April. I hope to see you all there!