lovefilm:

Apocalypse:  The Second World War, 2009.

I haven’t been watching a lot of films lately because I have been working and when I haven’t been working I was watching TV series.

Last night I wanted amend this situation and watch a film but as I turned the TV on I saw that they were showing an uncanny looking documentary. It was uncanny because what I saw was old footage that looked like new footage that had been manipulated to look old. Am I making sense?

I was curious to see what all of this was about so I watched it for 10 minutes, then for 20 minutes and in the end I saw 2 whole hours of it. It was great! 

The clip above is the beginning of the 6 episode series about WWII entitled Apocalypse (I know…). I also ‘know’ that WWII has been done to death but this documentary seemed really different and fresh. The reason for this is that it has no interviews, no recreations, no actors in costumes, etc. it is just done with archive footage, lots and lots of it. And I can say “I know..” once again, as usually archive footage is this grainy, blurry, boring black and white succession of funny moving people that seems quite alien to us. But this isn’t the case of this documentary as the footage has been coloured and dubbed with diagetic sounds which makes it quite unsettling to watch as it suddenly seems quite current and relevant and doesn’t make it that different from images you see in today’s news. It is also really well edited and it becomes really thrilling to watch.

The documentary not only explains things really well, but it also gives a lot of details about everything that happened during WWII and gives real insight on the madness of it all.

The best thing: To finally find a documentary that makes WWII really compelling and exciting to learn about and how intimate and relevant all the archive footage seems.

The worst thing: To see how some things happen over and over again.