The World War I documentary will be screening at theaters across Southern California on Dec. 17 and Dec. 27.<\/b>
\nIt was a simple request.
Director Peter Jackson, speaking with film critic Elvis Mitchell before a screening last week of his new World War I documentary \u201cThey Shall Not Grow Old,\u201d recalled being offered the chance to make a documentary about World War I, a conflict his grandfather fought in and one that Jackson had a lifelong interest in.
\u201cAt the time of the premiere of the last Hobbit movie in London in 2014, the Imperial War Museum invited me to come in for a meeting and they asked if I would be interested in doing a documentary to commemorate the Armistice of the First World War. So that was like in four years time \u2014 that was 2018. So it seemed like a long, long time away,\u201d said Jackson as the audience laughed along with him at his underestimation of the time and difficulty of the project. \u201cEasy.\u201d
Of course, if it seems unlikely that the Oscar-winning director of \u201cThe Lord of the Rings\u201d and \u201cThe Hobbit\u201d films would do a standard-issue war documentary \u2014 something available in abundance on the History Channel, say \u2014 you are correct. There\u2019s nothing easy on display here; the film, which will have a special Southern California engagement on Dec. 17 and 27 and limited release on Jan. 11, is unlike other war documentaries, which is just what was asked for.
\u201cThe only thing the Imperial War Museum said to me,\u201d said Jackson. \u201cThey said I could take any approach that I want to the First World War but the mandate was that they wanted me to use their original footage \u2014 of which they have hundreds of hours \u2014 and they wanted me to use it in a \u2018fresh and original\u2019 way.\u201d
So, no pressure.
What followed were years of experimentation using all the technological firepower Jackson had available to bring the footage to incredible life.
Restored and updated using a range of digital, 3D and filmmaking magic, \u201cThey Shall Not Grow Old\u201d transforms this 100-year-old, often damaged, footage into something astonishing. The film has vivid color, a richly nuanced soundtrack and innumberable computer adjustments that render the movement of the soldiers onscreen close to what they would have been like in real life.
The once-silent footage also has a voice now. The sound mix uses recorded interviews of World War I combat veterans culled from the BBC and Imperial War Museum archives and an impressive array of restored dialogue \u2014 which has been reconstructed with the help of forensic lip readers \u2014 now voiced by actors.
Audiences can finally hear what they were saying 100 years ago, which is often disarmingly mundane.
It\u2019s an incredible reconstruction, one that makes this past conflict seem suddenly, viscerally immediate. The things one might read about \u2014 the trenches, the rats, the bodies -\u2014 are suddenly in front of your eyes, and it\u2019s sometimes horrible.
Without dwelling too much on it, Jackson doesn\u2019t steer away from scenes of carnage and death. Even the kinds of trench life typically handled with some humor \u2014 viewers get glimpses of soldiers sitting on a log suspended over a pit that acts a latrine \u2014 are revealed to be worse than imagined. According to the veterans recollections, there is no toilet paper, no running water, no ability to clean up \u2014 and those logs occasionally snapped, sending soldiers tumbling into the muck.
While there were no shortages of killing implements like tanks and machine guns and snipers, even the landscape was deadly. The muddy ground created a sucking near-quicksand in which men sank into and died.
The main appeal of the film are its major technical achievements, but one of the film\u2019s finest elements are the recollections of the soldiers, who typically expressed no rancor toward the men on the other side of the trench (except, as one noted, the machine gunners), recognizing them as equal victims to the barbaric conflict in which they\u2019d been enlisted.
But truly, the film is an unforgettable, unprecedented document of the lives of the Great War soldiers, one that impressed even its director.
\u201cThe serious truth is I was imagining in my head what it might be like,\u201d said Jackson. \u201cBut when it finally came off the end of the pipeline I was absolutely stunned.\u201d
Director: Peter Jackson
Rated: R for depictions of violence
Running Time: 1 hour, 39 minutes
Playing: Selected theaters in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties<\/p>\n