They Shall Not Grow Old (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Peter Jackson (Bad Taste, The Lord of the Ring 1-3)
	Actors: -
	Country: GB, NZ
	Genre: War, Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 15.06.2019, in-flight entertainment system 10" screen.
Synopsis: Original footage from WWI combined with vocal testimonies of surviving soldiers bring to life what it was to be on the front lines 100 years ago.
Review: As of 2019 this is the only movie directed by World-famous director Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Ring trilogy) since the Hobbit trilogy that ended in 2014. Well, he deserved a break. I have recently watched and praised the colorized WWII Documentaries Bombing War and WWII in Colour, and I have to say that this one is a notch above. First of all, it is directed by someone who wanted to tell a story instead of being factual about events and you can feel it when watching the movie: the images guide you from recruitment to a day in the life of a conscript to the front line and the horror of a frontal assault. The audience is guided all along by audio recordings of more than 100 soldiers who gave testimony. Those recordings were extracted from archives as well as 100 hours of never-seen-before footage that were restored and colorized by Jackson's team. And you can tell the difference with respect to what was done by commercial companies for the aforementioned TV-documentaries, and this time based on much older footage. In fact since I knew Jackson directed it, I though he had mixed original footage with re-created scenes shot with actors in High Definition. Remember that he was behind the Mock-umentary Forgotten Silver and a recreation of a lost scene from 1933's King Kong. But it was not the case: all images are original except from the colors, the added sound effects and for a very few awesome shots, voice acting matching the soldier's lips. I found that Jackson gave the best justification for colorization: "[The men] saw a war in colour, they certainly didn’t see it in black and white. I wanted to reach through the fog of time and pull these men into the modern world, so they can regain their humanity once more – rather than be seen only as Charlie Chaplin-type figures in the vintage archive film." Deeply researched, technically wonderful but at the same time humane and telling a story as only such a talented director with a vision could do. In fact all that I noticed was missing from the WWII in Colour Documentary. Well done.
Rating: 8 /10