<h1>One</h1>
After completing the Hobbit trilogy, Peter Jackson lay had no new work in four years. During this time, he devoted his time and energy to a film project commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War: "They Are No Longer Getting Old" – an oral history of British veterans of World War I.
This is a documentary structured entirely by narration.
On November 11, 2019, the 101st anniversary of the end of World War I, I went to the theater to see this movie.
A hundred years ago, black-and-white material was so shocking when it was converted into a wide-color picture, and it was still 3D!
The restoration is quite perfect, and the coloring part is very silent. The childish smiles of the British soldiers on the front line are superimposed on the corpses on the battlefield, which is extremely visually impactful.
Because of the use of the film of that year, the characters in it are very sensitive to the camera, always staring at the camera, that is, staring at the audience, but they are already dead.
This is really the opposite of two parallel spaces!
<h1>Two</h1>
The narrator adopts the perspective of a World War I veteran, restoring the process of joining the army, training, fighting in the trenches of France and Belgium, and returning, although it is a documentary, it is very much like a complete feature film, which can be described as a British version of "No War on the Western Front".
Like the german youths in "No War on the Western Front" who excitedly and ignorantly went to the battlefield of World War I, "They Are No Longer Getting Old" is a group of British recruits ranging from 15 to 19 years old. With boredom and patriotic passion for a mediocre life, they are eager to throw themselves into war, feeling no different from teaming up for field outward bound training.
When the battle began, they found themselves meaningless walking dead. Lice, rats, hares, rotting corpses, shells, poison gas, tanks, etc. were all they could see in their trench life. After the war, they find themselves superfluous in the world.
One soldier said: "When you are dying, your whole life will flash in front of you, but at 19 years old, I really don't have a life." When the bullets came, all I thought was'll live?' ’”
Another soldier had to kill a comrade who had been badly wounded by the bombing, in order to end his suffering as soon as possible. Looking back on this past many years later, he still said with tears, "I am in pain."
The war was over, the soldiers who returned to their hometowns were not treated favorably, no flowers were thrown at them, no girls were thrown into their arms, "people never talked about the war, most people were completely uninterested", they were only one of a large number of unemployed people who could not find work.
The British were the victors of world war I, but the triumphant soldiers found that they were not actually victors at all, just survivors.
The dead are dead, the crippled are crippled, the people who have returned intact have nothing changed in their lives, even worse, and for them the war is meaningless.
<h1>Three</h1>
On the other side of the front, this is even more true on the German side. The aforementioned "No War on the Western Front", originally written by the German writer Reymark of the same name, was made into a film in 1930, known as the "greatest anti-war film", and was the first anti-war film.
Remark entered a battle in 1916 and was wounded five times.
The protagonist, Paul, experiences exactly the same life as these British soldiers, the only difference being that at the end of the war, he forgets his emotions for a while, and wants to catch a butterfly like he did as a child, only to be shot and killed by the sniper on the other side.
On the same day, the war report of the German General Staff was: There was no war on the Western Front. These five words clearly highlight the worthless life of the battlefield cannon fodder ants.
Persecuted by the Nazis, Remack was forced to leave Germany and go into exile in Switzerland in 1932. After Hitler came to power in 1933, "No War on the Western Front" was banned in Germany.
<h1>Four</h1>
The influence of World War I was obscured much by the second world war that followed it, but in the sense of anti-war, the first world war is more worth pondering, because its absurdity is more concentrated and more typical.
Why? For the First World War was entirely a war between the imperialist powers for colonial and world hegemony, a war of total injustice, and the ordinary people involved in it, especially the toilers, acted as wretched cannon fodder, shedding blood and dying for a war that had nothing to do with them.
The only correct attitude towards this war was put forward by lenin, the teacher of the revolution.
Make our own government lose in the imperialist war; turn the imperialist war into a civil war, and realize the socialist revolution!
It is clear that only a socialist revolution is in the interests of the working class and the working people.
<h1>Five</h1>
The First World War forced people to think about the meaning of war. Anti-war and pacifist trends began to emerge. But general, abstract anti-war cannot really eliminate war.
Lenin's thesis is not outdated: imperialism is war!
The realization of the permanent peace of mankind will depend on the realization of global socialism. There are many indications that the failure of globalization could lead to a return of the world to the state it was in the nineteenth century, or to the pre-World War I state.
At such a turning point in history, it makes sense to watch "They're No Longer Old" and gaze into the eyes of 100 years ago.