Listen to Britain (Jennings, 1942) #TSPDT 362

A visual commentary on the state of Britain during the war, non narrated.

The biggest impression I had from the soundtrack of this short film. It is used to blend scenes together and to create a rich texture of impressions, which manage to transport me back to that time much more touching than the imagery (which is very nice too). Two weeks after seeing it, mostly impressions of industrial environments remain. An especially memorable scene was the ballroom dance of the officers and the women, the elegance in the movement is overwhelming, although in one of the shots the individual couples are still felt to have an independent existence within that crowd in an array of different emotional states.

The absence of too exaggerated patriotic exclamations, especially verbal ones, gives this stripped down portrait of wartime England a very authentic quality. I could really get a sense of "people" there.

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