Sunday, 18 January 2015
Testament of Youth
Just back from seeing Testament of Youth. Very moving with an excellent central performance by Alicia Vikander as Vera Brittain (despite a slightly wobbly posh English accent). If you want anti-war, this ought to do it. I wept copiously, almost losing it when the father broke down after waving his son off to war. Gulp. One of Vera Brittain's children was Shirley Williams, with whom - in the company of my father and Anthony Smith of the BFI - I once had lunch. It followed the first ever screening of Abel Gance's Napoleon, restored by Kevin Brownlow. Shirley and I disagreed about the quality of John Fowles' work. She liked it and I didn't. I'm fairly sure the only point I really made was that it was up to him to decide how his books ended, not the reader. Or something. Anyway, it wasn't very incisive or clever. But Shirley was very nice, I'm bound to say. (I was a founder member of the SDP, don't you know.) And now I've a feeling I should read her mother's great book...
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