- Won 2 BAFTA Awards
- 5 wins & 1 nomination total
Photos
Storyline
Featured review
The tight focus on the human face of the stats keep politics out of it and makes it intensely engaging and moving
Each week I listen to ABC's This Week as a podcast and the "in memoriam" section mostly concludes with the host saying "this week the Pentagon released the names of x members of the armed services that lost their lives in Iraq". On the news on the radio in the UK I am used to hearing that so many service men and women died in Afghanistan or Iraq today and I realised recently that it had become like the news when I lived in Northern Ireland when the only thing that made me pay attention was the lack of a death, the deaths themselves had become ordinary, part of the background. This is how it is in the War on Terror now as the stats simply overwhelmed our ability to keep track.
This film potentially was going to challenge that view but I reserved my judgement because I spotted it was made by Morgan Matthews a man who does a great job on quirkumentaries but has also indicated that he cannot dig deeper when he has to (see Battleship Antarctica). So I approach with care. Theo Robertson is not wrong when he says that the film doesn't break new ground in its format as we have clips combined with talking heads making up the majority of the time it is a standard format but it is probably a standard format because it works well. And so it does here as we get over three hours of humanity laid out in front of us in a way that not only doesn't let us forget that these stats are people with families but also makes us want never to forget.
That it does this is down to a huge amount of work put in by the makers because there is a lot of research here but also a lot of time spent getting the footage and then editing it down to what works best. The talking heads here are mostly not the type where you roll into someone's house of 30 minutes, get the sound-bites and then move on. It must have been painstaking to make just on a technical level. However it pays off because on the whole the contributions and focuses are honest, varied and engaging. I say varied because this not some cheesy film where everyone cries easily but one where everyone has their own feelings and own way of coping. People cry but they cry for different reasons regret, loss, pride and so on.
Throughout it all Matthews keeps the focus on the human impact of each death on each family. Of course he does not cover all 300 of the British dead but all the names come up in order across the running time and the contributions are where he does his work. The remarkable thing is that he achieves this. Nobody else has said it in their reviews so I will embrace the negative user votes and say that some of those with death relatives are not people you would want to go out with and likewise some of the dead seen in videos are not people you want to hang out with. The reasons will vary. Some are very posh. Some are very rough. Some are just really crude and laddish. For everyone watching the film you would think there should be a moment where you turn to the person next to you and make a barbed remark about the posh/Northern/poor/whatever character you are watching but you don't. And the reason you don't is that Matthews has captured the person within each of them. The pain, the loss, the grief in whatever form it takes. It is a shame that the film makes it look so easy because it is not.
Credit to the makers of the film as well for avoiding making political points either themselves or by letting the contributions (that made the final edit) go off against Bush or Blair, even if they do get a mention. Indeed other than some snide remarks made by a BBC newsreader in one of the clips ("so-called War on Terror" I agree but where is the journalistic integrity?) the film keeps the focus entirely on the people, not the politics. Will I watch The Fallen again? Potentially. Is a fun little film that I would pick up quickly? No. Is it entertaining? No. No, what the film is is impacting, human and moving. It takes the numbers, names and stats that we see and hear each week and puts real people into the pictures. Regardless of your politics and your stance on the war this film will impact on you and make you cry (like Theo, I cried openly several times as well as welling up lots) and this is down to the tight focus on the people in the film. An immensely moving and important documentary record and by a country mile the film Matthews can be most proud of in his career so far.
This film potentially was going to challenge that view but I reserved my judgement because I spotted it was made by Morgan Matthews a man who does a great job on quirkumentaries but has also indicated that he cannot dig deeper when he has to (see Battleship Antarctica). So I approach with care. Theo Robertson is not wrong when he says that the film doesn't break new ground in its format as we have clips combined with talking heads making up the majority of the time it is a standard format but it is probably a standard format because it works well. And so it does here as we get over three hours of humanity laid out in front of us in a way that not only doesn't let us forget that these stats are people with families but also makes us want never to forget.
That it does this is down to a huge amount of work put in by the makers because there is a lot of research here but also a lot of time spent getting the footage and then editing it down to what works best. The talking heads here are mostly not the type where you roll into someone's house of 30 minutes, get the sound-bites and then move on. It must have been painstaking to make just on a technical level. However it pays off because on the whole the contributions and focuses are honest, varied and engaging. I say varied because this not some cheesy film where everyone cries easily but one where everyone has their own feelings and own way of coping. People cry but they cry for different reasons regret, loss, pride and so on.
Throughout it all Matthews keeps the focus on the human impact of each death on each family. Of course he does not cover all 300 of the British dead but all the names come up in order across the running time and the contributions are where he does his work. The remarkable thing is that he achieves this. Nobody else has said it in their reviews so I will embrace the negative user votes and say that some of those with death relatives are not people you would want to go out with and likewise some of the dead seen in videos are not people you want to hang out with. The reasons will vary. Some are very posh. Some are very rough. Some are just really crude and laddish. For everyone watching the film you would think there should be a moment where you turn to the person next to you and make a barbed remark about the posh/Northern/poor/whatever character you are watching but you don't. And the reason you don't is that Matthews has captured the person within each of them. The pain, the loss, the grief in whatever form it takes. It is a shame that the film makes it look so easy because it is not.
Credit to the makers of the film as well for avoiding making political points either themselves or by letting the contributions (that made the final edit) go off against Bush or Blair, even if they do get a mention. Indeed other than some snide remarks made by a BBC newsreader in one of the clips ("so-called War on Terror" I agree but where is the journalistic integrity?) the film keeps the focus entirely on the people, not the politics. Will I watch The Fallen again? Potentially. Is a fun little film that I would pick up quickly? No. Is it entertaining? No. No, what the film is is impacting, human and moving. It takes the numbers, names and stats that we see and hear each week and puts real people into the pictures. Regardless of your politics and your stance on the war this film will impact on you and make you cry (like Theo, I cried openly several times as well as welling up lots) and this is down to the tight focus on the people in the film. An immensely moving and important documentary record and by a country mile the film Matthews can be most proud of in his career so far.
helpful•10
- bob the moo
- Feb 16, 2009
Details
Box office
- Budget
- £500,000 (estimated)
- Runtime3 hours
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content