How to Win a War It’s no secret that filmmakers love movies about themselves. Almost any project about the greatness of movies or about the souls of filmmakers is taken with hurrah. "Artist," "Operation Argo," "La La Land" ... the list goes on. But Their Starry Hour goes in a different direction, showing how British propaganda film was used to rally the nation, even as the filmmakers themselves went through the loss, horror and grief of war.
1940, the war in Europe was in full swing. Most British men are at the front and this is leading to opportunities for women. For many, this means jobs in ammunition factories, but Katrina gets a job as a screenwriter for propaganda films. The girl found the perfect story for the film adaptation: the twin sisters stole a fishing boat and sailed to Dunkirk to bring the soldiers home. The truth, of course, is less interesting, but the flywheel of cinema cannot be stopped. The script is overgrown with details, love interests, drunken uncles, censors rule the text to raise the morale of the audience, officials demand to add to the film a real war hero, who, in turn, turns out to be a terrible actor.
The best moments of the film here are those that lovingly show the process of filmmaking. By and large, “Their Star Hour” came out as a kind of satire on propaganda filmmaking. Special attention deserves the scene of the shooting of “Dunker operation”. Yet Their Starry Hour focuses not only on ridiculing the cliches of propaganda and cinema in general. The script features two or even three love lines and, of course, a naturalistic depiction of war. Unlike other World War II movies, which tend to show battles and the hero is always a soldier, it focuses on the lives of ordinary people. Details are more important than ever: there is a great scene in the restaurant with the hero Naia, and the horrors of bombing, etc.
The implementation was quite interesting. The film is British and that's all it says. Inventiveness is minimized, but aesthetics are recognizable. Like “The Imitation Game” or “The King’s Speech!”, the painting uses a blue-gray color palette as a way to convey the past and stylize images in antiquities.
The cast is the strength of the picture. The filming was attended by prominent British actors: Richard Grand, Eddie Marsan and Jeremy Irons. But no one gets as much attention as Bill Nighy, who plays an aging actor. Bill Nighy shows acting in a square, if not a cube. Here he is a pre-war star of theater and cinema, and a drunken uncle and many others. As for the female side of the caste, then, of course, this is the film where Gemma Arterton gave her best, although sometimes she looked confused. Helen McRory was also remembered as a flirty stage agent.
While much of "Their Starry Hour" looks comedic and a bit protracted, it has its own dark scenes. War still requires sacrifices, often taking those closest to it. Like their on-screen characters, the creators of Star Hour have done a great deal of work to skillfully combine satirical moments, probably based on the experience of a film crew in the world of big cinema, with a real war film. In the foreground, of course, is a story that reminds us that among the air raids and the blitzkrieg, people were living their lives: laughing, crying, fighting for something. Their life experiences, love and laughter are so natural in Their Starry Hour that you can forget about the eerie stress and fear of the time. Almost.
7 out of 10