I had never heard of Vera Brittain until I saw "Testament of Youth," based on her anti-war memoir which was published in 1933. "Testament" is a beautifully mounted period piece which highlights the sufferings of Ms. Brittain who lost both her brother and fiancé in World War I.
After watching "Testament of Youth" you will indeed feel a great deal of sympathy for Ms. Brittain, played with a quiet intensity by the up and coming Swedish star, Alicia Vikander. Nonetheless, the first half of the film is an extremely slow slog. At first, it appears the narrative is going to be about Brittain's rebelliousness as she is dead set in opposing her father, who doesn't want her to attend Somerville College, the woman's branch at Oxford (instead he prefers that she play the piano and find a husband). Nonetheless, she convinces daddy that sitting for the entrance exams is a good thing. She's almost tripped up when part of the exam features a Latin essay which she wasn't aware of and ends up translating it into German instead. Lucky for her, she still makes a good impression with the headmistress and she ends up being admitted.
The rest of the first half is taken up with Vera's burgeoning romance with Roland Leighton and relationship with her brother, Edward, and a couple of their friends. Just before Roland leaves for military service, the passion between the two is ramped up, as they often try to run off and canoodle, despite being hampered under the watchful eye of a chaperone (in this case, Vera's portly aunt). Just keep in mind, the lugubrious touch of James Kent's direction and screenwriter Juliette Towhidi's decision to focus on Roland and Vera's infatuation, makes for some rather dull goings-on.
Soon, the presence of newspaper headlines—notably the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife—is a portent for more lively and intense things to come. Vera leaves college and becomes a Voluntary Aid Detachment, first at a hospital run by nuns in London. There the nuns give her a hard time as she's perceived as being an upper class snob.
When Roland comes back from the front on a furlough, it becomes obvious right away that he's been psychically damaged by what he's witnessed. You know this right away when he punches Vera in her side and she falls to the ground. Some tender loving care however, gets him to feel his "humanity" again, and he promises to marry Vera on his next leave. Of course that never happens when at the very moment she's celebrating with her family due to the upcoming nuptials, she receives word that Roland was killed by a sniper. She's not content to hear the sanitized army version of his death and seeks out a colleague who provides a more upsetting narrative.
Soon afterward, Vera falls completely into full-fledged self-sacrificing mode. She pledges to take care of a former friend who's been blinded during combat. But unfortunately he doesn't make it and propels her to as close to the front lines as she can get, by working at a field hospital in France. Here the narrative becomes the most gripping, where first she attends to a dying German soldier, who mistakes her for his beloved (Vera's knowledge of German comes in handy as she's able to comfort the dying Hun, pretending to be the woman he left behind). Then she's informed there's a badly wounded soldier who apparently was calling for her—sure enough it's brother Edward; and using all her nursing skills, she saves her dying sibling. Unfortunately, after being summoned home due to her mother's sudden attack of dementia, she spies a postman ringing the front doorbell and hearing the sobbing reaction of her father, we learn that Edward didn't make it—despite her earlier successful efforts to save him!
Armistice Day is not a time for celebration for Vera, who is shattered by the tragic effects of World War I on herself and her family. The denouement is perhaps the weakest part of the film. Vera now becomes a full-fledged pacifist. She argues with fellow Britons, bent on revenge against the Germans and cites her experience in tending to the dying German back at the French field hospital. While the "War to end all Wars" was probably as pointless a war as you could ever get, the subsequent rise of Nazism and World War II itself, proved Ms. Brittain's pacifistic stance to be decidedly quite hollow. Michael Phillips writing in "The Chicago Tribune" was correct in stating that Ms. Brittain's star had faded by the time she died in 1970. This is because Hitler proved war IS necessary, in order to defeat evil!
I don't wish to diminish the personal suffering of the film's protagonist nor cast doubts about the nobility of her self-sacrificing actions during World War I. That said, it appears that the trauma she experienced during those dark days, eventually clouded her judgment concerning the nature of evil in this world. The defeat of Nazism exposed the views of the pacifists as being wholly naïve, proving that isolationism and passivity were no solution to a nation of crazed nationalists devoted to fulfilling their barbaric Weltanschauung.
After watching "Testament of Youth" you will indeed feel a great deal of sympathy for Ms. Brittain, played with a quiet intensity by the up and coming Swedish star, Alicia Vikander. Nonetheless, the first half of the film is an extremely slow slog. At first, it appears the narrative is going to be about Brittain's rebelliousness as she is dead set in opposing her father, who doesn't want her to attend Somerville College, the woman's branch at Oxford (instead he prefers that she play the piano and find a husband). Nonetheless, she convinces daddy that sitting for the entrance exams is a good thing. She's almost tripped up when part of the exam features a Latin essay which she wasn't aware of and ends up translating it into German instead. Lucky for her, she still makes a good impression with the headmistress and she ends up being admitted.
The rest of the first half is taken up with Vera's burgeoning romance with Roland Leighton and relationship with her brother, Edward, and a couple of their friends. Just before Roland leaves for military service, the passion between the two is ramped up, as they often try to run off and canoodle, despite being hampered under the watchful eye of a chaperone (in this case, Vera's portly aunt). Just keep in mind, the lugubrious touch of James Kent's direction and screenwriter Juliette Towhidi's decision to focus on Roland and Vera's infatuation, makes for some rather dull goings-on.
Soon, the presence of newspaper headlines—notably the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife—is a portent for more lively and intense things to come. Vera leaves college and becomes a Voluntary Aid Detachment, first at a hospital run by nuns in London. There the nuns give her a hard time as she's perceived as being an upper class snob.
When Roland comes back from the front on a furlough, it becomes obvious right away that he's been psychically damaged by what he's witnessed. You know this right away when he punches Vera in her side and she falls to the ground. Some tender loving care however, gets him to feel his "humanity" again, and he promises to marry Vera on his next leave. Of course that never happens when at the very moment she's celebrating with her family due to the upcoming nuptials, she receives word that Roland was killed by a sniper. She's not content to hear the sanitized army version of his death and seeks out a colleague who provides a more upsetting narrative.
Soon afterward, Vera falls completely into full-fledged self-sacrificing mode. She pledges to take care of a former friend who's been blinded during combat. But unfortunately he doesn't make it and propels her to as close to the front lines as she can get, by working at a field hospital in France. Here the narrative becomes the most gripping, where first she attends to a dying German soldier, who mistakes her for his beloved (Vera's knowledge of German comes in handy as she's able to comfort the dying Hun, pretending to be the woman he left behind). Then she's informed there's a badly wounded soldier who apparently was calling for her—sure enough it's brother Edward; and using all her nursing skills, she saves her dying sibling. Unfortunately, after being summoned home due to her mother's sudden attack of dementia, she spies a postman ringing the front doorbell and hearing the sobbing reaction of her father, we learn that Edward didn't make it—despite her earlier successful efforts to save him!
Armistice Day is not a time for celebration for Vera, who is shattered by the tragic effects of World War I on herself and her family. The denouement is perhaps the weakest part of the film. Vera now becomes a full-fledged pacifist. She argues with fellow Britons, bent on revenge against the Germans and cites her experience in tending to the dying German back at the French field hospital. While the "War to end all Wars" was probably as pointless a war as you could ever get, the subsequent rise of Nazism and World War II itself, proved Ms. Brittain's pacifistic stance to be decidedly quite hollow. Michael Phillips writing in "The Chicago Tribune" was correct in stating that Ms. Brittain's star had faded by the time she died in 1970. This is because Hitler proved war IS necessary, in order to defeat evil!
I don't wish to diminish the personal suffering of the film's protagonist nor cast doubts about the nobility of her self-sacrificing actions during World War I. That said, it appears that the trauma she experienced during those dark days, eventually clouded her judgment concerning the nature of evil in this world. The defeat of Nazism exposed the views of the pacifists as being wholly naïve, proving that isolationism and passivity were no solution to a nation of crazed nationalists devoted to fulfilling their barbaric Weltanschauung.