Overlord

This semi-documentary about D-Day won a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, but wasn’t released in the U.S. till 2006, probably just as a promo for the now-released Criterion Collection DVD. With a small sample of reviews, it ranked absurdly high on Metacritic’s averaged ranking of the best films of the year. Maybe if I were able to read the liner notes by my old acquaintance (and now ubiquitous film critic) Kent Jones, I might have been more convinced of the importance of this film, but having only the dvd from Netflix, I have to say my response was lukewarm. As a use of Imperial War Museum film archives, it did not satisfy as much as the World At War tv series, which I watched religiously way back when, and can still summon the memory of the music and Laurence Olivier’s narration, behind the footage brought back by some amazingly brave and composed combat cameramen. Here, a slender story of one British soldier from conscription to just the moment before hitting the beach at Normandy is interwoven almost seamlessly by director Stuart Cooper with vintage documentary footage. The rigors of training and then of waiting, without any knowledge or control over your own fate, are most effectively portrayed. The contemporaneous horrors of war come almost as nightmare to the young soldier awaiting deployment, along with premonitions of his own death. It’s an honorable effort but the staged scenes are a little skimpy; what stands out is the documentary footage, and that makes me want (but dread) to watch World At War all over again. (1975, dvd, n.) *6* (MC-88.)