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The Somme (2005)

Drama | 102 minutes
3,16 57 votes

Genre: Drama / War

Duration: 102 minuten

Country: United Kingdom

Directed by: Carl Hindmarch

Starst: Tilda Swinton, Ed Stoppard and Paul Popplewell

IMDb score: 7,2 (728)

Releasedate: 14 November 2005

The Somme plot

On July 1, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, an unprecedented drama unfolded. Never before have there been so many deaths in one day of war. 25,000 soldiers are massacred. Most already within the first hour! Their leaders use them as cannon fodder. We follow a group of young men including Private Cyril Jones. 15-year-old Cyril has lied about his age and is eager to give the German enemy his head. He has no idea what awaits him. As soon as the whistle blows, he will attack along with thousands of others. The American Mary Borden also travels to Northern France to work for the Red Cross. In a field hospital, her childhood too will be over for good in a few days.

Full Cast & Crew

Actors and actresses

Captain Charlie May

Sergeant Richard H. Tawney

Lance-Corporal Sidney McCoy

Reviews & comments


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avatar van terschelling

terschelling

  • 64 messages
  • 74 votes

Great docudrama. Maybe too many numbers. A tour of all those graves with the camera had said enough.

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original

avatar van knusse stoel

knusse stoel

  • 3284 messages
  • 4307 votes

Now and then there is a piece of history with original images that gives the viewer (s) pieces of information about the 1st world war. The played part of the film is quite nicely put together with a realistic premise about this terrible war in which more than 1,000,000 people have been killed on the different sides. Sides, by that I mean mainly English and French on the one hand and the Germans on the other. The Netherlands was not involved in this war because the Netherlands was neutral. A world war later, the dictator Hitler paid no heed to that neutrality, despite the fact that a few days before the invasion and bombing of Rotterdam, Hitler had said that he would respect our neutrality. Well, not so!

In "The Somme" you can see very well how people thought about a war at that time, especially because it involved many volunteers on the Western side. The Germans mainly had conscripts and professional soldiers at the front. How did the Western side think about the warfare? Some considered it a day trip. They came back to that over time, when the front saw no action for months. And then at half past eight in the morning, then the bomb burst, so to speak. And this film is all about these horrors!

An 8 from us.

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original

avatar van Lovelyboy

Lovelyboy

  • 3906 messages
  • 2920 votes

Stayed in the First World War for a while after Im Westen Nichts Neues, and this time it was the turn of the English trauma. Mainly responsible Sir Douglas Haig, a name that did not want to fall while watching and the memory of 2014 and 2018 where, of course, WW1 was commemorated and I noticed how people are doing it in England. It then became clear to me that the loss suffered in the First World War outweighs what happened in the Second. Something that is not so strange if you look at the loss figures of the first day, almost 20,000 victims, really staggering.

At least the attempt to give shape to the story with short pieces filled in by actors is nice. Still, the introduction and run-up to the offensive couldn't get any more boring than this and it absolutely doesn't fascinate. A comparison with Journey's End from 2017 is quickly made, but the difference with that excellent film could not be greater. Fortunately, there is improvement when the bombardment erupts with all the consequences. The German account of shell shock and the fight to survive after almost eight days without sleep is certainly nice. Fear, emotional letters and the terrible waste, yes there is improvement towards the end, and appalling and incomprehensible are the reprehensible tactics of the English that almost seem to date from the Middle Ages. For an Englishman takes no cover, he braves danger like a gentleman, proud and erect. The tactic, with small groups, frog-jumping and of course seeking cover in craters, used by the French, was literally an eye-opener for the English who struggled with the many casualties.

An interesting time, a nice attempt, there is improvement in the second half, but it is all just too thin and offers me little news, but that will be personal.

dutch flagTranslated from Dutch · View original