They Shall Not Grow Old, But We Can

Peter Jackson’s restoration of WW1 footage, They Shall Not Grow Old, is a haunting and beautiful reminder of where the world was a century ago. The arduous restoration process more than paid off. The wartime footage is awe-inspiring: artillery moving heaven and earth, clouds of mustard gas rolling in, and our peers charging into certain death is gut-wrenching.

The film begins in a traditional 4:3 aspect ratio, but roughly 15 minutes into the film it zooms into a 16:8 aspect ratio and transitions into colorized footage of the war. The colors pop beautifully: greens and blues, beautiful sunsets, and, of course, blood. The next hour will hurt your soul. Soldiers our own age sprayed down by machine gun fire, killed by sharpshooters, or shelled into pieces will make you feel sick to your stomach. Horses that have had their rib cages shattered open, feet infected with gangrene, and people walking around with bullet wounds add to the gravitas of the film. Despite all of this, the violence and death seems tasteful and reverent, never “gross.”

However, the most striking part of the film is the narration. The film is narrated by WW1 veterans, many of whom were our age. The film spends great time highlighting the number of young men, some as young as 15, who went off to fight. There were times when the narrators looked back at the war and broke down remembering the atrocities that they witnessed and committed, but the most surprising part of the film was that many people looked back on the war fondly. Many soldiers felt lost after the war — when you go off to fight at fifteen, what else do you know?

Go out and see this film on the biggest screen you can. At times our lives can seem so stressful, meaningless, and hard; college applications and AP tests can really wear you down. This film reminds us how fortunate we are to live in a more peaceful time, to be safe and not overseas in a trench with chemicals and artillery raining down upon us, and to have the opportunity to be anything we wish to be.