Colourizing filmed images from 60, 70, 80 and even 100 years ago or more has been bringing the past closer in recent years. Everything from The Beatles in early concert footage to horse and buggy scenes in old New York or even astonishing updates of classic films such as “Metropolis” just looks more relatable and modern in colour, especially when cleaned and digitized to 5K standards.
Take Britain and the Blitz, which premiered May 5 on Netflix. The 78-minute documentary uses restored, well-archived footage as well as first-hand accounts from survivors to bring the worst days of World War II to life. The war seems as real and vivid as anything on CNN today, esploding in front of our eyes on giant flat screens.
The Blitz was the relentless bombing campaign perpetrated by Nazi Germany from September, 1940, through till the middle of 1941. Hitler, having rolled his tanks and armies through France with little resistance, figured the island nation would soon be pounded into submission.
Germany’s air force had a numerical advantage in the air. Hitler’s main target was London, calculating that a sustained aerial bombing invasion and the subsequent destruction of allied airfields, the murder of thousands of civilians, and obliterating cherished landmarks would quickly cause the last European holdout to surrender.
Not counted on was the pluck of the Brits led by their inspirational leader, prime minister, Winston Churchill.
Last December, another Netflix documentary, Churchill at War, used AI technology to give voice to stirring speeches otherwise lost to posterity. Seeing Churchill in colour also brought him vividly alive to modern audiences.
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Churchill is again a featured player in the incredible story of resistance shown in Britain and the Blitz. Here, however, the main narration shifts to the people on the ground: soldiers, firefighters and “plotters” (strategic planners) brought back to life to tell their tales.
One of the most astonishing filmed sequences in the documentary shows dozens of young women, wearing earphones and speaking into large microphone horns, relaying info conveyed in a war room. They are seen in full colour shuffling markers all over giant maps of London and the surrounding countryside.
One woman was Edith Heap, a 21-year-old WAAF radar plotter for the Royal Air Force. We hear her story, spoken by an actress and embellished via seamless recreations, describing, among other things, her love affair with a young Hurricane pilot. Life goes on and is sometimes even heightened during the heat of war. Heap was at work monitoring an air battle when she learned that her finance was shot down and unable to eject from his plane.
That so many women played key roles in the resistance is one takeaway from the documentary. But other tales from the folks on the ground also make this an unusually moving and informing war doc. The people on the streets scrambled to survive and found in the early going that their government did not provide much shelter from the air raids. Fear and frustration led to unrest as well as resistance. It was inspiring to see Churchill the next morning walking past the rubble, but not everyone was genuflecting.
Another moving story finds Eric Brady, just five when his school was bombed, recalling the horrors of that day. The sacrifices made by families who sent young children into the countryside is also heartbreaking. Seen in colour, the children seem just like images broadcast in recent years of women and children fleeing war zones in Ukraine and Gaza. Nobody bleeds in black and white, but colourizations tends to re-open these wounds to succeeding generations.
Director Ella Wright does a nice job of blending archival footage and applying all the digital tricks perfected by Peter Jackson and others in bringing the past to life. Still, a bit more context explaining what exactly was going on in the map rooms, for example, would have been welcome. The shift in focus from a war leader such as Churchill to heroes in the street, while a story seldom and deservedly told, also split the narration and, surprisingly given the stakes, dulled some of the pace. I wasn’t as bothered by the lack of sourcing in the vocal narration. One account drawn from a woman’s diary of the times, for example, had to be a vocal recreation. This all happened 85 years ago.
Still, just to see magnificent spitfires banking in the air as well as the wild, raging flames leaping through windows surrounding St. Paul’s cathedral makes Britain and the Blitz a must see documentary for anyone seeking a fresh take on that nation’s finest hour.
