It Happened Here

Like Peter Watkin's "The War Game" which came out around the same time and which imagined life, or what was left of it, in Britain after a nuclear attack, Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's "It Happened Here" imagines a Britain under the jackboot as if Hitler had succeeded in invading after the retreat at Dunkirk and like "The War Game" is filmed as if it were a documentary. If it has a fault it's that the acting, by a largely non-professional cast, feels distinctly am-dram. Otherwise this is a chilling portrait of a country under occupation, superbly shot by the great Peter Suschitzky and Brownlow. Interestingly, it shows that the British resistance could be just as brutal as the Germans are usually shown in this kind of film, making this the perfect companion piece to Cavalcanti's masterpiece "Went the Day Well".

Being a Londoner, and born but a few months after England declared war on

Germany, this film has always held a special significance for me. I originally saw it when it opened in London: a mere twelve years after the worst war in living memory, had ended. I saw it for the second time recently at a friend's house. To me, it is still the best film about the occupation of a country by a foreign army. In his book, "How It Happened Here", co-director, Kevin Brownlow explains how he got the idea to

make this film. He just happened to be walking down a London street, at the

moment when a car screeched to a halt outside a shop. Four or so heavyset

men piled out of the car. They were dressed, recalls Brownlow, in grey

overcoats in a style reminiscent of Russian KGB agents. All were bulky and

acted in a furtive manner. It got Brownlow thinking: "what if....."

On a budget that can only be described as miniscule, it took Brownlow and his co-director, Andrew Mollo, eight years to complete the film. It's shot in a

quasi-documentary style, which makes it even more realistic. Their attention to detail is amazing considering the paucity of funds available - every uniform the actors wore was sewn by Mrs. Mollo. While I can't claim to personally 'remember' those years when London was

bombed constantly, I can recall the sound, or should I say lack of it (we were all inside a bomb shelter), when a German V-2 rocket (nicknamed a doodle-bug),

ran out of fuel and plummeted to the ground. We were lucky: it landed but a few streets away, killing many, many people, breaking windows, shaking chimneys and covering all our possesions in a thick layer of soot!

Ignore Leonard Maltin's comments - he's clearly missed the point of the film. The "Brits" don't keep a stiff upper lip, and the cooperation between them and the Nazis is shocking. The documentary footage of Nazi soldiers parading around London etc appears ever so real. The awesome photography makes up for the weak plot and main character. A must-see.

The Battle of Algiers is another such film which mixes documentary with drama.

This film was shown recently as part of the Channel 4 War Weekend. I found it to be well made, and contained some very powerful images, of the German forces in occupation.

My only reservation is that I found it difficult to track the passage of time within the film.

The film deals with a woman, who is relocated to London, following Partisan activity at her home village. She becomes a Collaborator, not particularly from choice, but from circumstance. She is faced with a simple choice: work for the state, or don't eat. The film presents the Partisans as terrorists, whose methods differ little from the Nazis, although their objectives are purer. The film certainly made me think more about the life of the civilian in occupied territory. You could become a partisan, and act as a terrorist, or work for the forces of occupation, either directly, or indirectly. Or you could starve.

Well, what would you do?

Someone decides to make their own feature film ? Don't tell me , I know what's coming next - a zombie apocalypse filmed on someones mobile phone ? Well that's what happens in the 21st Century but away back in the mid 1950s two ambitious amateur film makers Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo pulled out all the stops to make an alternative neo-realist film featuring a scenario where Operation Sealion was a success and Britain is under the fascist jackboot and these two idealists managed to pull out all the stops . All I really know about the behind the scenes story is that it took them eight years and seven thousand pounds sterling of their own finance to produce it

From a technical point of view IT HAPPENED HERE is somewhat crude . Filmed in black and white it resists the temptation to intercut real life footage of the second world war and instead everything on screen is pre-filmed for the camera . I'd be very interested in hearing amusing anecdotes about the production . Did the makers get strange reactions by asking where they could get some Waffen SS uniforms for example ? It is amazing that the production team gained access to so much military hardware and equipment . If there's a downside it's that the directors can't help showing off Nazi marching bands walking along the streets of London . Another negative is that the sound-mix is very poor

It's the screenplay that makes up for any limitations in the mis-en-scene . One annoyance is that "England" is constantly mentioned throughout . I take it the Nazis stopped at the borders of Wales and Scotland or more likely the writers have euphemistically used the term England when they mean Britain/UK . As a Celt this upset me slightly then I quickly forgave them because the story quickly nails human nature under occupation . There's not really a central plot but this doesn't matter in the slightest because human nature is put under the spotlight and without pluralist democracy human nature knows no bounds when it comes to inhumanity

By this I mean very few people would set you on fire , but by the same yardstick very few people would lift a finger to help you if you were on fire . Truth be told few people would p*ss on you if you were on fire . You ever worked for a corporate company ? I have worked for several and universally they operate in the same way a one party state does . Most people are indifferent to the company , they see it as a means to an end as in getting paid to feed their families and never lose their decency as humans or as colleagues . This isn't enough for some people . They are in a minority but give such people an inch of power and they shall take light years . Be thankful that democracy doesn't allow such people to rise to the top .

If there's one problem with the film's politics it's equating the resistance not being all that different from the methods employed by the fascists and the film is book ended in that both sides have the justification of "If you're not for us you're against us". I can understand what the makers are trying to do but is it actually true that "The appalling thing about fascism is that you've got to use fascist methods to get rid of it." Presently in Syria the Kurdish YPG and their Arab comrades in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are engaged in a war against Daesh and the fascist Assad government who are backed by proxies from Russia , Iran and Turkey and yet never stoop to the methods of the regime they are fighting . That said in my own experience of politics there's a noticeable similarity between the far left and far right in that the world is constantly manipulated by a race of outsiders . Fascists use the word "Jewry" while leftists use the word "Zionists" and only the phraseology is different

If nothing else IT HAPPENED HERE gives an interesting window on the world of what things would be like if the Nazis had won the Battle Of Britain . Perhaps the most scary thing is that it's a world not a million miles removed from our own corporate Western world where "We don't accept your decisions. You accept ours." . Don't be glad you live in a democracy . Be sad it's never going to be democratic enough