Regeneration

This is a vastly underrated Canadian film that deserved more recognition. Is this a conventional war film? No, not at all.

The opening scenes are done quite like a painting. They are very impressive, and the overhead shots are simply majestic. The story, however, is set in a mental institution, where Doctor Rivers (played with brilliance by Jonathan Pryce) is set on 'curing' the shell-shocked patients. There are three that the movie focuses on in particular: Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, and Billy Prior, respectively played by James Wilby, Stuart Bunce, and Johnny Lee Miller.

Previous comments have compared this film to Saving Private Ryan, yet there are several marked differences between the two. Ignoring the fact that they are set in two different wars, Saving Private Ryan examines the idea of heroism on the field, while Regeneration takes look on how war effects men psychologically.

Certainly a worthy look, and a fine addition to any film collection.

For me, this film was, in a quiet, deeply felt way, much more powerful overall than "Saving Private Ryan," to which everyone seems to feel they must compare it (although regardless of one's opinion about their comparative merits, it is a false analogy in some ways because "Regeneration" is a WWI movie and addresses very different questions). While the first 20 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan" are stunning and their impact incredible, after that it becomes a rather disappointingly conventional war movie.

"Regeneration" is different. It is not with graphically real blood spilled, but rather with powerfully wrenching emotion and with poetry that this film drives home what war does to the men (and women) caught up in its sweep. The film's use of the poems of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen is stunning, and while perhaps even more of their incredible poetry could have been employed in the film, the ones the filmmaker employs are carefully and perfectly chosen.

This is a war movie because its focus is on the war's destruction of men. But do not go into this film expecting the action of the battlefield to play out on the screen. There are a few scenes from the fields of France, powerful and well-placed in the film. And throughout the movie, you can just hear the dull thudding of shells, as if from a great distance - a striking reminder of how physical distance does not mean emotional distance. But if you are interested in the emotional impact those shells had, in an examination of the struggle to recover from that impact, (through poetry, through love, and through therapy), and in the moral questions raised by war, this is a stunning, deeply moving film you will not soon forget.

Beginning with a fluid bird-eye-view shot tracking across the corpse-strewn muddy trenches of First World War Northern France, we are introduced to the character of the real-life war-poet Siegfried Sassoon (James Wilby), as he is shipped home and placed in Craiglockhart, a castle in Scotland being used as a military-run psychiatric hospital for soldiers suffering from war-neuroses. Sassoon's particular neurosis is little more than a conscious objection to the direction in which the war has turned in it's latter stages (1917), bringing him into conflict with the British military establishment (who had previously awarded him a Military Cross for bravery), and in particular psychiatrist Dr William Rivers (the ever reliable Jonathan Pryce), who is charged with the task of treating the various traumatised soldiers under his domain.

Taking a rather different approach from the 'war-is-hell' mass-entertainment spectacle of Spielberg's recent 'Saving Private Ryan' and Terence Malick's elliptical 'The Thin Red Line' (both made in 1998), 'Regeneration' evades easy solutions and focuses on the psychological horrors of war in a more low-key and balanced manner. The horrific battle scenes are largely eluded to in flashback, invoked during the well-meaning Pryce's therapy sessions, which utilise the entire arsenal of early Freudian psychotherapy, from dream-analysis to hypnotism as well as more quirky techniques such as putting shell-shocked officers in charge of troops of boy scouts in order to help them regain confidence in their leadership abilities. The central perplexity here is that the soldiers are being cured with the intention of sending them straight back to the front line.

With this and his following film, 'Hideous Kinky', Gillies MacKinnon is emerging as one of the most thought-provoking and technically accomplished British directors working at the moment, adopting an expressionistic cinematic style here which utilises the dark forbidding milieu of the hospital and the surrounding bleak, autumnal countryside to full claustrophobic effect. There are problems here, in the way that the script concentrates on a number of patients, including an angst-ridden Jonny Lee Miller (in his first post-Trainspotting role) who begins the film mute, without fully exploring the relationships between them, but it successfully establishes itself within a convincing historical context whilst challenging the proposition that Britain was united in its conviction to the First World War (of particular relevance today, given our involvement in the bombings of Kosovo and Iraq). Whilst not immediately accessible, it is a film that demands and rewards the closest of attention, and bodes well for future films from the director. Based on the 'Regeneration' trilogy of novels by Pat Barker.

When a film is made of a classic book like this one, it has to satisfy two sets of viewers - those who have read the book and want to see it faithfully rendered on screen, and those who want to see an entertaining film. It is seldom easy to do both, but this film makes a valiant attempt. It is true to the original in spirit, and makes use of Pat Barker's excellent dialogues and one-to-one scenes. Criticisms of it as "talky" are difficult to justify, because to include lengthy action sequences that play no part in the book would clearly alter the nature of the story.

My main criticism would be that the Rivers character comes across as lacking in professionalism rather than simply sensitive to his patients. The scene where he quarrels openly with Sassoon in the dining room is not only unlikely but untrue to the book. The Prior sub-plot is also grossly simplified and his affair with the munitionette is made to appear more innocent than it is. This is inevitable in a dramatisation, and the oblique references to the future development of the character are probably a mistake, as they will mean nothing to those who have not read the book.

I particularly like the musical score, which adds to the atmosphere without distracting the viewer.

Regeneration treats its audience with respect. The dramatic denouement and characters are not simply laid bare for a popcorn-audience to mindlessly digest. The film unfolds, the scenarios develop, the characters live and breath the ugly reality of warfare. And this all happens in a natural, credible manner beautifully shot and paced by the under-rated Gillies McKinnon.

The opening aerial shot of the bloody consequences of battle are every bit the emotional and visceral equal of Spielberg's lauded 20-minute opening sequence in Saving Private Ryan. The rest of the film - in my opinion - surpasses Ryan as a whole in terms of its drama, poetry, anguish and thought.

The performances are outstanding. Jonathan Pryce's portrayal of Rivers falling apart at the seams as he adopts the neuroses and trauma of his patients is astonishing. Johnny Lee Miller is also excellent as the (initially) mute soldier, haunted by the brutality of a trench-attack. James Wilby's Siegfried Sassoon is perhaps the toughest role to play in the film and yet he surpasses any prior (or subsequent) performances with a characterisation that swings from harsh to likeable, strong to weak, right to wrong.

All of the numerous storylines are well constructed and followed to their natural conclusion. There are no false avenues; no bum notes; no waste.

The source material is beautifully adapted for the film (by the rare breed of writer-producer, Allan Scott), losing none of its pace or characterisation. The emotional weight so prominent in Barker's novel are perfectly transferred into the movie. How wonderful for a modern film to have non-stereotypical, imperfect lead characters and lack easy conclusions. How beautifully evoked is the friendship between Sassoon and Owen. There is no sacharine sentiment in this movie; nor artificial shock to induce pity; nor a wasted scene or moment of dialogue. Equally, the period look of the film is stunning. Filmed in Scotland, the vistas are beautifully bleak and wintry. The atmosphere of the First World War is all too frighteningly real.

The music, whilst beautiful, is perfectly restrained. Harking back to the films of the seventies, long moments of silence pervade Regeneration. How did things go so badly wrong in the last twenty years in this respect?

Regeneration achieves the very rare distinction of matching (if not surpassing) the beautiful and moving novel on which it is based. Thoughtful film-goers should treat themselves to this wonderful and intelligent film.