Testamento de Juventud

23 January 2015 Film of Choice at The Plaza Dorchester Tonight - Testament of Youth. Based on the book by Vera Brittain which is a best selling account of her experiences during the First World War, this film follows the life of Vera herself during those harrowing times. Starting out gently, we follow Vera, her brother and his friends from their comfortable life in the country to the eve of the war in 1914 and beyond. I say gently because this film eases you into what was one of the horrors of recent history, a time which shattered people and ruined lives forever. After fighting so hard to get to Oxford, Vera then gives it all up to become a nurse, a journey which ultimately takes her to France and gives her first hand experience of the massacre that war dishes out. There is a romantic thread running through the film but her strongest bond is with her brother and her world is torn apart when he signs up to fight. Vera was played beautifully by Alicia Vikander, a Swedish actress who I am not familiar with, but she had look of Emily Blunt in her facial expressions and mannerisms, and unfortunately did not seem to age at all during the film, not even in grief. However that is my only criticism in an elegantly shot film even when covering the abomination that is war. Another cinematic experience to make you think.

Based on the memoir by Vera Brittain (Alicia Vikander 'A Royal Affair' – who is superb) this is one woman's story of her war. We go back to 1914 before that awful war had begun and find a young and feisty woman (referred to at the time as a 'blue stocking') who has ambitions of studying at Oxford and is willing to shun the conventions of finding a husband din order to realise her dream.

She has a brother Edward (played touchingly by Taron Egerton) and he introduces her to his friend Roland. After a shaky start they realise they share a passion for poetry, the romantic sort and a friendship blossoms as indeed do their feelings. Then the war comes and everyone's intended plans for the future are put on hold to do their duty.

What follows is truly heartbreaking, I was moved to tears at one point and that is very rare. The cinematography is superb, the direction excellent and all of the actors are completely convincing and bring their respective roles to full realised life. One of the poems starts with the words 'life and hope and love and you', and that could be a pretty good description of what this film is about. The whole thing is just excellent and is a film that I can not only thoroughly recommend but would urge people to see.

Vikander's assured performance really saves this film from being just another solemn costume drama, and it's largely thanks to her that the passion that inspired Vera Brittain's antiwar classic still shows through despite a sometimes rushed and perfunctory screenplay. Kit Harington ("Game of Thrones") is suitably intense as Vera's fiancé, Roland Leighton (didn't recognize John Snow at first in his new guise as beardless nature poet).

The camera may seem to dwell too much on idyllic country scenes and beautiful vistas at the expense of plot and character, though that does help to heighten the contrast between Vera's privileged but restricted prewar life and the new life of purpose and endless horror that awaits her at a field hospital in France. The camera's used most effectively when the two worlds collide-to illustrate Roland's poem addressed to the corpse of a German soldier found lying in a patch of wildflowers, most of all in the panorama of a boundless field of dead and dying men surrounding the hospital after a "big push" (which echoes the famous crane shot after the Battle of Atlanta in "Gone with the Wind"). I'll let the nitpickers figure out if the Leightons' house on the South Coast really did have a magnificent view of what looks like the White Cliffs of Dover, but the stormy shoreline makes the perfect backdrop for a scene in which Roland returns angry and shellshocked from the front

The basic storyline-Vera's service in France and her romance with Roland Leighton-is skillfully dramatized and very moving; her struggle with the conventions of Georgian family life is somewhat less involving, one exception being an ironic episode in which she's summoned back from the front to deal with a family "crisis," only to find that her mother's gotten sick and has fallen behind with the housework

The much-praised '79 series with Cheryl Campbell only seems to be available on VHS and Region 2 DVD; I wouldn't hesitate in recommending this gorgeous and affecting new version as an alternative.

Considered one of the greatest war memoirs ever written, the Testament of Youth is a true-life account of Vera Brittian's life from 1914 - 1918, and a chronicle of how the First World War affected not only her, but the nation's lives.

One of the things that determines Testament of Youth different to other bloody, explosive and bullet-ridden war tales is that it is focused on the domestic view of the ones who not only joined the war on the front-line, but also those at home and the consequent effects on loved ones, offering an unseen perspective, and solid-account of the despair that war causes.

Beginning in pre-war 1914, we are introduced to Vera Brittain, a determined and wilful individual with aspirations of not becoming just a traditional young-married women, but one who attends Oxford University and chooses her own life-choices.

Along with her brother Edward (Taron Egerton) and his two friends Victor (Colin Morgan) and Geoffrey (Jonathan Bailey), they all enjoy their youth in the rural village with their parents (Dominic West and Emily Fox). On-the-road to Oxford, she is introduced to her brothers close friend Roland (Kit Harington), and a relationship soon breaks out - but untimely, as does the war.

Quite proud to do so out of loyalty to Queen and country, her brother Edward, and friends Victor and Geoffrey with Roland all sign up to the forces to assist. (Against parental wishes to do so). Now at Oxford, yet unable to focus as this devastation is happening all around her, she joins the forces too, as a nurse - and the film develops from there.

Given a world-premiere at the 58th BFI London Film Festival, the film is squeezed out in time for the Remembrance holidays and by-all accounts award season. Based on our criticism alone, it is going to be praised and remembered at both.

Crafted by former TV-movie director, James Kent, along with the (brilliant) cast, Testament of Youth is a thoroughly engaging history drama in Downton Abbey-esqe war times and a unique approach to the war like never before.

The centenary of the outbreak of what was at the time called The Great War, and came later to be known as The First World War, led to an outpouring of commemorative and cultural events. This explains the timing of "Testament Of Youth" which in fact is based on the famous first instalment of the memoirs of Vera Brittain (1893-1970) which was published as long ago as 1933 and is still in print. It is both a tale of tragic loss as young, idealistic men volunteer for the slaughter fields of France and Belgium and an account of an intelligent young woman's efforts to obtain a university education and make her independent way in the world.

There is a fine ensemble cast of established and new British actors, but the central role is the subject of a surprise and bold piece of casting as the Swedish actress Alicia Vikander plays the quintessentially British Brittain. However, Vikander gives a luminous performance and she is clearly destined for a very successful career. There is a sense of authenticity in having a female scriptwriter Juliette Towhidi to turn Brittain's memoir into a film and the whole thing is beautifully shot with stunning scenery plus period dress and transport.

There is a scene in "Testament Of Youth" which borrows directly from an iconic shot in the classic movie "Gone With The Wind": in both works, an overhead camera pulls back as the central female character walks through a field of dead and dying men revealing ever-larger numbers of bodies.