Les carnets de Siegfried

A slow, stately biopic about poet Siegried Sassoon and the demons that plagued him after serving in WWI.

The movie has serious Evelyn Waugh vibes, especially "Brideshead Revisited." WWI stories always fascinate me, especially when they're about how much the war screwed up the psyches of the people who were caught up in it. This film is overall satisfying, if a bit repetitive. A huge amount of time is spent on Sassoon, a more or less openly gay man, and his various love affairs, all with caricatures of flamboyant, bitchy gay men and all of them leaving you wondering what he wanted to be around them for in the first place. Seriously, were all gay men this hateful in the 1920s? But then you think about how marginalized they were, and the answer is, well, yeah, maybe they were. They had a lot to be hateful about.

The one reason to see this movie is a big one, and that's the central performance of Jack Lowden. He's magnificent in this. Easily award worthy, though a group like the Academy Awards wouldn't recognize him in a million years.

Grade: A-

Benediction.

This long film is possibly better suited for TV viewing, so for UK viewers I expect to see it on BBC TV because BBC-Films was one of the funding sources. Despite that, I'm pleased to have seen it at the almost empty cinema if only for the better focus there with no distractions of home.

I liked this more than I was expecting, which possibly says more about me than the film.

It's a surprise to me that this film got made, especially in these pandemic times, as it is quite indulgent, languid and would appeal to a possibly limited segment of cinema goers.

It is not a biography of Sassoon, as there's no mention of his father, his father's early death, the bequest from his aunt, or Heytesbury, or his death etc.

Instead it is an absorbing slightly mesmeric collage of catty dialogue, music, poetry and grainy WW1 footage and still photography artfully assembled into a tale of searching for redemption and the angst for help to deal with the past, which presumably explains the title.

The initial early transition between actors (young Siegfried and old Siegfried) could have been better handled as at least one later transition of another character was clearly done. Peter Capaldi is fabulously haunted in the role of old Siegfried, though with a clipped accent to mask the rich Scottish tones underneath. The always watchable Geraldine James appears briefly as mother.

Jeremy Irvine is devilish as Ivor Novello. Calam Lynch is acidic as young Stephen Tennant. Jack Lowden is reasonable as young Siegfried.

The first of the song choices seemed anachronistic, as the backing for grainy WW-1 footage. But this is a minor detail.

Overall: best for TV maybe, 7/10.

Brownie points to Netflix for sponsoring this movie, which must have only limited appeal even to older gay viewers. Jack Lowden stars as World War One poet Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden), whose emotional and sexual life director Terence Davies explores in this gloomy biopic. After publishing a letter condemning the military chiefs for the appalling death toll the conflict has brought, Sassoon is lucky not to be shot as a traitor; they send him to a mental institution where he meets and falls in love with fellow poet Wilfred Owen who's suffering from shell-shock (as PTSD was called in those dark days). Owen is sent back to die in Picardy in the last week of the war. The screenplay skates past Sassoon's brief return to active service.

After the war Siegfried has a brief affair with Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine), shown here as the uber-bitch in London's far-from-discreet gay set. Siegfried has a longer but equally unhappy affair with upper-crust socialite Stephen Tennant (Calam Lynch), the model for Sebastian Flyte in Evelyn Waugh's BRIDESHEAD REVISITED. Unhappy with homosexual life and converting to Catholicism, Sassoon marries. Flash-forward to his later life shows Sassoon (now played by Peter Capaldi) at odds with his wife and their son.

Throughout the movie Davies inserts horrific glimpses of battle casualties which never cease to haunt Sassoon. His poems are voice-overed from time to time, although two poems of Owen's make it clear that Sassoon was somewhat Second Division in comparison.

This is a beautifully shot movie, and all the cast perfectly evoke the look and feel of the 1920s and 30s, but the scriptwriter's prevailing tone is depressing. Male lovers and a wife all fail to bring happiness to Siegfried Sassoon. A life unfulfilled; a glum movie.

It's an anti-war biopic of the English poet Siegfried Sassoon that covers Sassoon's life from 1914 to the 1960s.

Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden/Peter Capaldi) was a Second Lieutenant during World War I. His younger brother, Hamo (Thom Ashley), is killed during the war. Siegfried is further horrified by the tremendous human toll in death and lifelong disability caused by military leadership in which he no longer believes. Already a well-known poet, he refuses further participation in the war and is sent to the Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh technically for shell shock. There Siegfried meets and befriends Wilfred Owen (Matthew Tennyson), a much younger man. Siegfried also explicitly recognizes his own homosexuality.

The film then follows his anti-war sensibilities through snippets of his poetry and his chaotic love life, mainly focused on Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine) and Stephen Tennant (Calam Lynch/Anton Lesser). At a certain point, he tries to escape the chaos by marrying Hester Gatty (Kate Phillips/Gemma Jones). Together they have a son. George (Richard Goulding), but clearly, the marriage does not heal Sassoon's memories.

The film uses footage from the trenches in World War I and occasionally flips in time between the young Sassoon and the elderly Sassoon. Some of the editing decisions made little sense to me, particularly the early scene forecasting his conversion to Catholicism. Some edits made the film more complex than necessary. Nevertheless, the movie successfully portrays Sassoon as disabled because of World War I, from which he never psychologically recovered. This is clear from the multiple references to Wilfred Owens' poem, "Disabled."

My initial reaction was, "unfocused and messy," but someone else called it a collage, and I think that is a more accurate description of the film.

It's not a biography, it's not really about war, or love, or living a closeted life during a specific period in UK history; it's not about aging; it's not about poetry, or trauma. The title suggests it might be about guidance, blessing, or redemption, but in regard to what, I can't really say.

It's also about all of those things, depending on the minute. The movie changes focus quite a few times, and I found that incredibly frustrating. After two and a half hours, I did not leave with any firmed-up impression of Sassoon, or the basic intention of the film.

Having said that, the lead actor and the rest are all perfectly enjoyable to watch, the dialogue is organic, and aside from spliced-in war footage, it is pleasing to the eye. It's a good choice for watching on demand or otherwise at home. But it's not a movie that lingers.