Hedd Wyn

I have given this film a 9. Being a Welshman I already knew the story of Hedd Wyn and I was very impressed with how this piece of Welsh history was put to film.

Although the film does loose something in translation, overall I was quite impressed at the skill of the translators in managing to convey at least a little bit of this man's brilliance as a bard.

The sense of loss that this film conveys is very strong and when watching this film and pondering over the life of Hedd Wyn, I can't help thinking that somewhere in the world today many more valuable lives are being lost due to needless conflict.

The Welsh have been valiantly preserving and promoting their beleaguered language and culture. In recent years, the Welsh film industry blossomed, with such inventive slices-of-life as LEAVING LENIN (1993), which was filmed in St. Petersburg, shown at international film festivals and garnered considerable interest and accolades. It showed to the world that the Welsh language is very much alive.

HEDD WYN is another example, as it depicts the life and death of one of Wales' greatest poets. Ellis Evans (Huw Garmon), under the pen name ÒHedd WynÓ writes thoughtful, spare verse which wins kudos from his countrymen. The son of a farmer, he isn't as educated as some bards, but his kind and genuine nature fuels his talent.

The film evinces his pastoral existence in his native village, his richly nuanced relationships with three different women, his reluctant transformation into a soldier, and his eventual sacrifice in World War I. More a biopic than an exploration of poetic inspiration, the film nonetheless has its lyrical moments, and was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

This story about the tragic life of the beloved Welsh poet Ellis Evans compares favourably with "All Quiet on the Western Front". One comes away from this film convinced of the hopelessness of war and yet, bolstered by the knowledge that for all our general savagery we humans can now and again produce poetry of sublime proportions.

As someone who lives only some 10 miles away, and known the story so well, it was such a pleasure to watch the film.

It showed how pointless war is. I think that what Ellis did, go and join up, so to save his younger brother from doing so, is so brave. Such acts you wouldn't expect to see today in society.

I have seen this film many times and it's just as good each time around. It will make any person cry at the end.

One interesting thing, in the film Huw Garmon (Ellis Evans) courts Sue Rodderick (Lizzie Robers), but in a soap shown here in Wales, Sue plays Huw's his mother!!!

My mother and I sobbed all the way through the second half of this film. To be fair, it can only be properly appreciated if you speak Welsh; the poetry loses everything in translation. It does become pretty mawkish at times but as a true Welsh woman I'm a no-holds-barred sentimentalist and I fell for it hook line and sinker.