Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion

The Halifax Explosion was a turning point in Canadian history. It shook a young country, but left it stronger, if not more sober.

The CBC's "Shattered City" uses fiction to tell the story of the Halifax Explosion. Some of the actors put in good performances, although many are stiff. My major grievance is with the use of fiction. The viewer is not able to discern truth from fantasy. In fact, at the film's conclusion, a short clip shows the actors explaining they had not ever learned anything about the Hfx Explosion. This may be true for many Canadians, as well as people in other countries. The story has little to teach us, because it fails to recognize the greatness of the real story.

Shattered City is a highly enjoyable retelling of an almost forgotten event in Canadian history. I am from Halifax, and for me, the sight of the ships exploding in the harbour was a visceral experience. The blast, which occurred in December, 1917, was the largest man-made explosion before Hiroshima, killed 2000 people instantly and vaporized two square miles of the city of Halifax.

I could have done without some of the more soap opera-like elements of it, but in all, I was engaged by the characters and moved by their horrendous plight. Although plagued by a low budget($10 million), the show did an excellent job of recreating wartime Halifax and the harbour, and the people felt authentic as they went about their daily lives.

This film is highly recommended for anyone who enjoys a good story of human courage and drama, and is a must-see for any fan of Canadian history.

Postscript: I now live in northern Canada, and watched the show with a group of westerners and northerners. None of them had heard of the Halifax Explosion. What a sad commentary on our woefully provincial education systems and on our ability to tell our own stories.

While this movie, and The Perfect Storm, and many others about war, ships and whatever else may be BASED on true stories and events...they are NOT true stories.

As there was NOT always somebody in every location at every second to document the event and the speeches and actions that people did, much of this story is fiction.

I found the movie interesting, that's for sure.

I found it a good insight to the event with a basic understanding to the incident...but it is still partially fiction.

What did impress me very much was that a film of this magnitude, a huge cast, a huge set, special effects and locations can be filmed for only 10 million dollars while a movie which takes place in very few locations with very few actors, few effects, few sets and much less than this film had will be shot for three or 4 times the budget.

Whoever worked the finances on this movie should be in public office to deal with the finances the Canadian and Provincial Governments budget problems.

They obviously know how to control the spending of money to the extreme.

Make-up, set design, acting and everything else was great too.

I am just overly impress with the people behind the cash flow...they really know how to spend the money, so that every cent is made to work.

CBC is doing what it is supposed to do and it's hard to fault them for that. This story of the Halifax Explosion of 1917 is good but it could be much better. It's also plagued by small errors. (A CNR logo in 1917? WW2 style posters in WW1. A 1930's folding camera with a flash? I don't think so. I spotted these in the first episode. I'm sure there were others.) The characters in the stories woven through the tragedy are both predictable and one dimensional. However the drama leading up to the explosion is well executed and the recreation of Halifax harbour full of old ships is effective. It's good but falls far short of being great.

I have to thank CBC, actually, for making this movie. Before a visit to Halifax on the QE2, I had never heard of the Explosion (typical American - although, in fact, I'm Canadian-born). But even seeing the great memorial didn't really register the extent of the disaster until I saw the movie. Yes, characters were combined or fictionalized in some cases, but that is absolutely secondary to the portrayal of that horrific episode in Canadian history. The effects of the blast were particularly well done. I hope it plays again, as indeed it should every couple of years or so, to remind us all of both the losses and the bravery incurred that day.