Hedd Wyn - O Poeta do Armagedon

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.

Wales is the part of the United Kingdom about which we don't hear much, and that's what makes Paul Turner's "Hedd Wyn" all the more enjoyable. I had never heard of the title poet until watching it. Ellis Evans proudly wrote in his native language and took as his pseudonym Hedd Wyn, the Welsh words for "blessed peace". But with the arrival of World War I, the English drafted him and sent him to his doom.

The movie is both an indictment of war and of England's domination of Wales. There can be no doubt that the English looked down on the Welsh just as they did the Scots and the Irish, and therefore had no qualms about sending them into harm's way. Evans was disgusted with the jingoism pushed by London, but even he got thrown into the war.

The movie's most impressive quality is of course its use of Welsh. For all that I know, it might be the only movie filmed mainly in Welsh, a language that has some of the most interesting spellings of all. It's just a really good movie. Rwy'n argymell y ffilm (Welsh for "I recommend the movie").

*That's Welsh for "this is impressive".

Generally good, a sad story about the waste of war , with excellent photography and pretty good acting, this film is neverftheless nothing like so good as you might suppose from the awards, praise and glowing reviews. Surely it must have benefited from the shortage of films made in the Welsh language?

Also, it is marred by the simplistic,nationalist approach of the film makers, who seemingly ignore the the fact that the powerlessness of the Welsh common soldiers conscripted into the ranks was mirrored by that of the English working class.

...Meanwhile, in the officer class, the average life span of a first lieutenant was six weeks, which was why Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon were unusual among 'The War Poets' in surviving the war...

The complete lack of gore in the battle scenes detracted from the horror presumbly aimed at by the film makers.

Also, surely the film makers invented or at least embroidered the drama of the love stories? They don't ring true for the North Wales of that era.

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.

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!!!