As the old saying goes, “all’s fair in love and war” – however, we can easily conflate the two, since they’re both amongst the most difficult ideas to understand at a conceptual level, and unless someone has experienced either of them, logically explaining their function is a fool’s errand. This serves as the foundation of…

Russian cinema is severely underrated, especially when it comes to looking at how there are many filmmakers who traversed every conceivable genre, but often had their voice stifled by either the Soviet government, or by western audiences, who weren’t particularly enamoured with the idea of embracing films produced in a region that was essentially their…

War films take many different forms, so to classify them as some homogenous mass (normally restricted to the specific war being shown), is one of cinema’s biggest challenges, at least on the part of those who tend to see them all as being part-and-parcel of the same ideas. Like any genre, there has been a…

Based on the title, you’d think that Quo Vadis, Aida? would be a more eccentric film, since it combines both an outdated Latin expression with the evocation of Verdi’s opera centred on an Egyptian queen – there’s a hint of the antiquity embedded in this film. However, this was clearly a calculated move on the…

War is a subject that has certainly never been a stranger to film – since its inception, there have been works that have attempted to portray the horrors of war in some way, or at the very least show it as being a time of great challenges for those involved, which is especially poignant considering…

As the commanding officer of a remove Scottish battalion, Colonel Jock Sinclair (Alec Guinness) has the responsibility of being a strict leader, but also one who values his soldiers above anything else. This has led him to gain the reputation of a strong but loving commander who is beloved by his subordinates, especially for his…

We don’t need to escalate You see, war is not the answer For only love can conquer hate You know we’ve got to find a way These lyrics have been etched into the public consciousness through Marvin Gaye’s seminal cry for order and understanding in “What’s Going On”, a song that relates quite significantly to…

When commenting on the process of making The 317th Platoon (French: La 317ème section), writer and director Pierre Schoendoerffer mentioned how he intentionally set out to create a brutal atmosphere, as “a war film should not be made in comfort”. At first, it appears to be somewhat egomaniacal for a director to impose such a…