Second World War (1939-1945) has been the subject of many films that recount the beginning, the offensives, the European movements of resistance, their survival; stories of troops, battles and personalities; the prisons, intimate dramas the madness, the Jewish experience, the memories and the perceptions of the conflagration and the post-war years. England was one of the most devastated nations and the conflict generated a varied production, from the State financed propaganda to classics as "In Which We Serve" and "49th Parallel". But the farthest the products were from the real events, the more false they got, the more they have been loaded with special effects, without a real feeling of what happened between 1939 and 1945. "Overlord" (codename for the 1944 disembarkation of troops in Normandy) supplies that time distance from the real events with a brilliantly executed idea. The film depicts the training of a young British recruit who will die even before the landing starts: his premonition is exposed from the first minutes. We know that he is going to die in the end, so his preparation, reflections, relationship with other recruits, fleeting romance and movements with the troops, are loaded with melancholy and naivety, to which Brian Stirner's face immensely helps, as he portrays the central role Tom Beddows. Tom is not afraid at all. He is just there because he was recruited, he is going to fight because "he has to" or perhaps he senses that his destiny is in the hands of powerful men who stage wars when numbers do not add up. Therefore, the screenplay by Christopher Hudson and Stuart Cooper (also director, an American filmmaker) contrasts Tom's moments of apparent calm, with footage from the war itself. I confess that I have rarely seen documentary material from different sources so admirably edited into a drama as in "Overlord", and I think the key was the selection of images. Taken from the British Imperial War Museum and a film archive in Germany, the authentic footage of Second World War is impressive. Only once we see human remains, because they prioritized the images of aerial attacks, train and cities under fire, building in flames with firemen all around, advancing troops, cannons, machine guns, ambulances, ships that are sunk (in a moment, Adolf Hitler impassively contemplates the panorama, from a wide airplane window...), all aptly overdubbed. No contemporary visual effects can compare to these sounds and images shot at the time they were happening. And the most remarkable job done is the integration of these shots with the scenes of Tom's recruitment, sometimes calm, other hectic. It is the contrast and the context, what Tom is ultimately going to face. "Overlord" won the Special Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival, but not even the UK recognized its value when it came to handing out its Bafta awards. Hollywood, for its part, had had too good a production in 1975 to award an Oscar to a British film. However, time is the best judge and in 2007 and 2014, digital editions were issued.

all seems be perfect in this film. acting, script, music, image. all is perfect. because it is the kind of story who present yourself to you. because the care for detail is almost magic and does every scene full of realism and sensitivity. it is one of rare films who has the gift to be out of words. a film about war but not in common manner. far to be a blockbuster, it is almost a poem. or a profound experience. bitter, clear, cruel, precise, delicate, honest work, it is only a masterpiece. who impress with extraordinary force. who creates an unique atmosphere. who use the silence and documentary slices with brilliant science. a perfect film. not exactly a war or a military operation. but about a life. about life, generally.

I didn't like it that much. Too unclear at times; slightly surrealistic and confused. For example, there's a full minute of black screen at the beginning, making you think something's broken. There's a firebombing scene in which it takes too long to figure out who's bombing whom. There's the mixing of dreams and reality, and the incongruous jumble of scenes in general, with little to nothing in the way of explanation in between. It was as if someone had taken every third scene from a much longer movie, and presented this one-third; and non-linearly to boot. Not to mention the discordant music. I'm sure all of the above was deliberate, new-age and supposed to convey a message, but I prefer straightforwardness. This is 6/10 for me.

"Overlord" is a very good film, but marred by one constantly reoccurring flaw - the editing. The editing is so choppy, so ill-conceived that the film is never allowed to completely get off the ground. The newsreel footage could have been used much more effectively for punctuation as opposed to content. There's so much of it at play here that any new footage seems almost like an afterthought. And for a film whose running time barely tops an hour and twenty minutes, there's quite a lack of dramatic drive behind it. Every time "Overlord" settles into a powerful or gripping sequence (and there are several), five to ten minutes of uninterrupted stock footage breaks up the flow.Those are the bad points. Now for the good. The acting is the first thing that comes to mind. Brian Stirner plays Tom, the main character. He conveys emotion with such purity, from trepidation to fear to honesty to joy. His face draws you in with its uncomplicated childlike demeanour. The supporting actors are all equally impressive. No one ever feels like anything less than fully real. John Alcott, as far as I'm concerned, is the real star here. His cinematography perfectly mirrors the wartime footage used, but still giving it his distinctly powerful personality. He adds so much to this film. Stuart Cooper brings it all together, but his poor eye for editing sabotages his own best strengths.This is a very, very good film. But the pacing flaws present throughout make it extremely difficult to get into. If a more linear approach could have been adopted while still maintaining the powerful melancholy poetry of "Overlord", this could have been a great film.