Review of Oh! What a Lovely War (1969) by Rose L — 22 Apr 2013

This film is everything a movie musical about World War 1 should be. It trades in the deep dissonance between the brutality of total war and the frivolity of Edwardian culture. A war shatters the carefree summer of 1914 and instead of being appalled that their fun has come to an end, they treat the war like just one more great spectator sport in a summer full of rowing competitions and football matches. The ultimate masculine game.

What follows is a brilliant display of dissonance between the world of civilians and officers (played out like yet another music hall show) and the somewhat more realistically presented world of the front line troops.

Throughout the film, violence is often highly stylized (particularly in the scenes with a dapper photographer who hands out poppies to characters to symbolize their deaths) but never trivialized, and the absurdity of the mounting casualties is driven home throughout the course of the film.

The film's cheery score and cavalcade of well-choreographed singers and dancers do not come off as a sugar coating on a bitter pill, but as a device to lighten the mood just enough to allow the idea of death on a large scale to have as much impact on the viewer as possible without shocking them with graphic violence; the viewer's innocence is repeatedly built up by catchy soft-shoe numbers and sappy ballads, then shattered. The comic relief is used to take us on an emotional journey that finds us desperately attempting to return to the good cheer of 1914 and being cut down every time.

In all, as musicals about war go, it avoids being frivolous propaganda, while using the trappings of frivolity to soften its tone just enough to not be sanctimonious. I was quite impressed with it over all.