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major_clangerValkyrie is of course Tom Cruise's Big Project of the last few years, delayed and mired in controversy but now at last gracing our cinema screens. The story of the 'July 20th Plot' is a well-known one and one almost gets the feeling that this is a 1960s or 70s WW2 movie somehow out of its time; one of those where a well-known Hollywood actor gets to play a Good, or at least Honourable, German. With Cruise, that is Colonel von Stauffenberg, the central figure in the last, and most nearly successful, plot to kill Hitler.
Stauffenberg, of course, didn't act on his own, and Valkyrie makes it clear that his real importance was in coming up with an at least marginally-credible plan for following through any assassination. How credible his plan actually was the film leaves for the audience to judge; we're shown a flash-forward of how it might work if all goes well, but as the characters are wont to remind one another, this is war, and no war plan goes as expected. The film implies that vacillation by Olbricht (depicted in a stunningly effective straight role by Bill Nighy) lost vital hours, but given that 'actually killing Hitler' was the essential part of Stauffenberg's plan, it's hard to see that it could have got a lot further than it did even if OP VALKYRIE - the emergency civil unrest mobilisation, carefully doctored by Stauffenberg into a coup instrument - had been implemented instantly. But even so, the film builds enough narrative momentum that, as the Army Reserve seizes SS and Gestapo HQs, you want it to veer into an alternate history where It All Worked.
More war and destruction this afternoon, when I went to catch the tail end of the 'War+Medicine' exhibition at the Wellcome Collection (which finishes Sunday, if you want to catch it). Signs as you enter warn that some aspects might be disturbing, but for me the graphic displays on WWI reconstructive surgery and WW2 burns treatment weren't what affected me most; rather, it was the darkened theatre where you stood in a wrap-around film of a contemporary medical evacuation on a Hercules. Although it would have had to be about twenty times louder to match the real thing, it was faithful enough that for a moment I was back in Iraq. When in the later section on mental health it was noted how veterans can be triggered into flashbacks years or decades later, I didn't need much convincing. Free, and worth catching if you're near Euston, as indeed is the permanent exhibition.
On lighter and more cheerful news, my student railcard (lost a couple of weeks ago) was replaced without either lengthy interrogation or the need for extensive paperwork. I also found that Argos are offering Canon printer cartridges at 20% discount for 2, which makes them as cheap as any online supplier of the real thing I've so far found.
Stauffenberg, of course, didn't act on his own, and Valkyrie makes it clear that his real importance was in coming up with an at least marginally-credible plan for following through any assassination. How credible his plan actually was the film leaves for the audience to judge; we're shown a flash-forward of how it might work if all goes well, but as the characters are wont to remind one another, this is war, and no war plan goes as expected. The film implies that vacillation by Olbricht (depicted in a stunningly effective straight role by Bill Nighy) lost vital hours, but given that 'actually killing Hitler' was the essential part of Stauffenberg's plan, it's hard to see that it could have got a lot further than it did even if OP VALKYRIE - the emergency civil unrest mobilisation, carefully doctored by Stauffenberg into a coup instrument - had been implemented instantly. But even so, the film builds enough narrative momentum that, as the Army Reserve seizes SS and Gestapo HQs, you want it to veer into an alternate history where It All Worked.
More war and destruction this afternoon, when I went to catch the tail end of the 'War+Medicine' exhibition at the Wellcome Collection (which finishes Sunday, if you want to catch it). Signs as you enter warn that some aspects might be disturbing, but for me the graphic displays on WWI reconstructive surgery and WW2 burns treatment weren't what affected me most; rather, it was the darkened theatre where you stood in a wrap-around film of a contemporary medical evacuation on a Hercules. Although it would have had to be about twenty times louder to match the real thing, it was faithful enough that for a moment I was back in Iraq. When in the later section on mental health it was noted how veterans can be triggered into flashbacks years or decades later, I didn't need much convincing. Free, and worth catching if you're near Euston, as indeed is the permanent exhibition.
On lighter and more cheerful news, my student railcard (lost a couple of weeks ago) was replaced without either lengthy interrogation or the need for extensive paperwork. I also found that Argos are offering Canon printer cartridges at 20% discount for 2, which makes them as cheap as any online supplier of the real thing I've so far found.
