Film Review – Downton Abbey: A New Era (?)

When poor writers write themselves into corners or are at a loss how to wring the last reluctant drops out of a faltering franchise drained pretty much dry years ago, they resolve this problem by introducing a plot device out of the blue; something not foreshadowed or that makes little sense. In our previous blogs about Downton Abbey, we have time and again raised and flagged up the recurring problems with the TV series – weak writing, endless recycling, reliance on deus ex machina, bad transitioning, hammy and wooden acting, as well as expositional dialogue. The films have been no better and if anything, the flaws are magnified more on a multiplex screen, and this time the divine intervention device of the unexpected windfall, not having been used for a while, creaks into action to save the Crawleys yet again.

The first film featured a contrived royal visit which pandered to crude characterisation and stereotypes not to mention wholly misrepresenting Princess Mary. Crucially it also misrepresented royal tours and visits after the First World War, where King George V and Queen Mary focused more on the industrial heartlands meeting and talking to the urban working poor, not obscure villages, and second-rate aristocrats.

The sequel however is no better. Whilst the first film was a recycling of the series 4 Christmas special with the wheeling out of the royals, this sequel is a part recycling of series 5 with the storyline featuring, yet again, an episode from the Dowager Countess’ past where a Frenchman she has encountered decades back has left her his villa in the South of France. Mysterious person family has never heard of, never met and never knew existed has decided to very generously remember in his will a family HE has never met and never heard of and thus solve all their financial problems. Now where have we heard something like this before? Mystery and miracle inheritances are a favourite trope of Julian Fellowes, he’s done this before when Matthew is left a very convenient bequest from his should have been father-in-law Reginald Swire which saves Downton Abbey from financial ruin.

After announcing the news of this windfall, the Dowager Countess decides to leave it to her oldest great-granddaughter Sybbie Branson since the other great-grandchildren will be provided for. With what, we wonder, given that the family is on its uppers? However, the Frenchman’s family is far from happy about being disinherited – which is not surprising. Being cut out of inheriting a villa in a very desirable part of the South of France that’s currently very popular with people who have lots of money looking to rent property for months and in favour of the British?? Yeah, I’d be pissed, too. This miracle bequest becomes an excuse for some of the characters to have a jolly away from the Abbey where the viewers are treated to well-worn clichés of louche aristocrats living the high life on the French Riviera complete with Josephine Baker-esque performer making an appearance.

Despite the continued boasts of “Downton Abbey is extensively researched and 100% accurate” someone clearly didn’t google “French inheritance laws” before putting fingers to laptop. There is no way the Dowager Countess would have inherited this villa as French inheritance laws were and are very strict. Based on Roman law and unlike Anglo-Saxon common law, families can never be disinherited; especially not in favour of some random stranger with whom grandpère had une amitié amoureuse decades ago. This is the reason why foreigners who buy property in France need to retain the services of a very good lawyer; because they might have to buy out all the relatives who have a claim and in the absence of good legal advice and/or an incomplete or vague will, wrangles can go on for years.

This part of the storyline has some echoes of what happened to Vita Sackville-West’s mother, Victoria Lady Sackville, who had a close friendship with the fabulously wealthy Sir John Murray Scott: a man who owned property in Britain and France as well as a superb collection of art. As one of Sackville-West’s biographers Matthew Dennison observed “[l]ike many rich men, Sir John had enjoyed playing a cat-and-mouse game with family and friends over the contents of his will, which extended to numerous bequests.” Lady Sackville was accused to exerting undue influence on Sir John to make her a substantial beneficiary of his will and the resulting court case brought her notoriety as well as having to wash her dirty linen in public.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch – while some of the family go on their jolly to the South of France, a film company has hired Downton Abbey as a location for a new movie that they are making. The money the company is offering is too good to resist as the estate has been struggling financially. The arrival of the film’s stars and the crew send the servants into tizzies of excitement. What happens next is almost a blow-by-blow recycling of the 1952 film classic Singin’ in the Rain.

I find it hard to believe that a film studio would decide to do a location shoot: during the late 1920s, most films were filmed on a studio set where everything is done in house and all the equipment, props, costumes and crew were within easy reach. Location filming was very rare unless they were shooting an outdoor scene such as battles for war films. Filming on an indoor location like Downton Abbey would not be utilised until the 1950s and even then, many films and television programmes would confine themselves to filming in studio sets until the 1980s.

And while stately homes today are used as locations for various film, TV productions and adverts, in 1928 this would have been unthinkable not only because it would have been logistically impossible but even for a struggling aristocratic family, it would have been seen as vulgar to be associated with the film industry.

Downton Abbey: A New Era yet again shows up the persistent issues with both the TV series and the films. Plausibility has certainly been thrown out of the window with this sequel and Fellowes certainly gives more than enough ammunition to his critics who have said from the beginning that Downton Abbey is nothing but a period soap: as illustrated by the insinuation that the Dowager Countess would jeopardise the paternity of any of her putative children, knowing full well the rules of the aristocracy and the importance of legitimacy. Just as with the equally unbelievable Russian prince storyline in series 5, is Fellowes trying to say that the Dowager Countess was such an irresistible siren that men can’t help falling for her and that she’s so unforgettable that these men would remember her even after the passage of so long a time? Still, it does give Fellowes another chance to roll out the “let’s publicly humiliate Robert in front of his family” bandwagon.

Another thing that’s clear in this sequel is that the family are still very much in denial with their financial issues and are continuing to resort to half-hearted and sticking plaster solutions, this time renting out the Abbey as a film set. So, what has happened to Grantham House? The alleged “Gutenberg” bible? ‘the “Piero della Francesca”? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if the Crawleys were indeed serious about putting their financial house in order both the London house and the alleged bible not to mention land, jewels and decorative arts would have been sold and economies made. Nor would they hire new footmen if they’re having cash flow problems. By this point, the vast majority of young people would rather be in jobs where they would not be at the beck and call of an employer almost 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365/6 days a year; especially when that employer in the depths of the country and miles from a cinema or dance hall.

The poet Horace in the Ars Poetica (lines 191-2 if you’re interested) said that no god should intervene in the action unless there’s a problem that needs a solution. It doesn’t require divine intervention or a French villa to solve the Crawleys’ financial problems – most people who can balance their bank accounts and see where expenditure is exceeding income could do that for them. Hand the house to the National Trust, flog off the remaining treasures, downsize with a handful of servants to the house they were looking at in series 3 and crucially, tell Robert, Mary and the Dowager that the financial times they are not just a “changin,” they HAVE changed and they can’t carry on living as if it’s 1850. Oh, and that when they have no money to fix the roof it’s a bit bloody silly to decamp complete with servants to the South of France, especially when they are relying on an inheritance, they have already been told is going to someone else and especially not before talking to their solicitor about their chances of inheriting under a totally different legal system. Still, given that if they had listened to this solicitor about not investing in Canadian railways, they wouldn’t be clutching at these financial straws anyway, the chances of them actually doing something that sensible is a plot consistency far too far for Lord F.

In the end apart from the scenery and some of the costumes, the sequel is nothing home to write about. The title itself is very misleading since despite the ending, its patently clear that it’s not “A New Era” we’re seeing, more like the continuation of the same old, same old that we’ve seen before. Several times.

And better yet, rent or buy Singin’ in the Rain if you want to truly see how films were done in the 1920s. It demonstrates movie making and the goings on in the film industry in an entertaining, educational, and enjoyable way that this film has failed to impart. The script is miles better, there’s Gene Kelly dancing, and when you roar with laughter at what’s happening onscreen the writers did actually mean you to be laughing.

Film Review: Scott of the Antarctic (1948)

As I mentioned in a review of Sam Mendes’ 1917, I barely go to the cinema unless it’s a film I really, really want to see and at the beginning of March 2020, my husband and I went to see an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma. Little did we know that would be one of our last outings as a virus contrived to close everything down.

As everything else with life since March 2020 and when public places began to reopen in the summer of 2020, my husband and I decided to boycott going to the cinema not only due to the objection of being treated like lepers and disease carriers but also because there was nothing really of note to see. I have long grown out of franchises like Star Wars, Marvel and even Disney offerings don’t attract the same attention as I was when I was a child, so I was happy to go without.

So, it was with some trepidation when the Barbican announced that they were screening Scott of the Antarctic on 11 March 2022 with the film’s music being played live by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under conductor Martyn Brabbins together with the BBC Symphony Chorus and soprano Elizabeth Watts – should we go or not? Unlike other venues, the Barbican were less evangelical about the whole Covid insane measures and now with the restrictions gone, it was pretty much how it was like during our last visit in 2019, we decided could simply sit back and enjoy the film.

Released in 1948, Scott of the Antarctic is a film chronicling Captain Robert Scott’s (John Mills) ill-fated second expedition to Antarctica and attempts to become the first man to reach the South Pole. The narrative of course focuses on the challenges that Scott and his men among them Dr. Edward Wilson (Harold Warrender), Captain Lawrence Oates (Derek Bond), Petty Officer Taff Evans (James Robertson Justice) and Lt. Teddy Evans (Kenneth Moore) faced throughout the expedition.

Although the film may look dated now especially in light of the fall and rise again of Scott’s reputation in the last 50 years not to mention how film technology has moved on, it’s still worth watching for various reasons such as the acting, the shots of mountains in Switzerland and Norway that stood in for the Antarctic and the epic score by the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams which later became the basis of his seventh symphony, Sinfonia Antarctica.

As some of the survivors of the 1912 expedition were still alive when the film was made, the movie is based on their memories as well as that of Scott’s notebooks which were recovered from his final resting place. The script strictly sticks to the narrative at hand and there are no subplots to detract from the story. In keeping up with the stiff upper lip of the era, there is no room for backstories, expositional dialogue and over the top emoting. The filmmakers also took great pains to portray life in Antarctica as tough and unforgiving as evidenced in the men’s changing appearance as the extreme cold and harsh terrain take a toll on their physical health.

Whilst the film is hagiographic especially as seen from today’s eyes considering the scholarship from the last 50 years, the scriptwriters don’t really shy from pointing out several instances that contributed to Scott’s failure. For example, his disregard of veteran Polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen’s advice of “dogs, dogs and only dogs” being suitable for the harsh terrain of the Antarctic is crucially highlighted when first the motor sledges break down and had to be abandoned then later the horses which initially did well had to be shot when even they struggled with the weather and landscape. As Nansen correctly predicted, it was the dogs that fared well.

Despite the tragic outcome, there are also light-hearted moments such as the crew celebrating Midsummer Day as if it were Christmas and Scott commanding his men to smile for the official group portrait to mask the disappointment of being beaten by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen. It was great to see the film with a live orchestra and chorus however there were times when my husband and I couldn’t hear some of the dialogue due to the music.

Scott of the Antarctic could easily be dismissed as a stuffy old film that depicts values seen as anathema today – stoicism, sense of duty, belief, and pride in one’s country. On a positive note, the film can be seen as a demonstration of even in the face of “failure” what humans can do if they put their mind and heart to it. From a historical viewpoint, this film could be seen as the swan song of the image of Scott as the archetypal British hero before the revisionism from the 1960s until the end of the 20th century would recast him as a failure.

Film Review – 1917: When Less is More

I haven’t gone to the cinema much for years now and it’s not just the high prices that put me off but also very few films really appeal to me. I would rather watch a documentary or a play or sit through a classical music concert rather than a film for the sake of it.

So when I read that the director Sam Mendes was going to make a film inspired by his grandfather who served during the First World War, I was rather curious and after seeing the trailer pop up on my Facebook news feed, I decided to go and see it as it looked promising.

The plot of the film revolves around two lance corporals Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Schofield (George MacKay) who are sent on a mission to inform fellow soldiers who are about to launch an assault against the Germans that they are walking into a fatal trap. For almost two hours the viewer, through the seemingly one long continuous shot employed by Mendes and his team follows Blake and Schofield as they make their way through enemy lines in order to deliver that crucial message.

Although one of the premises behind Blake and Schofield’s mission was a bit contrived, the film succeeds in portraying the conditions in the trenches – the acres of barbed wire, piles of decaying corpses both the human and animal kind and life in the trenches. There is also the contrast between how the British and the Germans built their trenches and the camera angles do emphasise that.

I came across one review that described 1917 as like watching or playing a computer game and some of the scenes do remind me of my childhood playing Super Mario Brothers where the two intrepid characters dodge bullets, enemy soldiers, and mud as well as trip wires. Given the urgency of the mission, the script sticks strictly to the main plot and avoids going into introspections and backstories (which are instead woven into the conversation between the two men). Better yet is the absence of subplots that would have detracted from the narrative.

Too often several movies and TV programmes fail because they are poorly written, suffer from the lack of narrative coherence as well as attempt to ram down an agenda down its viewers’ throats. I see 1917 as a breath of fresh air – not only is it good old fashioned story telling but is also proof that sometimes, less is indeed more.

If you haven’t seen the film yet, I highly recommend it. Below is the trailer that gives you an idea of what it is about:

Film Review: They Shall Not Grow Old

Several of our enduring images of the First World War come courtesy of film footage: which is not surprising as the Great War was the first conflict that was captured in moving images. The Battle of the Somme, which was released in 1916, is considered to be the first war movie and had a massive impact on the British public when it was shown in cinemas, and for the first time brought the horrors of war home.

More than a hundred years now, we see the films – silent, jerky and in black and white – then wonder what it would be like if it was coloured or to learn what were the soldiers saying. Thanks to the wonders of today’s technology, the award winning director Peter Jackson has just done exactly that, and had produced a very moving film based on material held in the archives of the Imperial War Museum.

Produced in cooperation with 14-18 NOW and BBC Films, They Shall Not Grow Old contains much never seen before footage taken during the First World War. Instead of various historians, commentators and academics as talking heads, we get war veterans guiding us through the film which makes it powerful and compelling as we are watching it through their eyes. The commentary ranges from optimism when war was declared, with many men viewing enlistment and being sent to the front as a relief from unemployment or their boring jobs back home. As these eager soldiers are finally sent to France, the amazement and wonder is palpable in their voices given that the vast majority of those who served in the war had never left their hometown or village, let alone visit London or travelled abroad.

The film starts out in black and white but as the men are marching towards the trenches, the black and white fades away and the images are in full colour; which makes these men and what they are experiencing somehow real to us, as if we are in the trenches with them as well as encountering the devastation before our very eyes. Thanks to professional lip readers, we see a soldier shout “Hi Mum!” while waving at the camera while in another scene, we hear an officer shout “fix bayonets!” as his troops are getting ready to go over the top. There’s also the boom of the huge guns and hearing them gives one an idea of what it was like in the front during the heat of the battle.

One interesting fact I learned from this film is how many of the soldiers who died at the front did so not because of being killed in battle or due to their wounds but because of mud. Bad weather made the trenches unbearable. Apart from the dangers of frostbite and trench feet, water and flooding resulted into mud which was made worse by the rain. The mud became so thick that many soldiers who became stuck perished.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom though. The trench also became a sort of community with one soldier musing that if there was no fighting, the trenches were a fun place to be – there was kindness; sharing; bonding over jokes, music, stories and sports. Down time was also an opportunity to get to know their enemy and for the vast majority of the troops, this was their first encounter with a German and the overall feeling was one of sympathy as well as learning about the nuances of German regional identity.

As the war went on, it’s clear to the soldiers that not only has their initial romantic notion of war gone but also the death and destruction on an unprecedented scale demonstrated in the words of one soldier, that the “veneer of civilisation has dropped away.” By the time 1918 rolled along it was obvious that the troops were exhausted; so much so that when the Armistice was signed on the 11th of November, there wasn’t as much rejoicing as relief that it was over.

Disappointment and disillusionment was palpable when the troops went home and were demobilised. Despite the promise of a “land fit for heroes,” many veterans struggled to find employment and readjust to civilian life; they certainly struggled to relate to people back home no matter how well meaning. As one veteran puts it, he and his fellow soldiers were “a race apart” what they saw and experienced were something that a great many people did not and could never understand.

The First World War to us is now a distant memory but with They Shall Not Grow Old, briefly makes history come alive in an informative, meaningful and deeply moving way.

 

Note: Screen caps from They Shall Not Grow Old taken by blogger.

 

Film Review – Viceroy’s House: Photocopying Downton Abbey

Bloggers’ Note: Although this film falls beyond our time frame, we felt this warranted a review as the Mountbattens were regular fixtures in British newspapers from their wedding in 1922 until their deaths in 1960 and 1979 respectively.

With 2017 marking the 70th anniversary of Indian independence (and the creation of Pakistan as well), the release of Viceroy’s House is perfectly timed, a narration of the road to Indian independence and the birth of two nations. Directed by Gurinder Chadha( best known for Bend it like Beckham), she has partly drawn from her family history for this film. But most of the action is set in the magnificent Edwin Lutyens-designed viceregal palace (now the residence of the President of India) with its massive rooms and grounds which in the words of Edwina Mountbatten in the film, “makes Buckingham Palace look like a bungalow.”

There’s a mention of her grandmother’s experience of being displaced as the boundaries between the two new nations were drawn so it makes me wish that she had brought her grandmother’s story to the big screen as a representative of what happened to millions of families. Instead what we get is a potted history lesson mixed with an upstairs-downstairs narrative that’s pretty much lifted from Downton Abbey. I will go further by saying that Viceroy’s House is a direct photocopy of Downton Abbey.

The year is 1947 and Britain exhausted by the Second World War is preparing to transfer power in India for 1948. Overseeing this is the new viceroy; Louis (“Dickie”) Viscount Mountbatten of Burma (Hugh Bonneville) accompanied by his wife Edwina (Gillian Anderson) and their younger daughter Pamela (Lily Travers). At the same time, former policeman Jeet Kumar (Manish Dyal) arrives at the palatial viceregal palace to begin his new job as a valet to the new viceroy where he encounters a secretary, Aalia Noor, (Huma Qureshi), who he recognises as the daughter of one of the political prisoners he helped guard. Predictably the two fall in love but Aalia is already promised to another man and as her father reminds her, to marry him is honouring her dying mother’s wish.

Meanwhile Mountbatten is faced with a dilemma, should India remain as one nation or two with India as a Hindu majority (together with the Sikhs) state and Pakistan which would be a Muslim majority country? While he tries to reach a settlement between Jawaharlal Nehru (Tanveer Ghani) and Mohammed Ali Jinnah (Denzil Smith), violence flares across India and in the end, its accepted that partition and bringing the date forward for independence will help ease the violence. A senior judge, Sir Cyril Radcliffe (Simon Callow) is brought into India to determine the borders between the two countries. With a very limited timeframe to do his job, and with the added disadvantage of never having been to India before, Sir Cyril struggles, especially as there are areas where the split between the two faiths is even. He confides this to General Hastings Ismay (Michael Gambon), and he is shown a plan from 1945 that already showed the borders between India and Pakistan. When Mountbatten learns about this, he is shocked to learn that Churchill had authorised this to safeguard supplies of oil and to create a buffer against the Soviets.

Despite this, partition goes ahead and as a result, two nations are born while there is a massive movement of peoples between the two new countries. And what of Jeet and Aalia? Well, there is a sort of happy if slightly implausible ending in the manner of all soap operas. Actually, if I’m going to be honest, it was a jaw-dropping “wait, what? You are using THIS as a dramatic device??” moment, but possibly that’s just me.

As mentioned earlier, watching Viceroy’s House led to me to the conclusion it was a photocopy of Downton Abbey not only with the opening sequence and the upstairs downstairs drama but even with the casting of Hugh Bonneville as Mountbatten. This must have been the worst piece of casting since Dick van Dyke as Bert in Mary Poppins or Sean Connery as Captain Marko Ramius in The Hunt for Red October; Bonneville with his beefy frame is nothing like the lean Mountbatten. Neither does he have the real Mountbatten’s clipped tones, effortless charm and breezy self-assurance. Instead what we see is a man out of his depth, weak and hesitant – much like his Downton Abbey character Lord Grantham. The director doesn’t help this obvious miscasting by ending the film with newsreels of the real life Mountbatten as Viceroy – the contrast is glaring.

If Bonneville reprises Robert then Gillian Anderson is Cora (and interestingly was reportedly offered the role before Elizabeth McGovern). She’s convincing as Edwina Mountbatten but her attempts at affecting a cut glass accent sometimes descend into parody. In addition she’s not really given much to do apart from constantly remind her husband of why they’re in India (hello, he’s the last Viceroy entrusted with the task of giving India its independence, I think he might know already), and act as a human United Nations statistics booklet (“Darling do you know that 92 per cent of the population are illiterate?”) in a script that very often recalls Downton Abbey at its expositional finest. And for a film that focuses a lot on real life characters, there is little done to flesh them out as people – who they really are and how their behaviours could have help affect the course of history. Nothing is made of the Mountbattens’ married life especially as they had been living virtually separate lives since the beginning of their marriage or the purported affair between Edwina and Nehru. Even Jinnah’s illness was not mentioned much less alluded to. There’s very little depth of character and sometimes it feels like the script is a taken from school textbook about independence – kept to the basics and shorn of the complexities. A feeling not helped by the almost insultingly brief running time – 106 minutes to explain a process that cost a couple of million lives. (Perhaps that should be “attempt to explain independence.”)

Ironically it’s the servants who are given the better storylines and scenes. They operate as a huge and well-organised team to serve the Mountbattens and while they are doing that they listen to the radio, read the papers and catch snippets of meetings. While they discuss and argue, the cracks between Muslim and Hindu start to show, especially when they have to decide what country they are going to go to after independence. A striking example was the two chefs and the look of anguish on the head chef’s face when he hears his deputy had chosen to become Pakistani is a microcosm of how politics has infiltrated a workplace where people have worked alongside together for years if not decades and have now been torn apart. Gradually we see the cracks widen between Hindu, Sikh and Moslem and degenerate into physical violence in an echo of what is happening outside the residence’s gates. There are also very poignant human touches that bring home the innumerable tiny human tragedies – Jeet’s colleague comes back from their village, where he has found their families dead or missing, but carrying a baby girl, the sole survivor of a massacre. A Hindu woman has picked up a Moslem girl who has escaped the killing of everyone on her train and wants to adopt her, and gets very angry with the official insistence that this is a queue for Hindus, the badly injured girl must go elsewhere. Little touches of humanity in the face of overwhelming disaster.

While Jeet and Aalia’s love story is pretty much standard soap opera fare, individually both characters have potential and yet are undeveloped. Jeet himself has an interesting background – a policeman who spent most of his career arresting and guarding pro-independence activists but whose father was killed by the British: but that’s never explored, and neither is the reason why he has given up his job as a policeman to be a viceregal servant in the dying weeks of the Raj. And what about Aalia? We don’t know much about what she thinks and feels as an individual: the tension between her clearly Westernised education and outlook as opposed to the traditional family demands being made on her is clear but ignored. What’s also omitted is the upper staff who are mainly British save for the major domo who is clearly Indian but is very Westernised, what’s going to happen to them? The major domo has a close working relationship with his immediate superior, the comptroller of the household (who is British) and yet what will happen to both men is a mystery, when actually that would have made a better storyline than what we’ve seen on screen.

Viceroy’s House major weakness however (and again this is where the similarity to Downton Abbey is in the distortion and trivialising of great events) is how the film glosses over Mountbatten’s incompetence and the intransigence of the Indian side. Instead blame is placed on Winston Churchill despite the fact that in 1947 he had been out of power for two years and was in no position to influence events (in fact he did vote in favour of the Indian Independence Bill and urged his party to do the same). This weakness is made worse by historical inaccuracies such as the view that Indians were not ready to govern themselves when in reality they were already native Indians serving as mayors and councillors as elected by their fellow Indians and by the 1930s the Indians were already outnumbering the British in the Indian Civil Service (ICS). The constant bleating about “divide and rule” was also grating and conveniently forgets that “divide and rule” tactics were already used in India long before the British came.

The dialogue is heavily expositional and the narrative is simplistic, it’s all “Oh Jinnah wants Pakistan, what shall we do?” “Look, here’s a plan all handily drawn up in 1945 by Churchill with the borders neatly drawn in but don’t tell Mountbatten. That’ll sort it.” Independence and partition is wrapped up in about 10 minutes with contemporary newreels of massacres, long trails of miserable refugees and the Mountbattens and Nehru looking anguished over what has been unleashed.

The plus side is the visuals. If there’s one thing that this film does really well, it’s capturing the vibrant real-life locations of both the Viceroy of India’s residence and the streets of India. Filmed entirely on location, the grandeur of the main stage is fantastic to look at, whilst the costume design ranges from Mountbatten’s decorated military attire to the colourful uniforms and dress of the Indian servants.

Unfortunately for the success of the film I left the cinema feeling manipulated and that an agenda was at play. The film ends with the information that the director’s family fled the partition, that on the way her grandmother’s baby died of starvation and it was after nearly two years in a refugee camp that her grandparents were re-united. I’m not in the slightest downplaying this dreadful human tragedy, but it was one of millions, and it’s being used to peddle an essentially very selective view of the history that comes from two books – Freedom at Midnight, whose authors had access to the Mountbatten archives and the man himself and veers close to hagiography at some points  and The Shadow of the Great Game: The Untold Story of India’s Partition by a former Indian diplomat, Narendra Singh Sarila, who was a junior member of Mountbatten’s staff and who maintains that Churchill was the culprit for the bloodshed of partition.

As Ian Jack points out in a scathing Guardian review, historians have given this short shrift, but the power of film is such that there are going to be millions who take away from this the message that Mountbatten and Nehru were guiltless and that Churchill and Jinnah were the evil geniuses of partition. As Jack points out

Chadha denied the charge of anti-Muslim prejudice – persuasively, I think – but to my mind she and her fellow writers on the film, her American husband, Paul Mayeda Berges, and the English screenwriter Moira Buffini, have committed just as great a sin, which is to take a breathtaking liberty with the historical record.

As he goes on to say The film is unlikely to do very well at the box office. Even so, it will attract a far larger audience than any book on partition, and for many people it will be their only understanding of the subject. As with “fake news”, so with “fake history”. Detecting it needs curiosity – critical rather than passive consumption – otherwise it never gets found out.

And that’s the danger of this film, because film is a much more powerful medium than the written word and misrepresentation can be taken away as gospel truth (as demonstrated by more than enough viewers who think that Downton Abbey accurately represents early 20th century Britain). If people want to learn more about independence and partition, Viceroy’s House isn’t the film I would recommend. Viewers are advised to purchase, rent or borrow DVDs of Richard Attenborough’s film Gandhi (1982) and The Jewel in the Crown (1984), a 14 part drama produced by ITV. Both explore the complexities of Indian society and politics in the dying days of the Raj and the road to independence in a sensitive and historically accurate way that Viceroy’s House has failed to do.

 

Further Reading:

http://www.forgotten-raj.org/doc/viceroy.htm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4302730/Viceroy-s-House-whitewashes-Lord-Mountbatten.html

Andrew Roberts. Eminent Churchillians (London, 1994)

Alex von Tunzelmann. Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire (London, 2008)

Stanley Wolpert. Nehru: A Tryst with Destiny (Oxford, 1996)