Mixed tape movies - The Second World War

In the eighties it was the-thing-to-do to make a mixed tape (like a mp3 but touchable, always in need of a pencil and most definitely cooler). On it you would make a little playlist of all the cool songs. Now the trick was to make each song correspond with the rest of the tape. In this post I will try to do the same with movies.
Every once in a while I will select a general topic and select movies to accompany it. As you can see the more child-friendly movies are at the start of the day, but  when night falls: ‘here be monsters’. Please feel free to give suggestions of other unknown movies.

One rule though: Auteur themes like ‘Shakespeare’ or ‘James Bond’ are not allowed. ‘Spy-movies’, naturally, are.

Theme: Second World War

The second world war. Now how am I going to do this one? Because…well…it’s not the happiest moment in human history. It’s right up there with the biblical plagues. Still, there are quite some good children movies that touch upon the subject. So let’s start.

08:00-10:00

Bedknobs and broomsticks: One of my all time favorite movies. It has everything. Magic, song, dance and evil Nazi’s getting their butts kicked by medieval armor. Naturally the movie doesn’t delve too deeply into the evilness of the Nazis, but the movie does plant the seed that every child needs to know: Nazis are pure evil. 

10:00-12:00

Five Children and it: Now we are already touching slightly on the subject of loss. Five children have to leave London to live with a weird uncle and cousin on the countryside. Their father is currently abroad fighting. He may very well die!

You don’t get to see a speck of the war but the loss and longing these children portray during their magical adventure is all you need. I was on two minds to use either this movie or Nanny McPhee 2 but I figured the longing was stronger in this movie (Narnia also crossed my mind). 

12:00-14:00

An angel for May: How do you get kids nowadays interested in the Second World War? Time travel of course. Just simply drop a kid from the now into the past. I’m being a bit silly here but strangely enough this far-fetched concept works. A (almost a delinquent) boy travels back to the Second World War and befriends a girl named May. In the true timeline she is going to die by one of the Nazi bombs. The boy tries to safe her and in the meantime manages to better himself. It’s a sweet movie about friendship that educates the children about the dark years of the 1940s. 

14:00-16:00

Johnny and the bomb: Terry Pratchett. That’s all you need to know. Ow alright I’ll elaborate. It is basically the same story as An angel for May. In this mini-series Johnny Maxwell and his friends travel back in time to stop a bomb from dropping (and later on correct all the little mistakes they made on the way). It is sweet, smart (in the way that time travel stories can be deliciously mindboggling when handled by an A-class author) and incredibly funny. 

16:00-18:00

One against the wind: Now we’re getting our hands dirty on war. Child’s play is over. But this is a television movie (produced by Hallmark no less) so it is still very polite and straight forwards. The Nazis are bad, the good guys are good. But this movie does stretch the borders of television. For starters it gives you a powerhouse of a woman -played by Judy Davis- trying to get British pilots out of occupied France. And the will her character uses to get what she wants is admirable. More so –remember it’s a Hallmark movie- It even ends in a concentration camp and –for good measure- the moviemakers didn’t shy away to show the horrors of those camps. True, people still look well fed but the fact that they even went there, bravo. 

18:00-20:00

The bridge on the river Kwai: One of the things that's alway bothersome about learning about the Second World War is the focus on Europe. This one is a great portrayal of the war in Asia (The railway man is an interesting picture as well). Now, The bridge on the river Kwai is nowhere near an accurate portrayal of the horrors at the Burma railway but it is one of the best. 

20:00-22:00

Shindler’s list: There it is, the big one. To this day I’m puzzled about the brilliance of this movie. Why did Spielberg decide to shoot this movie in black and white? Why did Spielberg manage to get away with all those horrors he shows? This is a movie that literally takes us into the gas chambers. It is a movie in which the stars appeared to align just right to educate the people about the horrors of yesteryears. This is the once in a generation movie. The fact that our main generational influence (Spielberg) made it makes it even more impressive.

Are there faults? Of course there are. The whole: “With this ring I could have bought several more…” speech is a bit too sappy. But then again we did have this cold reasoning “how many do we got…we need more.” dialog several scenes before. 

22:00-00:00

Der Untergang: Until now we’ve dealt with the Second World War from the Alliance’s perspective. Time to look at it through the Fuhrer’s eyes. But that’s a lie, this movie doesn’t. Hitler in this movie is –slightly understandable- but still as far removed from any humanity like the other movies. Then what does make this movie so important? Because it shows conviction. Hitler’s followers. From his minister of propaganda to the little Hitler Jugend kid. People who support an idea and even though they don’t believe in it anymore they will be damned if they stop and turn. 

00:00-02:00

Escape from Sobibor: The first camp that liberated itself. But at what cost? This is a movie that shows, in all its brutality, the will of people to die for freedom. We’ve all seen action movies in which the second hero sacrifices him(or her)self for the greater good. This movie shows the reality of it and it isn’t pleasant. I’ve only seen this movie once, still can’t bring myself to see it a second time. 

02:00-04:00

Das Boot: I started this little article with Bedknobs and broomsticks. Stating that all Nazis are evil. And they are, the ideology is evil (even though a lot of politician nowadays are getting quite close to these ideals). This movie shows the German working man on a U-boat. People who just want to do their job and go home.

They kill, they are ruthless, but they are human. And in the end it turns out that the other side is just as ruthless/human as they. 

Honorable mentions: The dirty dozen. Now this movie is hardly an accurate portrayal of the Second World War. But it is one of the best of the bunch of American’s-won-the-war-in-Europe-singlehandedly-movies of the 1950’s to 1990’s. One thing I remember about this movie (apart from the awful sequel) is a behind-the-scenes featurette I once watched.  During this bit of promotion the narrator repeats, time and again, that this is a: “movie for real men!”. To such an extent that it becomes hilarious. 

Conspiracy: Now this is a very interesting movie for this list because it is gut wrenching like Shindler’s List but utterly bloodless. The movie deals with the famous Wannsee Conference wherein the Nazis discuss various ideas to deal with –what they call- the Jew problem.

It is fascinating and  sickening to witness the ease with which mass murder seems to be decided upon.