Dark blue world

[FNG]

This is the third thread with this title. Here's my bit of amateur Jonathan Wossing, posted a frew weeks ago (PS: I have some well lairy suits as well, and used to have scary hair, so am qualified for the job)

Film Review: Dark Blue World

“Dark Blue World”, which tells the story, worth telling, of Czech fighter pilots in the wartime RAF, is less than the sum of its parts, although some of those parts are really quite good. One reviewer at the weekend commented that the frame is more interesting than the picture, referring to the sequences in pre and post war Czechoslovakia which frame the wartime narrative. I agree: the sequences set in the Stalinist prison to which the surviving pilots were consigned by the paranoid post war regime are the best thing in the movie (excluding the flying).

But, this being pprune: on to the flying, which is accomplished very skillfully with two Spitfires, some well executed CGI, and some footage from “Battle of Britain”. There is some excellent real flying, together with some brilliant computer effects, notably the pilot’s eye view of a 109 in his rear view mirror, the shot of shell cases hurtling towards the camera as it follows an attacking Spitfire, and a well staged forced landing. The air fighting is as good as if not better than anything in Battle of Britain, but the RAF sequences are let down by careless errors of research and continuity: uniforms and ranks change randomly (at one point the Czech pilots have all joined the Volunteer Reserve), sergeants get saluted (and return salutes without hats on), and the principal character gains and loses medals from scene to scene. The R/T chatter seems unhistorical. [Edit: Spitfire and Typhoon pilots at Project Propeller told me that the Poles and Czechs did tend to natter on the radio].

On the ground, the action is episodic and somewhat fragmented, whilst the love story is dealt with in a rather perfunctory manner, and does not generate much interest. Some niggling errors here too: I wonder where Tara Fitzgerald found all that jam and, unbelievably, all those water melons, in wartime Britain?

The overall effect of the film is downbeat and melancholy. It's a worthwhile effort at recalling a little remembered aspect of the period, and, although flawed, is worth seeing.