Taking advantage of the various technological advancements in recent years in the world of special effects, filmmaker Peter Jackson was given hundreds of hours of World War 1 black and white film to restore and colourise for a modern viewing.
Using special effects to add in the additional frames of movement within the footage, the people within the films really do come to life; alongside the recordings of soldiers interviewed around forty and fifty years ago, it becomes very personal. It displays an insight into a huge part of history that we've perhaps not quite seen before with such detail.
They Shall Not Grow Old doesn't just focus on showing the battles, the hell that World War 1 is often perceived as, it shows the ways in which an inhumane event led to very human interactions: sharing and showing empathy for each man by your side, for each mine by your side wasn't just a friend, but someone you'd rely on to keep you alive. There's a very grounded level of interaction within the footage, with soldiers making the best of their surroundings and using their time away from the frontline to keep up their morale.
While in parts some of the footage does feel a bit inauthentic as a result of the additional frames that have made the footage smooth, it remains strong in conveying the sheer scale of the war itself: the unfathomable amount of firepower in the form of artillery that would shake the tiles of rooftops nearby down to the ground, the strange green clouds of gas that creep over the trenches, and the almost peaceful nature of soldiers climbing above the trenches and walking towards the unknown.
They Shall Not Grow Old is rich in culture, and one of the most British things one would recognise from the documentary is the constant mention of tea -- as a fellow Brit, even I had no idea how much tea meant to them, we probably won as a result of the morale-boosting tea -- which is shown to have been consumed at almost any moment: during battle with the boiled water from water-cooled machine guns, from the water used in the trains that provide additional resources from miles behind the frontline. It's very British indeed.
With the commentary from the soldiers themselves, even with old age, they mention very little regret regarding their service. They understand the horrors, and of course they do given they experienced them first-hand, but they appear to share a common sentiment regarding the fun they had alongside total strangers. The experiences they shared together that strengthened a nation during its darkest days.
With Peter Jackson's efforts, with the hundreds of hours of archived footage and audio, these soldiers truly will not grow old, for they're cemented within history; they'll serve as a constant reminder of an event that should never have happened.
