recommended

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

A Brilliant Conflict

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

I don't hand out 1's and 10's often, and while the production on this film is quite low, with the sound quality for dialogue being the absolute worst, this film is totally compelling and you will be grateful you gave it a chance.The movie is shot as a pseudo documentary, following the life of Pauline, a strangely attractive nurse who must relocate to London in a world where Nazi Germany has more than a foothold in England; Soldiers occupy the nation and many British citizens have become their collaborators. You should read the interesting history behind the making of this film which took something like 6 years to complete, if you can believe it. But wait until after you watch the movie, of course. I'm glad I didn't know much about it before I began watching. Fans of science fiction, dystopian fiction, and Orwell will eat this up and want more.This is a war film like few others in that you don't see much of the war itself, by that I mean the front lines. You see the daily life of citizens in a country where all their normal daily routines have been stamped out and they are recast in the roles of pseudo-Nazis whether they like it or not. What are you waiting for?

A previous reviewer couldn't recommend the film too highly and said you owe it to yourself to see this.I can't go along with that.A lot of British people have tried to cheer themselves up with the thought that Hitlerism could never have taken root in Britain, because we're all so jolly decent and we'd never have put up with Onkel Adi.This film does a pretty good job of saying "Bull***t!" to that idea. Collaborating with the occupying power is a fairly obvious strategy for people who want a quiet life, or hope for advancement in the new society, because they don't believe that the occupation will be defeated.And if state-managed news media tell you only what they want you to hear, and portray things in an extremely odd light, then it's not surprising that people start to believe this stuff and spout it themselves.The basic narrative device is to follow the adventures of an Irish nurse who claims to have little experience of or interest in politics. She loses her friends to an attack by the resistance partisans, signs up, after some agonising, to nurse with the Nazi Action Brigade, and then has some experiences which ought to open her eyes to the immoral horror of Nazism. It's a pretty useful device: she gets to see both sides of things, so the audience does too. But we don't find out, really, what she thinks of these things: the film-makers obviously intend the audience to draw their own conclusions.The message of this film is uncompromisingly bleak. Men and women are capable of much worse than they think; fascism is a disease so virulent that one needs to adopt some of its own methods to have a chance of defeating it, and very few people are immune to its temptations (especially when agreement makes for a much less uncomfortable life).It's a very earnest film, but it isn't very interesting dramatically. Showing that ordinary people are susceptible requires that the events be fairly routine (in context), otherwise the audience can put the behaviour of which they would obviously disapprove down to the effects of special circumstances. That's honest, but drab, ordinary lives tend to make for drab, ordinary stories, and this is no exception.I'd recommend watching it, but don't expect it to be the highlight of your viewing week.

Ignore Leonard Maltin's comments - he's clearly missed the point of the film. The "Brits" don't keep a stiff upper lip, and the cooperation between them and the Nazis is shocking. The documentary footage of Nazi soldiers parading around London etc appears ever so real. The awesome photography makes up for the weak plot and main character. A must-see.The Battle of Algiers is another such film which mixes documentary with drama.

A thought-provoking war drama, which began life as the spare-time project of an 18-year-old film-lover and his 16-year-old friend. Almost an amateur film, but intellectually spell-binding. Based on the counter-factual premise that Britain was successfully invaded following the Dunkirk retreat and liberated by the Americans at the end of World War II. The images of London streets thronged with German soldiers are unforgettable. It is a film concerned with what war and military occupation does to people's minds. Nightmarish, stomach-churning. You owe it to yourself to see this film. Cannot recommend too highly. (Please take a look at my slightly longer review under "Newsgroup Reviews")