So, when Wikipedia describes a movie as "a silent film about World War 1 fighter pilots" I didn't exactly rush to watch it. Indeed, it would have been the first skipped movie, if we were allowed to skip them. A War Epic, starring Clara Bow, the idea of the movie did not do alot to get me excited by the challenge so I set up to watch it with my laptop and a peach and prepared for boredom - more than 2 hours of boredom infact.
The Girl
We spent the first 5 minutes trying to get the Vietnamese subtitles off as they were covering the writing (remembering this was a silent film) to no avail. No harm, what's a bit of missing writing when the whole movie is silent anyway....
The storyline could have been written today - A girl in love with her neighbour, the neighbour and his rich boy rival in love with the same girl, the rivals joining the army and bunking together, becoming besties, the girl following them to France in a mad-cap sequence involving the most hilarious use of cartoon champagne bubbles, an epic war scene, an avenged death and finally requited love. Infact I would love to see a remake, I can totally imagine Zac Efron as David the rich rival and Taylor Lautner as Jack the neighbour and Zooey Deschanel as Mary, the girl.
The neighbour
Some scenes were waaaaaaaay too long, especially some of the flying/fighting scenes, although the live stunts were amazing and the planes looked super cool, it was easy to get distracted and then miss part of the story. I think because the film was silent, there wasn't opportunity to set the story up quickly with the use of conversation or questions between characters, so the start of the movie was slow as we established the characters. This fact is made up for by the end of the movie when I was totally attached to the characters and really cared about them.
Some scenes were waaaaaaaay too long, especially some of the flying/fighting scenes, although the live stunts were amazing and the planes looked super cool, it was easy to get distracted and then miss part of the story. I think because the film was silent, there wasn't opportunity to set the story up quickly with the use of conversation or questions between characters, so the start of the movie was slow as we established the characters. This fact is made up for by the end of the movie when I was totally attached to the characters and really cared about them.
This is the thing that surprised me was the way the storyline came alive to me without any talking - the over-acting was hilarious on one hand, but helped us pick up on feelings and innuendo that may have otherwise gone un-noticed. The other thing that gave the movie feeling was the music, I know this is obvious and all movies do this, but the highs and lows were higher and lower because of it. Talking was really not necessary in this movie. We still laughed, cried and became attached to characters. We were still disappointed with their actions, proud of them and happy for them in turn. We still connected. It was amazing and I couldn't believe it.
I never would have thought to watch a silent movie, but I am so glad we did. I would recommend this to watch. If you do watch it, let me know what you thought!
I loved starting our movie challenge with this movie, it has made me excited for the next one.
Next up - The Broadway Melody - 1929
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