A beautiful life-leçon in wich kids outgrows our parents...

   A traditional British patriotic song? A movie? Hope and Glory of course! The Rohan family: Bill, his sisters Sue and Dawn, and his parents Grace and Clive. They are living in a suburb of London, just before the start of the Second World War. After the war starts, Clive joins the army, leaving Grace alone to watch over the children.
  Seen through the eyes of 7-year-old Bill, the "fireworks" provided by the Blitz every night are as exciting as they are terrifying. His family do not see things in quite the same way as the bombs continue to drop, but their will to survive brings them closer together. The nightly raids do not provide the only drama, however, as his older sister, Dawn, falls for a Canadian soldier, becomes pregnant, and finding her life turned upside down, soon discovers the value of her family. The family eventually moves to the Thames-side home of Grace's parents when their house burns down (not in an air raid, but in an ordinary fire). This provides an opportunity for Bill to spend more time with his bad-tempered grandfather.  

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Hope and Glory The family

                                                                                                                                                                                                This film allow to see the war through the eyes of a kid. A seven year's kid. It allows to show that, during the war, nobody say if he will die, because of a bomb or not, so everything speed up. Dawn has her first sexual experience: she meet a Canadian soldier, fall in love of him, and become pregnant. Billy's father teach him the “googly”, a secret shot in cricket. It is also a rather realist representation of the war. It is a partial-autobiography: John Boorman, the director, has lived in England during the Second World War, and has known aerial bombardments. The film shows many particularities of the war: rationing tickets, bombardments, captive balloons, shrapnel…                                                                                                                                                 Many things are exaggerated like the “miraculous fishing”, when a bomb explodes in the Tamise, or when the teacher makes them revise the nine times table when they wear gas masks. I find no more negative elements because I like this film and I find that it is full of comics and realistic elements.                                                                                                                                                                        All the characters are interessants, but my favourite is Grandfather George. He has a foul temper, he is grumpy but he is still a bit affectionate. With him, it seems that the family forget the war. They laugh more and easily. An example is when the grand-father wants to kill a mouse and that he miss it. Bill says after: "I saw that when it goes, it limped a bit". He has also many humour. He has named his four daughters Charity, Hope, Grace and Faith, the four qualities that he hasn't, he said.                                                                                                                                                                 For me, it's a very good movie. I haven't a lot of negative elements and it is a real representation of the war and an illustration of then the daily presence of the death prompt an immoderate thirst for life. I recommend this film and of course, I give for it 5 star rating on 5.