World War I: Tales of the Trenches

I can only assume this was made in by a bunch of 15 year old history-cum-film-studies students from the 90s whilst on some Bill and Ted-esque foray back to the !950's. Apparently on a dare to make a completed outdated film about WWI.

The narrative moves at a rate only someone already well-acquainted with WWI would follow with any sense, This with zero context ever provided to help inform someone not already versed in the topic.

The footage, however, has that modern, cutting-edge 1919 feel to it. And is reused repeatedly. Multiple times. Ad nauseam. Often in different, unrelated contexts. (But how're you to know, given there's never any wider context?! Jokes on you, fool.)

The less said about music the better. Look, all we know is no one told the kids that it shouldn't be louder than the actual narration.

But hey, it's better than Love Island. So don't knock it. Still, there are uncountably many better WWI documentaries out there.

The absence of any mention of American involvement in the war until the very last segment is deafening, revealing a very European perspective that our involvement in the war was too little, too late.

The narrator goes on to use twisted language like "jolted from its neutrality", then say we "had no military might", which forced me to wonder: then why was it so critical that we join the conflict?

Despite these irritating details the series has a lot going for it. The news reels of the day (which it's brimming with) are fantastic, as are the interviews with soldiers from the conflict. Perhaps owing again to British prejudice, there are no clips of survivors from Russia, France or Germany that could have added greatly to the film's nuance.

All in all, a very worth-while series in highly digestible format.