Overlord

1975 war movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A guy goes to war and [Spoiler Alert!] gets himself killed.

The half-documentary/half-fiction approach to this and the cinematography make this worth watching although it's a little boring. At a smidge over 80 minutes, this isn't a long film at all, but some of the fictional dramatic scenes still make it drag a bit. It's darkly poetic, however, and the weaving of the fiction and archive footage is seamless. It's tough to tell what imagery is real and what was filmed in the 1970s, and that archival stuff gives the whole thing a weight that it otherwise wouldn't have. I'm not generally a fan of war movies at all, but this one's more interested in detailing the war inside one soldier rather than showing off grand battle sequences or making grand statements. And because of that, it makes the experience a very personal one. You don't quite become the main character in this, but you can't help connecting with him intimately, almost in an abstract way.

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