roots of leadership

Rating: 8/10 (31 January 2018)

This season of the Academy Awards has two strong contenders in movies that deal with the events that took place in May and early June 1940. While Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk used the power of the computer effects to retrace the saga of the evacuation of the British army from the beaches of Europe in the first year of WWII, Joe Wright's Darkest Hour takes us in the shady rooms of the politicians and army decision makers who had to make crucial decisions after the disastrous beginning of the war. While the focus in the first movie was on the collective resistance and heroism, the later puts on the first plan the personality of the man who took upon himself the reigns of power in the most difficult moments of the history of the United Kingdom.
There is a lot of history in Darkest Hour, part of it facts, some other fiction trying to be true to the spirit of history. 'se non e vero, e ben trovato' - 'Even if it is not true, it is a good story'. The vision created by the authors of the script presents Winston Churchill as a candidate of compromise at a crossroad of the history, who reaches the peak because he is the only politician capable of gathering Labor opposition support for a national unity government. The conservative party and the king himself are very hesitant about his nomination, and much of the first weeks (described in the movie) of his prime-ministry will be faced finessing the attempts to have him replaced by an internal party coup, and fighting to take the kingdom firmly on the path of uncompromising resistance to the Nazi enemy and fierce fight to total victory, in the conditions of the defeat of the allied armies and fall of most of the Western Europe under German occupation. It's a story of political intrigue and the personal story of the controversial politician becoming the leader of the free world at war.
Director Joe Wright does in my opinion a very good work in building the story as a political thriller, re-creating to detail the atmosphere of London at war, and bringing to life on screen the characters of the principal players of this historical drama. At some moments he plays with the formats of the frame, we can see the characters and especially Churchill cornered or squeezed to part of the surface of the screen, almost like in two-dimensional paintings, thus creating the sensation of claustrophobia or psychological pressure the heroes find themselves in. Churchill may be one of the most popular historical personalities in cinema, but the absolutely fantastic performance of Gary Oldman brings new angles, as we see the quite old politician and flawed human being transforming himself into a leader with the moral force, political skills and strong convictions not only to lead but also to become a model for his country at war. The rest of the actors team is up to the mission as well, including Kristin Scott Thomas as Winston's supportive wife, Ben Mendelsohn with a nuanced version of King George VI (although his change of mind is not so well explained) and Lily James as his young and devoted secretary.
Winston Churchill is not only a popular film hero but he is also claimed as a model for many politicians who came after him, until today, when they try to prove that compromises and appeasement are not the right tactics when faced with enemies perceived as evil. He proved to be on the right side of history more than once, first when fighting the Nazis, later when opposing Communism in Europe. Yes, he was was also a human, he liked whisky and champagne and cigars, but this was not what made him great, but the fact that he fought for the right causes. One of the key scenes in the film shows him taking the underground - for the first time in his life! - and confronting the random sample of people in the train car with the dilemmas he is facing. They unanimously express their support for his own uncompromising positions. The moving scene intents to show that his strength derived from the people's will. It's a little bit romanticized and of course, fictional, but yet, this seems to concentrate the principal message of the film.