Operazione Overlord

Fantastic little "war" gem this. Stands to reason why it won a Silver Bear at the Berlin Filmfestival once. We are offered visually very beautiful images of documentary footage from world war 2. In an extremely competent manner this material is mixed into a fictitious story about a young soldier´s life and death as a soldier participating in the famous D-Day invasion (Operation Overlord).Don't expect another Saving Private Ryan or The Longest Day.....Overlord is by far too "experimental" for that.Well, it's really impossible to compare these films, but rest assured Overlord will deliver a very unique war movie experience, like you´ve (probably) never seen it before.

When I heard that this film consisted of about 1/3 newsreel footage, I was expecting the worst. Stock footage blended with studio footage is something you'd find in an MST3k movie; three people in a car driving quickly away from a giant lizard and then cut to a different film grain shot of an iguana in a lab and then back to the car. Oh no, the Iguana is chasing us.

The effect can be jarring, to say the least.

But Cooper, so far as I have heard, actually wrote the screenplay for Overlord with the stock footage he was going to use already in mind, tailoring his script so that the footage actually made sense. The movie is shot so that the switch from studio to stock lighting and film quality is barely noticeable. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's seamless--it does take a little while to get used to, but after the first fifteen minutes or so you don't even notice it.

And that's a good sign, that you have to "get used to" the picture for a little while before you feel comfortable watching it. That's the sign of originality. This is a brooding and slow-paced war film, but unlike other such films it maintains a certain lightness in spite of its weighty subject and so avoids coming off as ponderous. No viewpoints are shoved in your face. Hard questions are asked, yes, but you're given plenty of time to try and sort them out for yourself.

This is a movie you have to be wide awake while watching--it demands your full attention, and if you're not willing to give that up then you're probably not going to enjoy it. Overlord is most certainly not mindless entertainment. It provokes thought, and if thought makes you uncomfortable it's simply not the movie for you.

I caught Overlord on IFC as a programming homage to Jerry Harvey and the Z Channel (thanx to Xan Cassavetes). If you are a WWII buff who loves the History Channel and interesting experimental films you'll enjoy this movie. The stock war footage is so seamlessly interwoven that it is almost a verite experience. I love when you catch something so offbeat and refreshing that you can't believe you had never heard of it before. Do they still make Fresca soda? I need 10 lines to post this. I hope I never encounter a rabid dingo. I wonder if Spielberg has seen this movie. I wonder if Spielberg digs Fresca soda. I wonder if I should've eaten that last mushroom cap.Check it out.

I can safely assume that "Overlord" had an extremely minuscule budget. None of the actors look like professionals, it was all shot in black & white and the film uses lots and lots of stock footage from WWII. Despite my reservations, which I'll get to in a moment, it's awfully good considering the costs.

The film follows a typical sort of soldier, Tom Beddows, from his induction to his landing at the beaches of Normandy. Throughout his story, clips of the preparations for the landing as well as other war footage is inserted...often in the clumsiest and seemingly random manner. Despite this, the story of Tom IS compelling and sucks you in to his life. Worth seeing...especially if you would love to see a decent micro-budgeted picture.

That this film is not better known than all the jingoistic crap that came out of Hollyweed about WWII is nothing short of a crime. Many thanks to TCM and Criterion for making this gem more available. A word of warning to the viewer. There are no huge battle scenes, no stars, no digital effects, no big overblown music, just a simple tale of a soldier inducted into the army prior to D-Day, and the tragic outcome. And I'm not giving anything away. One knows from the first moment what the end will be. Everything about this film is superb. The acting by a cast of unknowns, the realistic script and dialogue, the brilliant cinematography that blends actual documentary footage into the film, the haunting music, etc., ad gloriam. All I can say is that this film affected me far more deeply than the above-mentioned film and it's images will stay with me much longer that anything Spielberg spent millions on to create.