The Guardians

[ladams888]

Saw this at the Embankment Gardens Pop-Up cinema (as part of the London Film Festival). It was the story of a mother (Hortense – Nathalie Baye) and her daughter (Solange – Laura Smet – Nathalie Baye’s real-life daughter) having to manually work their family farm in the absence of the male members of their family who had to go off and fight in the Great War (WWI). We witness first-hand how hard their lives were, trying to keep the farm working, even though they didn’t know if their men would ever return. The cinematography was very atmospheric with sweeping views across fields of golden waving wheat. However there was very little plot and even less dialogue. I have to admit I nodded off several times and, after the first half hour, I must have looked at my watch probably every five minutes. The film was introduced by its director/writer, Xavier Beauvois, who might have had too many sherbets by the time he came to say his bit, as his speech consisted of him telling us how much he loved Britain, loved the British people, how lucky we were to have the Queen (because he loved her as well) and how right he thought we were about Brexit! He didn’t really mention the film at all! The film started about half an hour late and finished at nearly 11pm, at which time there was a Q&A (which I normally enjoy), however I (and probably about half the audience) had to leave in order to catch a train. 4/10.

[Florence1]

I too saw this at the Embankment Gardens pop up cinema. The cinematography was really good with lovely filming of the landscape. The director decided to cut out a lot of the dialogue so the story did feel quite slow with the cast having to act with their eyes and bodies where there were the long silences. I did engage with the characters and it was good to see the female characters being so strong when the males were away at war. Overall probably give it 6/10