Testament of Youth (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Testament of Youth |
| Original title | Testament of Youth |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2014 |
| length | 130 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | James Kent |
| script | Juliette Towhidi |
| production |
Rosie Alison , David Heyman |
| music | Max Richter |
| camera | Rob Hardy |
| cut | Lucia Zucchetti |
| occupation | |
| |
Testament of Youth is a British historical film from 2014 . The film drama is based on the memoir of the same name by the writer and pacifist Vera Brittain from 1933. It mainly deals with the role of women in Great Britain and Brittain's work as a volunteer nurse in various hospitals during the First World War .
The film premiered on October 14, 2014 at the London Film Festival and was first shown in UK cinemas on January 16, 2015. Testament of Youth was not shown in theaters in Germany, but was released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 22nd of the same year.
action
Vera Brittain would like to go to the University of Oxford with her brother Edward and his two friends Roland Leighton and Victor Richardson in order to break away from their conservative parents in Buxton . Against the opposition of her father Thomas, she enrolls at Somerville College , which is part of Oxford, and passes the entrance exam. She starts a relationship with Roland, who shares her passion for literature and poetry and is the first person to encourage her to write, even though she knows Victor is in love with her too.
Shortly afterwards, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary dies in an assassination attempt , which breaks out the First World War. With the support of his sister, Edward is able to convince his father to let him go to war. Roland and Victor join him, Roland arrives first on the western front . When the newspaper publishes a list of names of fallen soldiers, Vera decides to drop out of college to join the Voluntary Aid Detachment as a volunteer nurse and care for the wounded in a British hospital.
Edward and Victor, who are still in basic training, await their war effort with excitement and enthusiasm. When Roland is on leave from the front and visits Vera, he tells her about his work in the trenches . This claims many deaths every day, because of the brutality of the conflict Roland is already severely traumatized . He proposes to Vera and promises to marry her on his next vacation. At the end of 1915 she received a letter from him stating that his vacation was approved and that he was safe, far from the front. Vera is expecting Roland at Christmas when the phone rings and his mother tearfully tells her that Roland has fallen.
The army informs Vera and Roland's family that he died bravely in battle and did not suffer long. George Catlin, a comrade of the deceased, later confesses the truth to Vera: Roland died a slow, painful death in Louvencourt from a shot in the stomach. Shortly afterwards, Victor is admitted to Vera's hospital. He was badly wounded in the head and is blind. She makes him a marriage proposal so that he won't be left alone and Edward would have wanted it that way. Victor declines thanks before he dies suddenly of his injury.
In 1917, Vera asked to be transferred to France so that she could be near her brother. Her first job is to take care of wounded Germans, which Vera is reluctant to do at first. During her mission, she sees the misery of the wounded and comes to the conclusion that the enemy soldiers are hardly any different from their own, as many of them also suffer and ultimately die. Vera finds Edward among the seriously injured and saves his life. After his recovery, she is relieved because he is sent to the supposedly safer Italian front. Before leaving, he made her promise to resume her studies at Oxford after the war.
Vera returns home after her mother has had a nervous breakdown. That day the family receives a telegram informing them of Edward's death. With the death of Geoffrey Thurlow, another friend of her brother's, Vera lost all the young men who were close to her.
A year later the war is over, but Vera cannot and does not want to celebrate the armistice . She is plagued by nightmares in which Roland and Edward are killed. Winifred Holtby , a fellow student, helps her cope with her losses.
Shortly after the end of the war, Vera attends a city meeting to discuss how Germany should be punished for the war. George Catlin argues that the basic idea of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, could only spark another war, causing displeasure from most of those present. Vera steps in front of the crowd herself and admits that she should never have persuaded her father to allow her brother to do military service. She reports that she held the hand of a dying German soldier who was no different from Roland or Edward. She says that the deaths of the fallen would not have been in vain only if the survivors unite and reject war and thirst for revenge together.
At the end of the film, Vera, who now takes pacifist views, promises her deceased friends that she will not forget them. In the end credits, a dedication for the real Roland Leighton, Victor Richardson, Geoffrey Thurlow and Edward Brittain as well as their birth and death years is faded in.
production
In February 2009, BBC Films announced that it had commissioned a literary film adaptation of the autobiography Testament of Youth by British writer Vera Brittain. The BBC had produced a five-episode television series back in 1979 based on the book. This was first broadcast on BBC Two and was shown for the first time in Germany under the title Testament einer Jugend in 1981 on ZDF .
Both Shirley Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby , daughter of Vera Brittain, and Brittain's biographer Mark Bostridge supported the planned film adaptation, and Bostridge acted as a consultant for the producers.
In December 2013 it was announced that the film would be released in 2014 on the occasion of the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. In addition, BBC Films announced that not Saoirse Ronan , as originally planned , but Alicia Vikander will play the title role.
The filming in the university took place on the campus of Merton College , as this is much closer to the original location in contrast to today's Somervile College. Other locations included London , Oxford , Yorkshire , a station on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway , Robin Hood's Bay and the Welbeck Abbey country house .
Colin Morgan , who plays a blind soldier in the film, interviewed visually impaired veterans in preparation for his role and completed a one-day training session at the Brighton Center run by the Blind Veterans UK charity .
reception
In the Internet Movie Database, the film was rated 7.3 out of ten stars based on 22,939 votes. On Rotten Tomatoes it received a critic rating of 84 percent (average seven out of ten points), the user rating is 78 percent (average 3.9 out of five points). At Metacritic , the production received an average of 76 points out of 100 from the critics, the users gave an average of 7.7 out of ten points.
“With Testament of Youth, director James Kent succeeds in creating an extremely impressive historical drama that tells a deeply emotional and extremely tragic story without any pathos or melodramatic impact, which not only heralds the loss of innocence of an entire generation. Thanks to an unusual perspective and a wonderfully acting Alicia Vikander a heart-touching and equally thought-provoking story of love and suffering. "
“ Testament of Youth is a stunning, meticulously crafted film that brings Vera Brittain's memoir to life. Basically the most depressing part of it is that almost a hundred years after this war, human nature is still the same and the Testament of Youth is as relevant as ever. "
Awards
In 2014 Alicia Vikander was nominated for Best Actress at the British Independent Film Awards 2014 , while Taron Egerton received a nomination for Best British Newcomer at the London Film Festival . The following year the director James Kent in the category was Breakthrough British Filmmaker at the London Critics Circle Film Awards nominations, Alicia Vikander received in 2016 for her performances in Testament of Youth , Ex Machina and The Danish Girl award Best Breakthrough Performance of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists .
synchronization
The dubbing of the film was done at Berliner Synchron based on a dialogue book and directed by Dirk Müller.
| role | actor | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Vera Brittain | Alicia Vikander | Yvonne Greitzke |
| Roland Leighton | Kit Harington | Tobias Nath |
| Victor Richardson | Colin Morgan | Florian Hoffmann |
| Edward Brittain | Taron Egerton | Constantin von Jascheroff |
| Mr. Brittain | Dominic West | Oliver Siebeck |
| Mrs. Brittain | Emily Watson | Arianne Borbach |
| Aunt Belle | Joanna Scanlan | Sabine Walkenbach |
| Hope | Hayley Atwell | Silvia Missbach |
| George Catlin | Henry Garrett | Simon Derksen |
| Geoffrey Thurlow | Jonathan Bailey | Michael Baral |
| Winifred Holtby | Alexandra Roach | Angelina Geisler |
| Mrs. Leighton | Anna Chancellor | Denise Gorzelanny |
| Miss Lorimer | Miranda Richardson | Marion Musiol |
| Mr. Leighton | Nicholas Le Prevost | Werner Böhnke |
| Sister jones | Niamh Cusack | Sabine Mazay |
Web links
- Testament of Youth in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of Release for Testament of Youth . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2015 (PDF; test number: 153 776 V).
- ↑ Anita Singh: Vera Brittain to be subject of film. In: Telegraph. February 13, 2009, accessed February 14, 2019 .
- ^ Nancy Tartaglione: Saoirse Ronan Attached To 'Testament Of Youth'; Simon Curtis Preps 'Golden Lady'. In: Deadline. May 20, 2012, accessed March 16, 2014 .
- ↑ Baz Bamigboye: A testament to the lost generation. In: Daily Mail. December 19, 2013, accessed February 14, 2019 .
- ^ Alison Rowley: Filming begins on World War I memoir Testament of Youth. In: Digital Spy. March 16, 2014, accessed February 14, 2019 .
- ^ Blindness training with actor Colin Morgan for Testament of Youth film. In: Blind Veterans UK. January 23, 2015, accessed February 14, 2019 .
- ↑ Testament Of Youth (2015). In: Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved February 14, 2019 .
- ^ Testament of Youth. In: Metacritic. Retrieved February 14, 2019 .
- ^ Wulf Bengsch: Review: Testament of Youth (film) . In: medienjournal-blog.de . October 9, 2018. Retrieved February 15, 2019.
- ↑ Peter Osteried: Testament of Youth . In: kino-zeit.de . October 22, 2015. Retrieved February 15, 2019.
- ↑ Winners The Awards 2014. In: bifa.film. Retrieved February 15, 2019 .
- ^ The 58th BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express® announces full 2014 program. In: Bfi.org. September 4, 2014, accessed February 15, 2019 .
- ↑ Guy Lodge: 'Mr. Turner, '' Birdman 'Top London Critics' Nominations. In: Variety. December 16, 2014, accessed February 15, 2019 .
- ↑ Laura Berger: Alliance of Women Film Journalists' EDA Winners: 'Carol,' 'Mad Max,' Kristen Stewart and More. In: Indiewire. January 13, 2016, accessed February 15, 2019 .
- ↑ German synchronous index | Movies | Testament of Youth. Retrieved February 14, 2019 .