Commissioned by London’s Imperial War Museum, Peter Jackson’s stunning documentary They Shall Not Grow Old examines the life of British infantrymen during World War I. Using only the museum’s 100 hours of WWI footage, the film is a technical marvel: film speeds regularized, colorization minutely correct, sound design profoundly moving. Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame) presents living, breathing soldiers—not the grainy, herky-jerky shadows of the past.
The technological brilliance of the film is matched by its deep humanity: the shocking immediacy of seeing this footage anew asks us, 100 years on, to re-see war itself. (Warner Bros.)
