Munich — The Edge of War: Persuasive period espionage

Munich — The Edge of War (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for profanity, dramatic intensity and brief violence

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

British journalist-turned-novelist Robert Harris has written numerous works of suspenseful historical fiction, several of which have been transformed into equally tension-laden films; 2001’s Enigma and 2010’s The Ghost Writer immediately come to mind.

 

British Prime Minister Neville Chamerlain (Jeremy Irons, seated) goes over newspaper
reports of German activities with his aide and translator, Hugh Legat (George MacKay).

Director Christian Schwochow and scripter Ben Power have done an equally fine job with their adaptation of Munich. Their handling of this World War II-based nail-biter, thanks in great part to the way cinematographer Frank Lamm frames many of his shots, has the retro atmosphere of classic 1960s Cold War thrillers such as The Spy Who Came In from the Cold and The Ipcress File.

The result so cunningly blurs the line between fact and fiction, that it’s often difficult to determine which is which.

 

This story also has extremely disturbing parallels to current real-world events, which evoke Spanish philosopher George Santayana’s timeless quote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

 

A brief prologue, set in 1932, introduces reserved Brit Hugh Legat (George MacKay) and passionate German Paul von Hartman (Jannis Niewöhner), who’ve bonded during their university years at Oxford. Both clearly love the impish Lenya (Liv Lisa Fries), although she’s probably too free-spirited for the buttoned-down Hugh.

 

Events shift to the autumn of 1938. Hugh has become a civil servant attached to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (Jeremy Irons), in offices also occupied by the latter’s principal private secretary, Sir Osmund Cleverly (Mark Lewis Jones); Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs Sir Alexander Cadogan (Nicholas Farrell); and senior government official Sir Horace Wilson (Alex Jennings).

 

(All, with the exception of Legat, are key historical figures.)

 

Paul has become a German diplomat and clandestine anti-Nazi. He and Hugh haven’t spoken or seen each other during the past several years (for reasons revealed in a later flashback).

 

Tension is high, because Adolf Hitler has mobilized forces at the Czech border, with the intention of claiming the Sudetenland, a region with 3 million Germans. Should this take place, the British and French will be forced to unite and defend the Czechs, plunging Europe into war.

 

With the horrors of World War I still fresh in every British citizen’s mind, this is not a desirable outcome.

Dream Horse: A crowd-pleasing winner

Dream Horse (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.28.21 

Nothing beats the triumphant emotional rush of a well-crafted underdog story.

 

Except, perhaps, an under-horse story.

 

Particularly one based quite closely on actual events.

 

You just can't beat the excitement of birth, as Jan (Toni Collette) and Brian (Owen Teale)
discover, when their new foal enters the world.

Welsh director Euros Lyn’s Dream Horse is the feel-good film of spring: a timely reminder of the amazing things that can be accomplished when people unite for a common cause. Scripter Neil McKay, gifted with an already incredible true story, has populated these events with the sort of quirky, colorful, small-town residents and eccentrics who pop up in whimsical dramedies such as Gregory’s Girl, The Closer You Get and The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain.

That many of Lyn’s actors are portraying real people, is the icing on the cake.

 

The time is just before the turn of the 21st century, the setting the depressed hamlet of Cefn Fforest in South Wales, fallen on hard times since the closure of its nearby mines. The indefatigable Jan Vokes (Toni Collette) rises at dawn every morning, in order to wash the floors and then work register at a local mega-market; in the evenings, she tends bar at a workingmen’s club.

 

In between, somehow, she looks after her elderly parents and her arthritic husband, Brian (Owen Teale). In her free time (!), as a lifelong animal lover, she raises rabbits, whippets, ducks and even prize-winning pigeons.

 

One evening, she chances to hear a conversation led by club patron Howard Davies (Damian Lewis), while he waxes eloquent about the trials and tribulations — and expense — of raising race horses. Captivated by the notion, despite its complete impracticality, Jan immerses herself in horse lore and pumps Howard for additional information.

 

Fully aware that she’d never be able to buy a racing thoroughbred, Jan opts for the alternative of creating one, by purchasing an undistinguished mare for £300 and installing it in a makeshift stable in her garden. But breeding and then training a racehorse will require much, much more money.

 

Her solution: to enlist the financial support of local townsfolk, via a co-ownership syndicate. On the appointed evening — having mounted and distributed flyers throughout the community — Jan, Brian and Howard nervously wait for somebody to arrive.

 

They ultimately wind up with a motley collection of 23 villagers, each of whom agrees to contribute £10 per week, in service of this wild scheme. Several of these individuals are unemployed and on the dole; others barely make ends meet in their own small businesses. But all are inspired by Jan’s passion, and by the tantalizing notion — however unlikely — of raising and then racing a champion horse.