Many films and books have focused on the World Wars, both the battles themselves and the effect on the home front. One particular aspect of World War II that inspired a lot of media was The Blitz, when Germany bombed many cities in the UK for months, forcing many parents to send their children to the countryside with their names tied around their necks. This scary moment in children’s lives kicks off several fantastical stories, like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and even Paddington. Those stories are one way of working through that trauma, and in their own ways, they do face battles, but Blitz by Steve McQueen takes a more pointed look at the battle on the home front itself and how even as it was under siege it was fighting a war with itself.
There is the old saying that history is written by the victors, and there’s often resistance to paint the victors in any negative light lest it somehow tarnishes the victor. But humans are not one dimensional, while they might be on the right side of one thing, they very much can be on the wrong side of another, sometimes even within the same battle. This can easily be seen when viewing Canada’s participation in WWII, Canada sent many soldiers to fight against the Nazis and the Holocaust but had a policy of refusing Jewish refugees. So, Canada helped save lives with one hand but refused to save lives with the other. Blitz is a heart-tugging movie about a mother (Rita, played by Saoirse Ronan) who doesn’t want to send her son (George, played by Elliott Heffernan) away but does to try and save him from The Blitz, and her son who regrets not telling her he loves her so he jumps the train to come home and goes on an odyssey to try and get back to her. But it’s through the scenes with Rita while she mourns the son, whom she thinks is safe but hates her and then believes to be lost, and with George as he struggles to get back to her that we see a picture of London during The Blitz that is not as often depicted.
We see the clubs, where people are just trying to pretend nothing is happening, that life is going on as usual, or that if they are going to die, they will go out doing what they love rather than cowering in their homes. We see people taking advantage of others’ tragedies. But we also see the companies that refuse to acknowledge that something terrible is happening and that they could save lives. The people had been doing their part, enlisting and rationing, but when they needed shelter from The Blitz, the government was reluctant to let people shelter in the Tube, and you have officers trying to clear them out because the station is closed, even as bombs are going off overhead, eventually locking those already inside so no other could get in. This is a side so often overlooked as you see more of the resilience, the stiff upper lip, the keep calm and carry on. And you still see that, with people putting on a puppet show to entertain the children or other performances to drown out the bombings above, but that doesn’t take away from the fact they were fighting against their own country to try and be safe; Steve McQueen doesn’t shy away from showing how that can lead to more loss of life.
Steve McQueen said he was inspired to tell the story when he found an image of a Black child at a train station waiting for evacuation and that the film is “about the fight for the right to exist.” A message that is unfortunately still timely.
Blitz is available on Apple TV+.
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