Regeneration

This film about World War I should have it quite easy because it depicts dramatic events from which countless stories can be drawn that take place on the edge. Unfortunately, this drama suffers from verbosity, and mediocrity, and is additionally affected by a socially limited perspective. It does not take place in the front trenches and does not depict bloody battles, but focuses on the psychological state of British officers in a sanatorium, where they are being treated for war trauma. It is a film shot from the perspective of the privileged people, who may bleed and die, but whose position is always incomparable to the experiences of the commoners in the trenches filled with filth, bugs, poor supplies, typhus, the stench of sweat, and urine. These privileged people do remember and sympathize with the ordinary soldiers, but it is the perspective of a nobleman who sympathizes with his subjects. The sanatorium is quite fancy, of course, because it is located in a castle estate, and there is plenty of time for philosophical contemplation, writing poems, and conversations about almost nothing. The war is only brought up in a few flashbacks of the horrors experienced and in the final farewell of the heroes in the epilogue. There are only two memorable scenes, one gruesome scene where a human eye ends up in the palm of a commanding officer, and then a scene of the German units surrendering on the front, where we see the exhausted resigned faces of fresh recruits and experienced war veterans. I'm only giving it a third star solely for the cast and the performances delivered by the actors. Overall impression: 50%. (10/06/2010)