Director: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
The Small Back Room is a strange film - I don't know whether it is a great bad movie or a bad great movie. A British film set during World War II, it concerns a disabled scientist involved in weapons development. I shall break down what is good or bad:
The Bad: The plot seems to go nowhere. The film wants us to care deeply about this main character, but we're not given very much to care about. Other characters just seem to drop in and out. The film has satirical targets, but it doesn't exactly hit those either. I may just not know enough about wartime Britain to understand what goes on here. I also think I am panning the film for not being Hollywoodized - it doesn't hit all the notes we would expect a film about a scientist to hit.
The Good: The film's camera work is extremely interesting. Scenes are staged in a way that shows someone put a lot of thought into how a film should look and sound. Stylistically, one wishes that films still employed this sort of look and feel.
I imagine this film caused an uproar in its day, but we live in a post-Strangelove world; political and military satire will never be shocking again.
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