Reverence for the Feminine
A BNP-fantasy of an England (not a Britain) that never was - precariously-recreated in a Los Angeles suburb. This home-front war movie purports to represent a happy, easy-going England
where class-consciousness thrives, yet everyone somehow gets along in the temporary cessation of class hostilities for the duration of said war.
The deluded-inability to explain the source of the affluence on show here (the north Atlantic slave trade, the British Empire, etc) accurately reflects Whites’ common self-deceptions about their own history. The self-indulgent, living-beyond-their-means theme is all-too-typical of those whose culture is based upon White supremacy, psychological rapine, economic exploitation and cultural parasitism. Along with the usual reality-evasive claim that such affluence is simply a matter of luck.
The allegedly-English accents displayed here for us to admire are varied and sometimes quite funny - unless spoken by English expatriate actors. This is emphasized by Westerners’ tendency to talk about their emotions rather than to feel them, in this mid-Atlantic idiom of flattened vowels and non-geographically specific accents.
Culturally, this film says to US audiences that the English are just like us; that is, there is little insight here into actual Englishness. In that sense, this movie is an example of the German cultural imperialism it pretends to attack. Whose freedom is being preserved here? Like all the best agitprop, this is all things to all men.
Greer GARSON (&, to a lesser-extent, Teresa WRIGHT) is the eye of the emotional hurricane in this drama. She delivers a deeply-felt performance in her eponymous role - one not without sly humor; creating a believable married relationship between herself and Walter PIDGEON; and almost making us believe that the war between racist imperialisms (World War 2) is one Americans should get fully-involved with.
It is in its reverence for the feminine that this film really scores. Underneath all the propagandist hogwash (eg, the ahistorical grandeur of the small boats’ rescue at Dunkirk), there is a profound story of a functional family in adverse circumstances pulling through and together with strong doses of phlegmatism and appropriately-stiff upper lips.
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