London is literally on fire Steve McQueen‘s Lightening — you didn’t even have a second to catch your breath before this World War II movie opened media disaster and the sound of hell fills your ears. It is September 1940 and bombs are falling on Blighty with alarming regularity. While firefighters are trying to control a fire that has destroyed a building, one of the hoses slips from a man’s hand. He violently knocks her out and starts spraying everything However The fire circles around the stage like a snake of its own free will. Meanwhile, someone appears to be slowly turning up the volume of the audio mix and rage, making it feel like you’re being subjected to an auditory assault that mirrors what’s happening on screen. Cut to: above the city, as another round of bombing begins – but as seen from the perspective of the falling weapons. Everything soon turns into a flurry of static images straight out of Stan Brakhage’s back catalogue. The noise is getting louder and louder…

Then: silence. A field of flowers. Everything went from being truly deaf to dead silent. The whiplash effect from noise to zero is enough to make you wish they would hand out neck braces at the door. (Note: The film is distributed by Apple and will have a brief theatrical release on November 1, followed by streaming. AppleTV+ On November 22. Considering the immersive experience Lightening We strongly recommend watching it in the cinema if possible, in the hope that it will give viewers an idea.)

McQueen made his name as a visual artist before turning to film production. assembles site-specific installations – and these initial scenes of chaos and eerie peace remind you that his roots in that world run deep. The use of space, time, and strangely beautiful images of pain and aggression works like this: Hunger (2008) and Shame (2011) turned into something akin to gallery-worthy haymakers; these remained such important parts of his cinematic aesthetic that even when he was working on a literary adaptation 12 Years a Slave (2013), there is a sense of something experiential happening in and around the narrative. Just because his movies engage your amygdala with signifiers of high art doesn’t mean they won’t also punch you in the gut.

Helps you keep all this in mind while watching lightening, this – after that tense introduction and some environmental interludes during the battle – settles into parallel channels that are destined to eventually merge. The opening disclaimer tells us that 1.25 million Londoners were evacuated during Germany’s months-long operation lightning attack Approximately half of the attacks on the city were children. One such child, a nine-year-old named George (Elliott Heffernan), is sent to the country by his mother, Rita (Saoirse Ronan). After a close call involving crowds and locked subway doors, he asks to sit out the rest of the battle in a much safer environment. He chooses to face the bombings with his mother and grandfather (Paul Wellerformer singer Jam and Style Council) at home.

Nevertheless, Rita puts the lad on a train to the countryside with dozens of other young people. As for himself, he stubbornly returns to his job at a munitions factory, doing his best to stay calm and carry on. A few hours into the journey, after taking on some bullies and befriending the girl sitting across from him, George calmly packs his things and walks towards one of the train doors. Then he jumps, crashes to the ground, and points toward London, still smoldering in the distance.

It takes some time for Rita to learn that George has escaped. But Ronan gives you a portrait of a mother second-guessing every decision she makes, still grieving the loss of George’s father, and stuck in a rut, before finding out that she never made it to her destination and is scouring the city for her missing child. Existential rut when you’re not just trying to survive. The Irish actor excels in the kind of roles that require grace under pressure, and unsurprisingly he uses Rita’s resilience and steady demeanor as a counterweight to both the anxiety within her and the bustle around her. And yet he is responsible LighteningHeffernan takes on the boys’ adventure half of the equation. It’s a story of two subgenres, both of which can’t seem to fully serve as they have to jostle for space. You can see why those who have seen McQueen’s past works as radical and downright revolutionary have labeled this his most conventional film to date and, from their jaded perspective, a disappointment.

However, to completely dismiss this as a director’s version of a patriotic, old-school Rank Organization war movie is to ignore the much more interesting film taking place right under your nose. All you have to do is keep your eyes open. Telling us not just one but two extremely familiar stories, McQueen then goes on to fill both of them with details, events and supporting players. Some fall flat, like an encounter in a shelter that equates homegrown racism with German diversity—the fact that it’s based on an actual confrontation makes it feel no less didactic or less justified. Others, like the Dickensian gang of thieves who briefly let George in, feel as if they’ve been flown in from a college production. Oliver Twist. Even Stephen Graham’s one-episode portrayal of Fagin and three episodes of Bill Sikes playing the arch-criminal can’t save these sequences.

But then there’s Rita’s “Winter Coat” (for the movie, McQueen and Nicholas Britell) for BBC Radio, it ends with fellow workers storming the stage and demanding greater access to the underground tunnels during the attacks. And George walks past shops where a mural of masters and slaves makes interesting the country’s colonial legacy. And not one but two acts of kindness that hide betrayals, proving that people can’t be trusted. It’s a strange, long detour through a swanky nightclub full of jazz and swagger that initially seems like a pointless period show – until George finds himself walking there after an explosion and becomes the epitome of the good life. mass grave. Not to mention a hot spot for mass grave robberies.

These secondary works of tearful reunion arguably underline the real driving force here; While Britain was under siege, it was also a nation at war with itself. Compared to the anguish and ecstasy displayed in McQueen’s extraordinary work Hatchet Celebrating the UK’s diaspora culture while forcing the country to reckon with its institutionally racist past, this collection may seem like weak tea. However, the silent breach of the myth of solidarity in the Second World War on the home front creates a shock to the system almost as much as the shooting and massacre. This ain’t Blitz sensory overload storm and trouble It leaves you breathless. This is a sneak attack.