Benediction (2022)

 

            “Benediction” is a film by esteemed British director Terence Davies.  It was his last film before his death.  He also wrote the screenplay.  It delves into the post-WWI life of the poet Siegfried Sassoon.  Sassoon is one of the most famous WWI poets, but his experiences at the front and his homosexuality affected his life at a time when men were supposed to keep quiet about their demons and stay in the closet.    

            The movie begins with narration by Sassoon (Jack Lowden;  Peter Capaldi plays the elderly Sassoon) over footage from the war.  Sassoon is in a mental hospital because of his shell shock (what we call post-traumatic stress disorder) and his open criticism of the war effort.  He sends a letter to his mother in which he tells her he is in a hospital for “trench fever”.  It’s another letter that gets him in trouble.  He writes a letter about the war which became known as the “Soldier’s Declaration”.  He claims the war was being “deliberately prolonged” and the goals were “evil and unjust”.  There is also a “callous complacency” at home.  The film then does a time jump to an elderly Sassoon converting to Catholicism in an attempt to find meaning and salvation in his life.  The scenes set in the hospital chronicle his relationships with Dr. William Rivers (Ben Daniels).  Rivers was a psychiatrist who worked with PTSD patients, of whom Sassoon was the most famous.  Sassoon becomes a mentor to Wilfred Owen (Matthew Tennyson), another Great War poet.  The post-war years are marked by a series of homosexual affairs. In spite of this, Sassoon gets married and tries to conform to what is expected of a British male.  The tug of war between what is expected of a decorated war veteran and what his heart wants causes him to be an unhappy man.

            The film has a nonlinear structure which strikes me as being unnecessary and chosen by Davies to impress cinephiles.  The movie starts out compellingly with Sassoon in the hospital during the most significant stretch in his life.  But most of the rest of the movie is set in his less interesting post-war life.  The focus on his homosexuality taps into the 21^st Century fascination with LBGTQ issues.  But the world does not know Sassoon as a gay man as much as he is noted for being one of the greatest poets of his time.  The decision to look into his private life may have been forced by “Regeneration”.  That companion to this movie covered the period when he was in the hospital very well, so Davies may have felt he had to concentrate on Sassoon’s later life.  It’s a life of vain attempts to find a place for himself in British society.  The movie has several famous figures walk across the stage.  T.E. Lawrence is at Sassoon’s wedding.  Sassoon does not have an affair with him, but he does have affairs with several upper-class cultural figures.  The dialogue is strewn with many bitchy comments as Sassoon and his paramours are not always on good terms.  He comes off as the wronged party in most cases, but then he marries for the wrong reason.  However, his wife was under no illusion about what she was getting.  The film has a melancholy aura.

            The strength of the film is that it manages to get seven of Sassoon’s (and two of Owen’s) poems in through narration.  And this is better than simply reading them.  Unfortunately, you have to watch an overly long movie to get the poetry.  I recommend watching “Regeneration” before this film.  “Benediction” is a decent sequel, but covers less interesting territory.  If you want to know what inspired Sassoon’s poetry the earlier film does that.  If you want to know how his homosexuality impacted his life after the war, this is the movie for you.

 

GRADE  =  C-