Nonureva Really Surprised!

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Teringer An Exercise In Nonsense

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

Myriam Nys The subject matter itself is deeply interesting : it's a riveting tragicomic story of wit, bravery and resilience under the very worst of circumstances. I'm not sure, however, that the movie rises completely to the challenge. It lacks something - some spark of life, fire, madness.Still, there are many things to like, such as fine jokes and puns. The hard-bitten war correspondent writing from the inside of a bottle - pardon, battle - is an accurate piece of satire. It is a sad testimony to our modern times, that this kind of "reporting" has turned into an epidemic : thanks to advances in technology, every dishonest couch potato between the ages of 8 and 88 can (and will) write/twitter/blog/whatever about events taking place in a remote village in Sudan, with an air of great authenticity and authority.There is also a well-considered sepia palette, which permits a seamless blending with actual historic images. The sight of thousands upon thousands of men navigating the ruins of once delightful cities or moldering away in fetid mud is enough to wring tears from a stone.The movie shows the power, but also the limits of satire. The "Wipers" gazette tries to puncture the pride, indifference and incompetence of high-ranking officials and officers. But does it succeed in effecting real change ? One gets the impression that the brass simply continues on its merry way : no general changes his habits, is kicked out of the army or shoots himself. Worse : the more clever officers graciously allow the gazette to exist, realizing that the men need to vent their anger now and then. Thus the satire is co-opted by the very system it tries to correct and chastise.It's an age-old mechanism, known even to the old Romans : every now and then there was a festival where women could lord it over men and slaves could lord it over masters. There was freedom in the air and dancing in the streets. The next day it was back to business - and it were the slaves, not the masters, who had to clean up the vomit. Or think of the Catholic Church, which, in medieval times, allowed set occasions of misrule, complete with anti-bishops, lunatic processions and fake masses.The movie would have been better and braver if it had dared to examine this question outright, rather than suggest it obliquely.

Donald Buehler A delightfully different look at The Great War. The mud, terror, futility of the Great War is well known - even among today's high school students, I trust. But it was not without its moments - the 1914 Christmas truce; collaborations on the front line (we'll send a few bombs over at the same time each day just to keep our Officers happy - make sure you take cover); and the Wipers Times.This is the story of two enterprising British officers (Cpt. Fred Roberts and Lt. J.H. Pearson) who sought to relieve the misery of the front line with humor and sarcasm - especially pointed at the British General Staff officers - by publishing a periodical. Those who know much about the Great War know it was a exercise in futility and incompetence - especially demonstrated by those who were leading the conflict - on both sides. If you are interested in the futility of the war read "Back to the Front" by Stephen O'Shea - a scathing indictment of the British General Staff in WWI.While The Wipers Times reflects this incompetence, it focuses on the ability of two men to make fun of the situation on the Western Front by sarcastically pointing out the inconsistencies, hypocrisies, elitism and disregard for the "Tommys" (the troops who were actually fighting the war), by those leading the war.Throughout the drama, the total lack of "getting it" was demonstrated by Lt. Col Howfield as he expressed outrage at the jokes and barbs being made about the war and especially at the expense of the General Staff. He regularly approached his superior, General Mitford (played by Michael Palin - who surely recognizes a joke when he sees it) with outrage about the content of the front line periodical. To his credit Mitford saw the humor and benefit of the times and supported it.One of the highlights of the film is when Howland launches a surprise inspection of Captain Fred Roberts' post - suspecting that Roberts was responsible for the Times. The dialogue between Howland and Roberts was hysterical - demonstrating that in more ways than one - the General Staff did not "get it." The acting is good, the staging superb. Although not on the same plane as "Great War Diaries" or "Beneath Hill 60" - both superb dramas about the War, this film makes a fitting contribution to understanding the Great War. Soldiers on the front line live the absurdities of war and embrace the gallows humor that war brings. We civilians get a small glimpse of it in this drama.If you like the Great War or clever use of words, you will enjoy this film.You can read edition 1 of The Wipers Times at http://www.welt.de/bin/wipers-152118514.pdfDonB

trimmerb1234 Ian Hislop is best known as editor of the long running "Private Eye" magazine - satirical; in its earlier days at least, fairly irreverent and often in (expensive) conflict with the rich and powerful. The team were witty, well-educated fellows often from good schools and families having a great deal of fun tweaking noses in a quite tolerant society during an extraordinarily long period of peace and prosperity when satire quickly became the mainstream.Ian Hislop's central and dreadful misconception/misportrayal/conceit is that The Wipers Times was an early version of Private Eye - run by two witty satirical officers for their own and the troop's amusement, raising morale by satirising Army superiors but jeopardising their prospects of promotion by their impish irreverent nose-tweaking and mockery - ie how Hislop would see himself. But neither the times of Wipers Times nor the context could possibly have been more different to those of Private Eye. Nor the conditions under which each worked. The Wipers Times was produced for WW1 troops in their stinking trenches, in constant fear of death but also under martial law where cowardice - widely interpreted - was punishable by death. As was mutiny or insubordination. It was a life or death struggle, with a rigid hierarchy of command where all was sacrificed to victory, where a horse was more valuable than soldier (they cost more in transport and upkeep). Troop morale however was vital so that they would continue to be willing to fight and die. How to achieve improved morale was the question In these harshest of conditions with the narrowest of focus - victory whatever it cost - it is inconceivable that, as portrayed in the film, two officers would be allowed to distribute an under the counter satirical publication lampooning senior officers etc without it being first intensely scrutinised, discussed then officially sanctioned. What was unusual was that there was a senior officer able to understand its contribution to morale and willing and able to convince his superiors of what was a very risky enterprise. In the film all the Stephen Fry character is required to possess is a robust sense of humour. I believe the two officers combined this with their normal duties. If, as in this film, they appeared to have chosen a soft option, or pushed themselves forward, troops who had no such choices would have strongly resented it. Contrary to the film, The Wipers Times did not make celebrities of the two officers, instead it promoted modest but authentic contributions from ordinary soldiers and thus appeared to be the voice of the ordinary soldier - which in reality it was not. Any hint of condescension or aloofness by these two officers - as appears in the film where one casually mocks the social ignorance of a lower rank - might have been, possibly literally, fatal for them. Contrary to the film and verifying its central misconception, the two officers were neither punished nor discriminated against after the war (both had MCs). They had done their duty and more. The troops had fought and died and none had mutinied. The Wipers Times had fulfilled its officially sanctioned purpose - but it had brought happiness, laughter and an easing of the burden along the way.Ian Hislop is a good popular historian of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It seems he was seduced by the enobling heroic notion that his comfortable late 20th Century satire had its ancestry in the horrors of the WW1 trenches and those two self-effacing officers. The film turned these two men into Private Eye in khaki, worse still, the characters were portrayed as attractive and professional entertainers. Such an idea worked in Oh What a Lovely War. It doesn't work here which cries out for a realistic treatment of a true and important story, giving some idea of the actual characters of these two officers. For all its production values, it is awful.

ericnottelling While I did like the history of this mans story, I found the movie to be a bit dry. I'm sure in the historical period, the jokes on this may have been funny, but there is a total loss in translation. The acts and sketches were not funny at all. Wish they would have made this more of a stitch. It would have been nice to realize your audience is not in 1918. Your living in a day with movies like the hang over. The historical sense of the movie is nice, and I guess going for the idea of keeping it historical has some relevance but they movie was not filmed in such a manor. It was filmed in a way that they were hoping for a laugh. Which frankly didn't happen.