Spit­fire

Britain is in the grip of a renewed jin­go­ism – as things fall apart, the nation holds on to past glo­ries. In this film cel­e­brat­ing the cen­te­nary of the Roy­al Air Force, doc­u­men­tar­i­ans David Fair­head and Ant Palmer have set their sights on the Spit­fire as an emblem for nation­al rem­i­nis­cence. Their inter­vie­wees, from mod­ern day fight­er pilots and muse­um cura­tors to sur­viv­ing squadron mem­bers, repeat­ed­ly describe this machine of war as ​“beau­ti­ful” – an anachro­nism that just doesn’t feel right anymore.

The trou­ble with Spit­fire the doc­u­men­tary is that it is beau­ti­ful. John Dibbs’ aer­i­al pho­tog­ra­phy is spec­tac­u­lar, his footage of planes dart­ing through the sky wor­thy of Christo­pher Nolan’s Dunkirk. Its widescreen splen­dour is expert­ly inter­cut with archival news­reels, mir­rored in tran­si­tions from World War Two announc­ers to the boom­ing tones Charles Dance’s nar­ra­tion. It ends up work­ing bet­ter as a piece of cin­e­ma than as a source of information.

Giv­en that this film is most like­ly to attract an old­er audi­ence, it might get away with its dra­mat­ic ren­der­ing. For an out­sider, the bom­bast and blus­ter are grat­ing – clouds dark­en at the men­tion of the Luft­waffe as a thun­der­ing score plays over a muf­fled Hitler speech. There are no Ger­mans inter­vie­wees reflect­ing on how they felt about the RAF, and while it is not­ed that RJ Mitchell’s orig­i­nal design was like­ly stolen from the ene­my, its inclu­sion feels more a nig­gling oblig­a­tion than a com­mit­ment to objectivity.

Still, there is an unde­ni­able charm to the cohort of nona­ge­nar­i­ans shar­ing their sto­ries. Some of them are moral­ly con­flict­ed over their sense of pride, while oth­ers feel lit­tle shame in rel­ish­ing the moment they shot down their first ene­my plane. The Bat­tle of Britain to D‑Day are retold with bouts of ​“tal­ly-ho!” and ​“cock-a-hoop!”, cap­tur­ing a nos­tal­gia that no longer feels appro­pri­ate for dis­cus­sions of war. But we have to hear them out, in their own terms, because this might be the last oppor­tu­ni­ty they get. Despite con­tem­po­rary mis­giv­ings, it is a fine film with which to remem­ber them.