Apart from making me wonder if I am on the same planet as everyone else, the ludicrously low 6.3 average so far achieved here by James Kent's "The Aftermath" compels me to resort to a 10 in my scoring, as opposed to the 9 (or 9.5) I would otherwise have chosen. It also begs a question as to what on Earth people expect from a film!

To my rather seasoned eye, "The Aftermath" looks a bit like a film a Polish maker would make (on this subject) ... and hopefully it will be clear that that is a strong compliment to Mr Kent, and indeed to Ridley Scott who got behind this as one of the Producers.

To be fair, this movie scores hugely on its setting and story, and that means that plenty of the credit goes out to Rhidian Brook, whose book of the same title made a love story out of a real circumstance in the life of his grandfather and father - that's respectively Colonel Walter Brook and Anthony (or Kim?) Brook. In essence, Col. Brook became Governor of Pinneburg, close to a largely-ruined city of Hamburg, and elected to ignore orders about "fraternising" by sharing the mansion allotted to him with businessman owner Wilhelm Ladiges and his wife and children. It may perhaps be no coincidence that Brook's WW1 service (yes he fought then too ... as a Sergeant) was alongside Lawrence of Arabia...

The book and film story depart from this picture in a lot of ways (not least - and tellingly - in the way that the Ladiges-like Stefan Lubert - here played by Alexander Skarsgard - is no businessman, but an architect); but step back and think of the enormity from today's perspective of the basic idea - of a British Army guy running a whole section of a key German city, just like many, many of his counterparts were doing across a big chunk of Germany in the British Zone of Occupation. Some areas within that were assigned to the Poles and Belgians too. As we know, while they are no longer "Occupying" in any sense at all, there are still over 2000 British forces in Germany in 2019, and will be a few left even in 2020.

Obviously, it is stunning to think of all this from today's perspective, and an absolutely underexplored topic in film (though note some/many similarities with the great 1961 movie "Judgment at Nuremberg" - featuring Spencer Tracy as a judge sent to the American sector).

While Brook's book supplied the idea, and the core of truth in this film, it did not garner unstinting praise, e.g. for its quality of writing. So the film moves us forward - as the script is effective and erudite, while the romantic and other tensions are tangible, up to and including erotic content. Equally, the movie is capable of offering some amazing settings - the mansion itself, but also a "reconstruction" (as it were) of the ruins of Hamburg that the RAF (and to an extent USAF) had not so long previously (esp. in July 1943) turned into a firestorm. Britain sent 787 bombers in one night then, generating 150mph winds through a fire reaching 800°C that killed 40,000 (not least from carbon monoxide poisoning) and ruined almost everything.

How to possibly create a set that gives some impression of "the aftermath" of that? Well the film does remarkably well in this regard, and of course it is prepared to include elements of British guilt for what has happened, even as it notes the mostly merciful approach taken by the British Occupants, who nevertheless run checks to spot former Nazis (real-life Colonel Brook presided over tribunals of this profile).

Anyone watching "The Aftermath" will necessarily contemplate how merciful occupying Germans in London would have been, had that alternate reality happened. Since Warsaw and so many other cities offer examples (as does "The Rape of Berlin" in the case of the behaviour of the occupying Red Army, BTW),our answer to that question looks fairly secure, and any scenes here in which Brits restrain themselves from attacking and humiliating Germans bring a patriotic tear to my British eye, as they rightly should. We did it our way, and anyone who doubts that Brtish Forces could possibly have been decent and efficient in that context should look online at the summary (at least) of Barbara Marshall's "German Attitudes to British Military Government 1945-1947".

There we read: "From sullen acceptance of military defeat and occupation the mood of the German population changed to one of intense criticism of the British, culminating in the summer of 1947 in a series of widespread strikes. This development was to some extent to be expected: no authority would have been popular which had to run the country in a period of destruction [...] However, the British had actually made tremendous efforts to provide basic transport and facilities, an achievement which was rightly termed 'British genius for improvisation under stress'. Moreover, only a considerable subsidy of 80M pounds a year out of British taxpayers' money kept up even the limited food supplies which reached Germany [...] a burden which led directly to the introduction of bread rationing in Britain in July 1946 [...] The Germans never fully recognized the extent of the British contribution to Germany's survival..."

It's clear the makers of "The Aftermath" have read Marshall's paper, as they EXACTLY epitomise the above lines in the content and atmosphere of their film - and that's a skill in itself.

In detail, the movie sets Col. Lewis Morgan (as the counterpart of the real-life Brook) in a triangle with his wife Rachael (played by Keira Knightley with her usual skill) and Skarsgard's Stefan Lubert. The Morgans have lost their son to a German raid over Britain, while Lubert lost his wife to the Allied onslaught. Lubert's daughter (obviously more potentially pro-Nazi than he, having grown up with Hitler's brainwashing) is in a mess in general, and consorts with a young guy from the "88" - a group of staunch Hitlerites (the 8th letter of the alphabet is H, so HH for Heil Hitler) who do not accept the defeat and continue to harry British soldiers, sometimes murderously.

A love-lust interest develops in this context, but I shall say little more about that as it is the core of the film, and done well, and clearly thought-provoking. While Australian Jason Clarke as Morgan seems conceivably a little uncertain with his accent, the role is an extremely grateful one, which Clarke mainly does with aplomb. When the need arises, Morgan proves both brave and extremely competent as a battle-hardened soldier, weak in dealing with his marital relationship, ever dutiful, but also merciful and keen to recognise that the war is over and the peace must now begin. It's very moving how a single role can sum up an entire nation-rebuilding philosophy.

Apparently when the real-life Col. Brook went home, the Germans presented him with a book about rebuilt bridges (literally and figuratively of course) - and this is all the more pithy given that a bridge in German is eine Brücke.

Colonel Jason Clarke moves with wife, Keira Knightley to Hamburg after the Second World War to work in the reconstruction of the city. Problems include the devastation, the Night Wolves who work to overthrow the Allied victory, and their dead marriage; their son died at 11 during the War, and Clarke did not come back for the funeral. Now they are living in a mansion with the owners, and Miss Knightley begins an affair with the man of the house.

It's an adventure story, of long periods of nothing happening, punctuated by chaos. Beautifully shot and performed, I found the periods of dullness, particularly in the scenes between Clarke and Miss Knightley, overwhelm the excitement. Like many works based on novels in the vein of Henry James, I find myself appalled at the cowardice of people being miserable and unwilling to do anything about it, and when they finally do, it seems futile.

N late 1945 Rachael Morgan (Keira Knightley) leaves London to join her Colonel husband (Jason Clarke) as the British occupy and rebuild Hamburg. They take over the house of an architect who lost a wife during the bombing. The Morgans likewise lost a son. Mr. Morgan is away a lot and didn't cry enough when their son died and it doesn't take much to read the tea leaves.

Keira Knightley gave an Oscar performance in a less than Oscar-worthy film. The background story was interesting that went nowhere. You were rooting for the "Disney" ending, yet it was so bland.

Guide: sex and nudity (Keira Knightley or double)