Rent Benjamin Britten: Peace and Conflict (2013)

Poignant and Revelatory - Benjamin Britten: Peace and Conflict review by CV

The acted part of the film focuses on Benjamin Britten as a pupil at Gresham's School where his friendships and influence of certain members of staff became formative influences on his own strong beliefs of pacifism which soon made outward expression in his composed music. The actor chosen to play young Britten captured excellently the shy and retiring but morally convicted young boy. I had wondered if the rest of the cast of young actors had been chosen from the present school for their own enrichment of the historical experience of portraying the questioning and reflecting of the inter-war years of the thirties contemporaneous with their most illustrious former pupil of genius. The film ends with a moving sequence of extracts from the War Requiem with images associated with World War II and of Coventry Cathedral. The whole is a moving, thought-provoking and revelatory view of the life of one of Britain's greatest composers of all time.