Rent Culloden / The War Game (1965)

Brilliant examples of documentary realism - Culloden / The War Game review by JO

Culloden, made in 1964 on a shoestring budget, re-enacts the famous battle between the Jacobite clans and the English forces of 1746. The film was shot in the style of a news report with interviews with individual soldiers on the battlefield. The anachronism between the news report and the actual battle was innovative but perhaps resembles the broadcasts coming out of the Vietnam War at the time. It serves to disorient the spectator and offers a commentary on the way the media reports war. Most impressive is the way Watkins shifts the audiences perspective of the battle making you question your involvement in the events depicted. Watkins focuses on several different viewpoints: eyewitnesses, the perspective of common people and the Dukr of Cornwall’s biographer who views the battle scene through a telescope narrating the events that unfold (but the viewer doesn’t always see). At times satirical, at times distressing this is a brilliant and, for its time, radical movie about the horrors of war.

Two classic documentary films - Culloden / The War Game review by TE

'Culloden' has to be one of World Cinema's finest, most innovative documentaries. It has more than stood the test of time.

There is a stark, pared down quality to the film that demonstrates how a skilled director can turn the lack of big money backing into an advantage. Low budget can mean high quality.

The battle of Culloden was the last pitched battle on UK soil and Watkins shows the terrible consequences for the Highland Scots, giving us a lesson in the bitter legacy of the abuse of power that is relevant today across the globe.

'The War Game' was more notorious than 'Culloden' at the time, but it has not aged so well. Inevitably the technology of media, policing and warfare have moved on at too fast a pace for some aspects of the film to be seen as anything more than a quaint reminder of a different age.

However, it remains a fascinating document and a hard-hitting statement on the impact of nuclear threat and war-mongering reality on the lives of ordinary people.