London Has Fallen: McQueen Explores Life During Wartime
Following his extensively researched 2023 documentary Occupied City, which details WWII atrocities waged against the Dutch during Amsterdam’s Nazi occupation, it would seem Steve McQueen has been motivated to continue his exploration of the period with Blitz, reenacting the catastrophic blitzkrieg (aka ‘lightning war) of Britain during the 1940s. While an ensemble cast of characters intertwine in this saga, McQueen focuses on the separation of a mother and her child, each facing their own unique cultural intersections which were difficult even before the onset of the second world war. There are few contemporary examples of films about the London Blitzkrieg, more often than not a backdrop looming over more intimate human struggles, such as Atonement (2007), Their Finest (2016), or even the rehash of Graham Greene’s swooning The End of the Affair (1999).… Read the rest
