Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

grantss Bland and superficial.This drama series looks at World War 1 from the perspective of a few British and German soldiers and civilians - the fighting, the effects on families and relationships, the home front. Covers the entire duration of the war (1914-18).Had the potential to be a WW1 version of Band of Brothers, but falls very far short. Not engaging at all - you don't know much about the characters. Character development is quite superficial. As a result you don't get that feeling of camaraderie that was so essential to Band of Brothers.Plot development - the series just lurches from one scene to another. There is very attempt to link the series to actual historic events or create a sense of historic relevance or accuracy.Not very realistic in its battle scenes either. Certainly nothing like the terrors and mass casualties that actually occurred in the trench warfare of WW1.For a much better, grittier and far more realistic portrayal of WW1 from a soldier's perspective watch the mini-series "ANZACs" (1985) instead.

david-156-160547 What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?Yes, some of the button counters will be happy that they can comment on the accuracy of uniforms, sets etc. but remember this emotional drama is actually about the two young men and their progression from happy-go- lucky kids to two nameless cogs in the meat grinder that was the "Great War". As this was a pre-watershed series, the producers were careful to provide a thoughtful insight into the heartbreak that took the youth of our grandparents generation without providing OTT material for the "Call Of Duty" generation.It was good to see that both sides were treated to the same level of sympathy, something echoed some years ago by my grandfather, who said when I asked him if he hated the Germans, said "they were just lads like us, doing the job they were supposed to do." The final episode had me in tears as I saw what could have been my own sons drawn into what turned out to be a pointless fight to the death. The final scene spoke volumes as a microcosm of the entire war for the PBI that fought it. Answering the call of duty whilst disregarding personal safety to save the life of a mate, in spite of being just seconds away from the armistice and paying the ultimate price. This should be compulsory viewing in schools so that we never make the same mistakes again. The BBC is to be congratulated for keeping the excessive swearing out of this. This generation were largely church-going kids who hadn't learned to eff and blind by the time they started school. There was some bad language, of course, but read the poems of Wilfred Owen to hear what soldiers actually cursed as they died. The Passing Bells should be watched in schools to show the selflessness of a generation that very quickly had the jingoism knocked out of them.

Caz1964 I thought this was a good drama and am a little bit baffled as to why some people needed to see blood and guts to be entertained or convinced.Anyone who has studied or read about the history of WW1 would already understand about the horrors of trench life and going over the top into battle.The viewer doesn't need to be hit over the head with blood and gory details we can leave that to the imagination and besides too much graphic details would only detract away from the dialogue of this drama as this story relies mainly on its script of what the soldiers are saying{their thoughts aloud}and thinking.And i think it was awesome. Of course there is a lot we are not shown such as the grounds in the trenches were always muddy and fall of rats and body parts from dead soldiers used to prop or hang things from etc the list is endless of how things really were but then WW1 was always censored our government kept quiet for decades until the 1980s about the amount of soldiers whose bodies were still being found by farmers in France and Belgium,sometimes as many as a hundred a year.And also so many people were totally unaware of how many of our soldiers were cruelly shot at dawn or if they had even knew in the first place. I thought this was a nice tribute to the men who served and put the point across that it was the war that was evil and not the men who served.I think this drama is good for educating the younger generation who might not know much about WW1 as it portrays how misled the men back then were and how underage boys got sucked in on having to do their bit.Very tragic and its what this drama does well. The film Oh What A Lovely War was a British musical about WW1 this also didn't show blood and guts as everything was said in the dialogue in what the actors were saying.Passing Bells has used the same idea.

TurboarrowIII Overall I found this a bit disappointing and not helped by the time it was shown as it couldn't be more graphic.It tells the story of 2 men from either side fighting in WW1. The acting was very good I thought and the attention to detail was fine. However, I found it difficult to get really involved as it seemed to jump a bit between both sides.The ending was particularly disappointing and I thought contrived with both of the main characters meeting in no mans land while trying to repair damaged barbed wire. The fact that they then end up fighting and killing each other minutes before the war ends was a bit gimmicky and predictable.So overall not the greatest although it did convey how awful it must have been to fight in the war as well as the despair of seeing so many friends die. Spoiled by the contrived and quite predictable ending I thought.