Resistance (2011)

The first problem with this movie is its utter lack of believability. Alternative history can be very interesting, but to be interesting it has to be credible. This failed the credibility test right from the start. The opening caption said something like "After the failure of the D-Day invasion, Germany invaded England." What? Really? Certainly it's believable that the D-Day invasion could have failed. Even Eisenhower was afraid of that. But even if it had failed, could the Germans have invaded England? In 1944? Germany was losing on the Eastern Front. The Soviets were steadily advancing toward Germany's borders. The Germans wouldn't have been able to spare the resources necessary to successfully invade England in 1944. (I read one reviewer who suggested that in this timeline Germany had defeated the Soviet Union. Maybe - but I honestly don't remember that being stated in the movie.) If this had been set in 1940, when Germany was at peace with the Soviet Union and at the height of its power? If this had been a depiction of a successful "Operation Sea Lion"? Maybe. But not the scenario presented. That just didn't work for me. So, right from the start this movie had a huge credibility gap with me.It doesn't recover from that. There's an intriguing enough mystery. In a Welsh village (post German invasion of England) all the women wake up and discover that all the men are simply gone. Where did they go - and, more mysterious, how did they get away without anyone noticing. None of the women woke up when their men were getting out of bed? One presumes that they left to join the resistance - which the title implies - but who knows. It wasn't really the point of the story anyway. The point was the relationship between the women and the German occupiers of the village, because at some point a handful of German soldiers come wandering into the village. They're nice fellows, really. They help the women out with farm work and do some hunting of rabbits to provide them with food. They give up their uniforms and settle easily into life in the Welsh village. You'd hardly know there was a war going on. You see the swastika a couple of times - but there's nothing particularly ominous about it. Life pretty much goes on as it did before - with the German soldiers there instead of the men, although there's nothing "inappropriate" that happens between the Germans and the women. Yeah, a bit of a romance develops, but it's quite proper. The most dramatic moment of the movie is the accidental shooting of a horse by someone in the British resistance who I think meant to kill the woman who owned the horse, believing her to be a "collaborator." But in terms of any sustained drama - this was a real dud.It disappointed me. There's a lot of potential in the story of a fictional German occupation of a British village. But none of that potential showed itself here. And the constant flashbacks to pre- invasion (or at least pre-occupation) served no real purpose and accomplished little. If somebody wanted to make this kind of film then why not base it on real events, like the German occupation of Britain's Channel Islands? (2/10)

I have never been as perplexed by a rating as the low one for this movie. It is a very well made, well acted movie. I look forward to reading the book. Not your typical WWII war movie at all with only a couple of shots fired but probably a much more accurate depiction of what an actual occupation would be like. Ignore the rating and give this a chance. I found myself watching it twice because it is so nuanced I was afraid of missing something. Would have given it a 10 but the captions were strange. If you used the hearing impaired it didn't translate the German dialect which is very important.

A Welsh rural community under Nazi occupation with the male population disappeared into the hills to form the resistance (we assume) was well acted and the atmosphere captured perfectly. The content was abysmal. Too much was presented without credible explanation - the significance of the medieval map was glossed over, the killing of Maggie's horse for her alleged collaboration was lame, and many other anomalies. But the real killer was the whole basic scenario. If D-Day had failed and Hitler's western front secured, are we really asked to believe that he would have sent troops into Britain when the Red Army was advancing on Berlin? And where were the Americans? Do we assume they fled back across the pond to resume their stance of neutrality? To suggest so shows little knowledge or understanding of the history of the late war period. Hitler's precondition for invasion had always been for dominant air supremacy which he failed to achieve when Britain stood alone - would he have attempted a repeat performance with an island full of US air-power? I think not.

Having read and enjoyed the novel I decided to rent this movie, but while awaiting delivery I read all the reviews I could find. A very high proportion of these user reviews, both on IMDb and elsewhere, described a film that was totally boring, a complete waste of time, had nothing to do with resistance and was generally pointless.All I can say in reply to these reviews is that films about war are not necessarily about violence, gunfire and cruelty. Put briefly, this film is a gentle story set in a beautiful Welsh valley, a tale of frightened farmer's wives left mysteriously without their menfolk, a group of German soldiers traumatised by war, an expression of human feeling and resistance to war in many and varied ways. If this doesn't appeal to you, then watch Rambo! If, however, you are a sensitive soul with a belief in human goodness, then watch this film and enjoy it! My only gripe is that I found the dialogue a little hard to follow - and there are no subtitles. Having said that, I accepted this difficulty and found that it didn't really affect my pleasure - the film doesn't rely heavily on dialogue. All-in-all a most enjoyable film and one that I will watch again - it certainly helped to hear the director's commentary on the DVD.