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Benediction

2h 17m Films, Talks & Events, Biography + History 2021

In Terence Davies' latest, a 20th-century English poet and soldier Siegfried Sassoon as he confronts his sexual identity and artistic integrity.

Official Selection, 2021 Toronto International Film Festival

Featuring stunning cinematography and emotional performances, this exquisite biopic by writer-director Terence Davies follows 20th-century English poet and soldier Siegfried Sassoon as he confronts his sexual identity and artistic integrity.

Price: $5.99 + taxes and fees

The latest from writer-director Terence Davies (Distant Voices, Still Lives; The House of Mirth; TIFF ’16 selection A Quiet Passion) is a sumptuous portrait of 20th-century English poet Siegfried Sassoon, and the first time the filmmaker has explicitly portrayed love and desire between men.

Benediction’s form is a lyrical stream of consciousness, following associations of memory rather than chronology. Davies crafts Sassoon’s experience of the First World War in layers of heroism (he was decorated for bravery on the Western Front), loss, and unfathomable trauma. His attempt at conscientious objection to the war leads to his being committed to a Scottish hospital, where he meets and mentors fellow poet and soldier Wilfred Owen. Davies tracks much of Sassoon’s life after the war as a chain of fraught romances — most notably with actor and homme fatale Ivor Novello — and ongoing questions of sexual identity, social mores, and integrity both artistic and personal, leading to Sassoon’s late conversion to Catholicism and struggle to connect with his son.

Benediction is a master class in cinematic craft. The performances, most especially those of Jack Lowden (TIFF ’17 selection Dunkirk) and Peter Capaldi as the younger and older Sassoon, respectively, are at once delicate and brimming with unruly emotion. Cinematographer Nicola Daley fills the screen with elegant camera choreography and chiaroscuro imagery while Davies seamlessly weaves archival materials into his narrative, incorporating a pair of astonishing moments when we see a youthful face age decades in seconds.

The indignities of aging haunt many of Benediction’s characters, yet Davies’ recent string of exquisite films speaks to the artistic grace that can accrue with time, rigour, and experience.

Content advisory: archival images of war death and injury, sexually suggestive scenes, sexual language

Director

Terence Davies

Language

English

Captions

English

Country

United Kingdom

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