TESTAMENT OF YOUTH

a film set during

ww1

5M - Arianna Scotuzzi

Exercise 6 page 157

SECTION 01

Details about the film

• Testament of Youth is a 2014 British drama film based on the First World War memoir of the same name written by Vera Brittain.
• The film stars her, an independent young woman who abandoned her studies at Somerville College, Oxford, to become a volunteer war nurse.
• The experience transforms the girl into a convinced pacifist who writes books to spread feminism.
• The film was directed by James Kent and written by Juliette Towhidi.

SECTION 02

the plot and its links to ww1

1) THE BEGINNING

In 1914, Vera Brittain wants to attend Oxford University with her younger brother Edward and his friends Roland and Victor. Despite her father's opposition, she passes the entrance examination. Before enrolling at Oxford, Vera and Roland—who shares her interest in writing and poetry— begin a romance, although she knows that Victor is in love with her.

2) assassination of archduke franz ferdinand

Roland and Victor join the army. Vera leaves Oxford to volunteer for the Voluntary Aid Detachment as a nurse tending the wounded in a hospital in England.Roland tells Vera of his traumatic experiences from trench warfare at the front. He proposes to Vera; they decide to marry during his next home leave. As Vera awaits his arrival during the Christmas holiday, Roland's mother tells her on the telephone that he has been killed.

3) towards the battle of the somme

Victor, blind from his own injuries, arrives at Vera's hospital, she proposes to him because he is going to need someone and I... well, Roland would like it, but he gently turns her down before suddenly dying from his head injury.During the Battle of the Somme in 1916 Edward is wounded and he is sent to the First London General Hospital, where Vera is now volunteering.

4) the turning point year

In 1917, Vera asks to transfer to France to be closer to Edward, but her first assignment is to treat wounded Germans. She is reluctant, but learns that they suffer and die like English soldiers. After Edward's recovery, he is sent to the safer Italian Front. Vera returns home after her mother has a nervous breakdown. She sees a telegram being delivered and learns that Edward has died.

5) the end of the war

In 1918, having lost all the young men closest to her, Vera cannot celebrate the Armistice with Germany. Back at Oxford, she has nightmares about Roland's and Edward's deaths. Vera attends a public meeting where speakers debate how to punish Germany for the war. Most of the audience is against George Catlin, who warns that the philosophy of 'an eye for an eye' could cause another war. Vera tells of how she held the hand of a dying German soldier, who was no different from her brother or her fiancé.

SECTION 03

vera brittain became a pacifist

"Their deaths have meaning only if we standtogether now and say: 'No!'.No to killing. No to war. No to the endless cycle of revenge."

VERA BRITTAIN