‘Pain is not the only terror. There are many more...’
I’ve never been much of a fan of poetry, aside from John Cooper Clark. An astonishing admission for an English teacher to make I know, but I’ve always found it to be too self-indulgent. At least have the decency to set it to music and make it into a song. Having said that even I can’t help to be affected by the devastating poetry inspired by the First World War – particularly that of Wilfred Owen. Well, Benediction is not the story of Owen, although he does appear, but rather the tumultuous life story of Owen’s mentor and possible lover Siegfried Sassoon…
Sassoon (Jack Lowden) has grown disgusted and angry at the actions of his superiors during the Great War. He feels that the powers that be are prolonging the war for political reasons and so refuses to fight anymore. He also begins to write powerful and salient poetry about his time on the frontline. Later, Sassoon (played by Peter Capaldi as an older man) struggles to come to terms with his legacy.
The first half of Benediction covers Sassoon’s rise from a tentative poet to the leader of a political movement. It is in these moments that writer-director Terence Davies does his best work, and the first 45 minutes of Benediction are truly wondrous. The second half of the film, however, focuses on Sassoon’s many affairs (most pertinently with the musician Ivor Novello who is portrayed as a vindictive misanthrope by Jeremy Irvine), and these more salacious elements of Sassoon’s biography are less interesting. This is a shame because Lowden, an actor I know little about, is fantastic throughout, at once capturing the rage and torment that defined Sassoon’s life and made his poetry so affecting. Indeed, there are numerous points throughout the film in which Lowden reads one of Sassoon’s poems in full against a backdrop of wartime imagery, and these are the scenes that are the most poignant.
Benediction is a good film rather than a great one, but for anyone wanting to learn more about one of Britain’s most celebrated poets, this film is a good starting point.