Like Peter Watkin's "The War Game" which came out around the same time and which imagined life, or what was left of it, in Britain after a nuclear attack, Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's "It Happened Here" imagines a Britain under the jackboot as if Hitler had succeeded in invading after the retreat at Dunkirk and like "The War Game" is filmed as if it were a documentary. If it has a fault it's that the acting, by a largely non-professional cast, feels distinctly am-dram. Otherwise this is a chilling portrait of a country under occupation, superbly shot by the great Peter Suschitzky and Brownlow. Interestingly, it shows that the British resistance could be just as brutal as the Germans are usually shown in this kind of film, making this the perfect companion piece to Cavalcanti's masterpiece "Went the Day Well".
Review of It Happened Here
