WW1 A LITTLE PRINCESS: RALPH CREWE INJURED

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Captain Ralph Crewe poisoned with chlorine in the trenches of the Western Front. Lovely battlefield setting and much of a tearjerker. This is to commemorate 2015 as the centennial of the second year of WWI and the first use of chlorine warfare.

By the way, Ralph Crewe is played by Davos Seaworth --- Liam Cunningham.

This is by no means the only way to commemorate 2015 as the centennial of modern chemical warfare, and to remember all the casualties of such a tragic event.


Now let’s jump ahead to the trenches where we see Captain Crewe bravely yet futiley try to save a fellow soldier and succumb to mustard gas.  There are so many problems with this scene it is astounding.  Had I written this in 2009 I could tell you exact dates that various technologies were introduced but now the specifics are no longer in my brain so bare with me as I might need to generalize.  Now, based on the amount of time that has elapsed in the movie, paying attention to the seasons etc., it can only have gotten as far as the fall of 1914 by the time of Captain Crewe’s war scene.  Entrenchment only starts around this time, yet the trenches shown are very sophisticated.  They are very deep and wide with bridges and ladders all throughout.  To give you an idea of this, here is a shot of a horse running through the trenches.  Note the body hanging off a bridge well above the horse’s head.

Captain Crewe is walking dejectedly through this trench that is filled with dead bodies when he discovers one soldier is kind of gasping.  He runs over and hoists him onto his shoulders, just in time for a biplane to fly by and strafe the trench.  Yes, airplanes evolve rapidly during WWI, but it is far too early.  It isn’t until pretty late in the war that you have planes used for offensive purposes.  When the war began they were believed to be of little to no use in war.  They were mainly used for reconnaissance purposes.  Do you know how many advances had to be made to make planes acceptable for fighting?  At first a dude just had to have a machine gun with him and stand up to shoot people with it.  It was eventually discovered the best thing was to mount the gun on the front, but then propeller technology had to be improved so that one could shoot through the propellers without crippling their own plane.  One of my all-time favorite books is Storm of Steel by Earnst Junger who was a German soldier (seriously this is a fabulous book and Junger is a fascinating guy.  He is to this day the youngest guy to ever earn the highest military honor in the German army.  He lived through and fought in WWI and WWII and died when he was over 100 years old) and it is not till a good way through his book that he records anything about planes.  He was in one of the earliest groups to arrive on the Western Front so he witnesses a great deal of the war.  It is pretty jarring when he suddenly starts talking about planes.  It is waaaaay too early for the plane in A Little Princess.

Next we see Captain Crewe climbing out of the trench to escape a cloud of mustard gas.  Now here I can give you some exact dates.  Poison gas was first used at the Second Battle of Ypres which was fought between April 21-May 25 1915.  It was deployed by the Germans and it was the Canadians who suffered the most from it at this battle.  So how on earth could it be in this ridiculous trench in the fall of 1914?

We zoom out as we watch Captain Crewe drowning in gas

Just after the ten-headed demon shoots ten arrows around Rama in Sara's story, releasing thick clouds of poisonous yellow smoke, Cuaron cuts to Captain Crewe in the trenches, clouds of tear gas threatening to engulf him.
we see Sara's father bombed in the trenches.


Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron gets some details wrong. His map of World War I Europe included a Yugoslavia that would not come into existence until after the war. His depiction of gas warfare might be strong stuff for children if they really understood what they were seeing.

There's a war scene with explosions, fallen bodies, and a man is shown succumbing to poison gas.

 (e.g., the thick clouds of yellow smoke are a stand in for the mustard gas that blinds her father in the WWI bunker)

The film is set during the first world war, so there are scenes in the trenches showing dead bodies and the sounds of bombs falling. 

to bring Mr. Crowe's actual war experiences home to the young children. Everyone gasps when Sarah's hero succumbs to poison gas in the playground of Sarah's fantasyscape; what they don't realize is that Sarah's real-life heroic father is just then collapsing under a cloud of chlorine. This ongoing dramatic parallel is one of the movie's best features.

Violence & Gore

Two short war scenes, one showing a man struggling to carry another wounded soldier who has trouble breathing. He ultimately collapses in exhaustion.

In another scene, he brings us to the trenches of World War 1 that was horrifying without even showing a drop of blood, just bodies laying there.

There's excitement - scenes from the World War I trenches, 

Captain Crewe has been killed in battle and his estate has been seized by the British government
John, also fighting in WWI, is MIA, 
an unidentified soldier suffering from blindess and amnesia due to exposure to poison gas 

images of poison gas on the battlefield.


her father, who is eventually lost in the European trenches. 

her father ... since he had no memory

... agonising footage of her father being injured and left for dead in the trenches. I know all this isn’t in the book, but I think it does build on passages of Burnett’s where Sara thinks about what her father is going through and imagines what it would be like to be a soldier suffering on the battlefield. Also, as it is probably impossible really to show children in a film suffering as much cruelty as Sara does in the book,  bringing in the war is a different way to include the darkness which is such an essential part of this story.
Rama's quest for Sita (both Rama and Sara's father are played by the same actor) becomes a trek through the Allied trenches, while Ravana's arrows emit poisonously yellow mustard gas...

As a side note, I'm a little surprised the movie is rated G when it shows some rather gruesome scenes of the WWI trenches strewn with bodies--it's certainly not gory, and it obviously didn't scar me for life since I don't even remember those parts, but still...

Her father did so to provide protection for his daughter whilst being absent ,fighting in the war. During the war, a poison gas was released and caused amnesia to her father.


But at the end of the film, he regained his memory.

 her father's experiences in the trenches

that her father has been killed in action 

injured by the poisonous gases in the war.

after he was ill after war. 

 an injured World War 1 soldier

They didn't need to show the WWI footage in a children's film.

Parents need to know that this movie includes images of war with dead men strewn about trenches and explosions in the background. 

There are two fairly graphic scened depicting battles in the trenches of World War I, complete with clearly depicted dying and dead soldiers. Even worse, the second battle scene shows the father dying. Maybe not all children are as unused to this kind of violence as mine is, but parents should know ahead of time.

her father’s participation in World War I trench warfare (he is British).

Because he wants me to belong.
My little girl. She spoke French!
She really spoke French.
Your mother and l
are very proud of you.
l caught you, Nellie!
Papa!
Randolph. . .John!
Rama approached the thorny palace...
...unaware that Ravana
was waiting for him.
But Ravana was not through yet.
He took a bow that could
hold, not one, but 1 0 arrows. . .
. . .each filled with poison.
The arrows sped through the air. . .
...heading straight for Rama.
The arrows hit the ground...
...and released their poison,
giant clouds of thick, yello w smoke.

lt's been discovered that
your father has died.
He was killed in battle
several weeks ago.

He's suffering from amnesia...
. . .one of the rare side effects
of poison gas.
His eyes will heal in time.
His memory. . .who can say?

"Sara!"

The name was like clear water breaking. Wholesome, terrifying and clean. It was baptism. Redemption. A bloody scab healing fast as the thunder rolled like shell-blasts, echoing in the distance. It was too much all at once. He stumbled backwards, cheeks flaming – shuddering with the force of every breath - as the phantom scents of Cardamom and singed flesh threatened to turn his stomach.

"I'm so sorry!"

He had spent months trying to piece his life back together. Trying to understand what the gas had taken. Desperate for a scrap, for the smallest clue that could tell him something – anything! And now he was tempted to run from it. Gripping the chair at his back with a vicious bite as the child was ripped from him, screaming. Frightened by the ferocity of the memories that came streaming back. Faster than he could handle. Faster than he could process. Faster than any man – hale and hearty - could rightly shoulder as the room exploded into a whirling frenzy of water-logged activity.

"No! No! Papa! Papa!"

His heart shattered. Cutting deep inside his chest in a thousand fracturing pieces as her broken cries rang out. Filling the spaces between heartbeats with a torment that far surpassed the darkest moments of his recovery. Ushering in the doorman of suffering as an expression he didn't recognize – agonized and wrecked – pulled at unfamiliar muscles and sinew.

But why?

He had no idea what was happening.

No idea why he felt so- so-

Oh.

What had once been a blur, a singular impression of the man he'd thought himself to be, soared back to him in pieces. Rewriting itself in less time than it took for his expression to change. Giving meaning to what existed beyond that of mere words as the pitching despair of the girl's screams seemed to rise above even that of the worsening storm.

The epiphany was already in full swing, frisson-fast and heady when Ram Dass appeared at his side. Silent and unjudging but electric with the same realization that was firming through him as he looked up at the world with new eyes.

Every word she'd issued – now experienced in seconds old hindsight – was akin to a fresh blow that had the power to send him reeling. Quickly overtopping that of uncertainty and self-doubt as the haze thinned, clearing like the freshness of a northern-born wind cutting through a cloud of poisonous gas. Stiffening his back with a confident, careful strength as every instinct he possessed – everything he was – reached out. Unfurling like an exotic midnight bloom desperate for the warmth of the sun.

Sara. Papa. Papa. Papa! Papa it's me! It's Sara! Oh god Papa, don't you remember me? Papa please, you've got to know me! Its Sara remember?! Remember India? And Maya! Remember the Riviana! And Emily! And the locket with Mama's picture in it? Oh god, papa please! Papa please! Papa, tell them!

Sara.

Sara.

Oh god!

His little girl.

His little princess.

There was a roaring in his ears. So different from that of diving planes and whistling shells. So different from the screams of the dying, distant fires and the murky wet of sick-lined trenches. He didn't have words. In that one glorious moment there was nothing but a name. A face. A flickering reel of memory that followed down through the years only to stall in favor of real time. Fading like radio static as a calloused hand reached out, eyes falling on the swinging glass doors as he took one step, then another.

And before he could internalize the switch, he was already running.