Showing @ Filmhouse, Edinburgh until Thu 24 May

Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger / UK / 1943 / 163 min

As better health services allow retirees to live longer, care for the elderly becomes increasingly pertinent, especially as pensions provider Scottish Widow recently announced the lowest levels of savings for eight years. Starting at the Blitz and working back, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s escapade recounts the exploits of the older General Clive Wynne-Candy (Roger Livesey) through the Boer War, WWI and WWII. Given the pitfalls of his life, his unshakeable friendship with German officer Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (Anton Walbrook) remains his only constant.

Made in 1943, the emphasis on the superiority of British values over foreign ones at times feels like suffocating British Army propaganda; Wynne-Candy’s frequent speeches about how honourably he fights (aimed at invigorating a beleaguered British public), saturate the narrative. However, unlike the fatuous casual racism of Top Gear or Fox News, Powell and Pressburger treat the issue of international relations respectfully; after defeat in 1918, Kretschmar-Schuldorff is warmly welcomed by British high-society, rather than abused. Wynne-Candy’s mythic status, accentuated by his position in numerous eras (transforming from defiant upstart into jovial superior) shows the audience he’s a person to be venerated. As his unwavering camaraderie with Kretschmar-Schuldorff highlights the erratic and fractious nature of life, what the film ultimately propagates is the idea of resisting outside opinion if it goes against your own beliefs.