I always enjoy visiting the Vintage Village Theatre and this outing was no different. The staff was friendly as usual and the seats comfortable. Though I realize that “The Monuments Men” has received mixed reviews, I have to endorse it as a film worthy of the 118 minutes of time it takes to view it. I must admit that I enjoy books and movies based on history. I feel that it’s important to treasure that which came before us because it influences what we will pass on to the future. Our experiences of the past help us create our gifts to future generations, whether those gifts are paintings, inventions, or fond memories.
Director George Clooney has taken a story that actually happened and crafted and molded it into an enjoyable movie. Many of the events in “The Monuments Men” are based on historical fact, though some are offered strictly as entertainment value. The movie follows a small team of men from the art world; an architect, a curator, a sculptor, and other experts in their fields, as they search for art that Hitler has stolen. Hitler has acquired some of the greatest artistic accomplishments the world has ever seen. The monuments men are tasked with saving what is left and finding and returning what has been stolen to its rightful owners. The clock is ticking as they try to find the lost art before the war ends and it is lost or destroyed.
In reality, there were some 345 men and women from 13 allied countries who were part of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives division of the Allied Forces. George Clooney’s character, Frank Stokes, notes that “You can wipe out an entire generation, you can burn their homes to the ground and somehow they’ll still find their way back, but if you destroy their history, destroy their achievements, then it’s as if they never existed.” Based on the book of the same name by Robert Edsel, “The Monuments Men” brings to light a different kind of hero, trusted to recover and save, not destroy. Often travelling alone or in pairs with no transportation and little else, these people forged on because they believed that their mission was important not just for our country, but for all mankind.
Fellow movie goer Rei said she was “expecting a different kind of movie based on the trailer” so “it did not meet my expectation. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would say a six.” Ninety-one year old Ed, however, told me that he “thought this was good, a good summary.” Ed’s daughter, Cynthia, offered that the movie was “very informative and I enjoyed it! It was very clean. I think it’s important for us to know our history.”
I enjoyed the playful banter between the characters that was written into the script and permeated many of the scenes. I liked the relationships that the main characters shared and how, though they knew they weren’t soldiers, they were contributing to the war effort and the work they were doing was monumentally important.
If you want a visual display of war with explosions and death and destruction, then this is not your movie. Yes, there are some explosions and some death, but this is not about helping secure the eastern front or moving troops across Europe to defeat Hitler. It is a treasure hunt to save and preserve art and culture for the benefit of us all. In the end, the monuments men saved over 5 million monuments, art pieces and cultural treasures.
So head to the Village Theatre for an enjoyable ride through history. Movie times are here.
A nice non-fiction article about “The Monuments Men” is here.
Directed by George Clooney
Screenplay by George Clooney and Grant Heslov
Starring: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin, Hugh Bonneville, Bob Balaban and Dimitri Leonidas
Running time 118 minutes
Rated PG-13 for “some images of war violence and historical smoking“
Kellee Hearther
Staff Writer
eCoronado.com
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