Star Metro - Steve McQueen debuts new WWII film at London festival

The gritty World War II epic, which opened the London Film Festival, chronicles the fallout from the Nazis' relentless 1940-41 bombing campaign of Britain by focusing on a nine-year-old mixed-race boy, George.

He embarks on a fraught journey back to his mother (Saoirse Ronan) and grandfather (Paul Weller) in London's heavily targeted East End, after running away while being sent to the countryside.

McQueen, who also wrote the screenplay, opted to tell the story through a child's eyes because he wanted "a clean sheet" to show war's "perversity".

"With adults... there's a moment where we tend to look away, or tend to compromise or not listen," he explained.

"But with a child it's good and bad, right and wrong... it's very sobering."

In one scene, George -- impressively played by newcomer Elliott Heffernan -- looks on bewildered at the utter destruction wrought on his neighbourhood by the German bombs.

In an earlier moment, he watches another runaway boy get hit by a train.

– 'That's my in' -

The film stems in part from 55-year-old McQueen's upbringing in London, alongside other inspirations during his decades-spanning career as an artist and filmmaker.

A 2003 commission by the British capital's Imperial War Museum to visit Iraq as one of its "official artists" during the conflict proved formative.

The key breakthrough in conceptualising "Blitz" came during unrelated research for a 2020 television project, when he discovered a WWII-era photograph of a black child waiting in a railway station to be evacuated.

"I thought 'that's my in!' I need to see that particular narrative, to see that idea of the Blitz through his eyes," he recalled.

The choice allowed McQueen to portray some of the racism that existed in 1940s Britain, as well as other issues, such as female empowerment, typically less highlighted in mythologies around the Blitz.

"As much as we're fighting our enemy, we're fighting ourselves in one way, shape, form, reality... it's sexism, it's racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, there's all kinds of things going on," he said.

"You can't make a movie about a society without reflecting on what happens on the ground in whatever form it takes."

- 'Timeless' -

First and foremost, McQueen -- an Oscar-winner in 2014 for "12 Years a Slave" -- wanted its "backbone" to be a familial love story.

"The most important thing in this narrative was love -- love between the mother and her son... that's timeless," he said.

While that central storyline was fictionalised, he based some characters on real people and researched extensively "to make things as real as possible".

"The richness of our research just brought up so many things," the filmmaker noted.

"I didn't want to put my stencil onto it. I wanted to find out... what actually was going on."

The desire for "ordinary people" to drive the story means the soldiers who fought on the front lines or famous leaders like Prime Minister Winston Churchill are absent in "Blitz".

"That was not my narrative," McQueen emphasised.

The director is particularly pleased to have unveiled the film in London.

"For this particular movie, for me, there was no other place I wanted to debut it."

– 'Exceptional' -

McQueen and his cast were full of praise for Heffernan, who landed the part after impressing in an open casting submission.

"Often, you don't know what you're looking for, but you recognise it when you see it," he explained.

"On his casting tape I thought 'this guy, there's a stillness in him'... he's fascinating. You want to look at him, almost like a silent movie star."

McQueen was also wowed by Ronan and the connection she forged with Heffernan.

"There was a real camaraderie, a protective quality, to her and Elliott... you saw it on screen -- it was wonderful," he recalled.

Ronan, who began acting at a similar age to Heffernan, praised McQueen for being willing to build the film around the two actors' evolving on-set rapport.

"What naturally started to come out for the two of us was a friendship," she told a London news conference Wednesday.

"It all felt very organic. Nothing felt too contrived."

Heffernan credited Ronan for helping him deliver what's been called an "exceptional" performance.

"When we first met, we just clicked," he said. "It was like we'd known each other for years."

"Blitz" is in select theatres from November 1, before being released on Apple TV+ from November 22.

O.Gauthier--SMC