Cultural Impact of The Falklands War - Films and Television

Films and Television

A number of films and television productions emerged from the conflict:

• Simon Weston, a Welsh Guards man who had suffered serious burns during the bombing of Sir Galahad, became a popular figure due to British media coverage. A series of television documentaries followed the progress of rehabilitation and eventual recovery from his injuries, the first being Simon's War (6 April 1983) in BBC One's QED series.
• The first Argentine film about the war was Los chicos de la guerra ("The Boys of the War"), directed by Bebe Kamin in 1984.
• The film version of Whoops Apocalypse (1986) features a conflict very similar to the Falklands War between the United Kingdom and the fictional caribbean country of Maguadora over the equally fictional Santa Maya.
• The 31 May 1988 BBC drama Tumbledown, told the story of Robert Lawrence MC, a junior officer in the Scots Guards (Colin Firth) left paralysed down his left side by a gunshot wound to the head inflicted by an Argentinian soldier on Mount Tumbledown during the final push for Stanley, and his adjustment to disabled life after the war.
• The 1989 British film Resurrected, directed by Paul Greengrass, had David Thewlis as a British soldier previously presumed dead in the war reappearing alive weeks after the end of the conflict.
• The 1989 American/British film "For Queen and Country" starring Denzel Washington. Reuben is a St. Lucia-born British ex-para finding it difficult to adjust to civilian life some years after the war. The film deals with the poverty and crime that Reuben encounters back home and how he is ignored by both society and government despite his service.
• On 13 June 1992 the BBC film An Ungentlemanly Act was released depicting the events leading up to and during the initial occupation of the Islands by the Argentine Army. Based on true events, the film was produced to mark the 10th anniversary of the conflict and starred actors Ian Richardson as Governor Rex Hunt and Bob Peck as Major Mike Norman.
• In 1995, the Cracker episode "Brotherly Love" features a psychologically damaged veteran from the Falklands War. Barney (Ron Donachie), who gets into a brief argument with DS Jimmy Beck (Lorcan Cranitch) and flies into an insane rage when Beck shows no interest in Barney's exploits in the war.
• Although the drama by Ian Curteis that became known simply as The Falklands Play was originally commissioned by the BBC in 1983, it was then temporarily set aside until 1985, the Corporation subsequently gave a number of reasons why it could not be made, including that it would have been broadcast too close to the 1987 General Election. Curteis maintained that the generally sympathetic portrayal of Margaret Thatcher and his refusal to include material that was contrary to both the official record and what his interviews with the major protagonists had revealed, went against a perceived BBC anti-government bias, citing the fact that Tumbledown - which he and others claimed was more "anti-establishment" - was made and broadcast. Curteis's play was eventually recorded in a truncated form and screened by the digital satellite channel BBC Four in 2002.
• The 2005 Argentinian film Iluminados por el fuego ("Enlightened by Fire"), directed by Tristán Bauer and starred Gastón Pauls, in a docudrama movie based on the autobiographical novel of the same name by Argentine Falklands veteran Edgardo Esteban, who fought in the conflict as an 18-year-old conscript. It received a San Sebastián Festival special award. The film tells about a veteran's memories, re-awakened after he learns of the suicide of a former soldier comrade. The movie gave a realistic portrait of the extreme weather and psychologically stressful conditions the Argentine soldiers faced in the field, the brutality and indifference to the suffering of the soldiers by their leaders and the horrors of modern conflict. The movie won several awards, including a Goya.
• The 2006 British film This Is England, directed by Shane Meadows, is set in July 1983 in a small town in England and includes documentary footage and extracts from radio broadcasts about the Falklands War. The main character of the film is 12-year-old Shaun, whose father was killed fighting in the war.
• The British science fiction series Ashes to Ashes uses the Falklands War as a backdrop during its second series.
• Brothers in Arms is supposed to be about the Falklands War