The Cold Blue (Erik Nelson, 2018)

Reviewed by Ryan Wildermuth. Viewed at the AFI Fest 2018.

The Cold Blue feels a bit like wasted potential. Eric Nelson and has all this great footage captured from William Wyler and from digging through National Archives. However, the film felt hollow and very surface level, and aside from a few scenes the film fell flat.

Firstly, the movie is beautifully shot. All the footage was remastered and seeing how raw and real the footage was is jarring to witness. However, the movie sort of just loosely drifted around without any real purpose, aside from showing the viewer what it’d be like to fly in a bomber. And it really did succeed in that goal. There’s just not really too much to it though, and that may just be because there wasn’t really anything being told. No story really, just snippets of memories. I feel as though they went and just talked with a bunch of retired veterans, and they just let them talk and talk, recorded it, then found the appropriate footage to display. And there isn’t really anything wrong with that, it just felt slightly flat at points.

The scene with the flak stand out, however, as being a very nerve racking and tense scene. The sound design felt insane, especially in the theater. All in all the movie is decent, but its really made for those with a WWII interest.