Churchill at the Labia


Last night was movie night. The local movie theater, right down the street from Longkloof Studios, runs an incredible deal that is too good to pass up. For just R55 (~$4) we got a pizza dinner at Diva's Cafe Ristorante (I got salami) and a movie ticket to the Labia Theater. Add on popcorn (with powdered sugar and powdered butter) and Astros (chocolate biscuit bites) and the whole experience was only $8. It was a really cute little theater too!




 


The Labia shows a combination of old and new movies, and we decided to see Churchill, a drama about Winston's Churchill's role in the planning of the D-Day attacks. I hadn't realized, but Churchill was very much against the attacks, fearing they were too risky and too similar to another amphibious attack in WWI that had failed. He was obviously overruled by the other leaders, including Dwight D. Eisenhower (played by John Slattery, the Mad Men guy who was best friend's with Lexi's dad in high school) and the attack was a success. Churchill's speech about the attack is famous, and was well portrayed in the movie.


There was a South African connection too! Churchill had served as a war correspondent in the Boer War in South Africa at the turn of the 20th century, and I actually just finished a book about his time there, being taken prisoner of war and then escaping, called Hero of the Empire (it was honestly pretty boring, and I wouldn't recommend it). The leader of the Boers at that time was Jan Smuts, and though they fought against each other in the Boer War, Smuts and Churchill became friends later in life, and Smuts was portrayed as Churchill's right hand man in the movie, always there to offer his support or calm Churchill down.

Overall, I thought the film was a little over-acted at times, but I enjoyed it.

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