Humphrey Jennings (1907–1950)

The film opens with a title card outlining the story of Lidice.

It then moves on to an image of the stream running through the village of Cwmgiedd (half a mile from Ystradgynlais in west Wales), and an eight-minute opening sequence interspersed with images and sounds of everyday life in a community in the Upper Swansea Valley; men are shown working at the colliery, women engaged in domestic tasks in their homes and the inhabitants singing in the Methodist chapel. Most of the dialogue in this section is spoken in Welsh, with no subtitles. The section closes with another title card stating "such is life at Cwmgiedd...and such too was life in Lidice until the coming of Fascism".

The German occupation is heralded by the arrival in the village of a black car, blaring military music and political slogans from its loudhailer. Little is shown of the occupation itself, its violence being implied by a soundtrack of marching boots, gunfire and harshly amplified orders and directives, in the sound-as-narrative technique Jennings had previously developed in Listen to Britain. The identity of the community is eroded, with the Welsh language being suppressed and no longer permitted as the teaching medium in the school, and trade union activity being made illegal. The villagers resistance takes the form of covert activities including the publication of a Welsh news sheet. Eventually, even the singing of Welsh hymns in the chapel is outlawed.

The catalyst for the systematic obliteration of Cwmgiedd in a reprisal is intended to parallel the consequence of the actual murder of the leading Nazi Reinhard Heydrich the previous year. The children of the village are marched out of school and join the womenfolk as they are loaded onto trucks. The men, defiantly singing "Land of Our Fathers" as they go, are lined up against the wall of the village churchyard. (fonte:imdb)… (altro)