This is a shocking account of war directly from reality, telling the story of the indefatigable effort of a nurse to work against it, by simply nursing wounded soldiers and helping them back to life - and to go on fighting. For that she is ultimately prosecuted by the Germans and promptly executed, despite the fact that she is a woman and a nurse at that, who has saved many lives and only worked idealistically for humanitarianism. It is also the story of other brave women who assisted her, like Dame Edna May Oliver in one of her formidable roles, and her fellow nurses, who never gave up on her. The film is upsetting but overwhelming in its uncompromising realism and deals a definite stamp of inhumanity on the always absurd business of any war, that never in any circumstances made any sense.
Review of Nurse Edith Cavell
