Review of The Documentary Film and We Knew How to Dance

In this film review we were asked to watch the film named “And we knew how to dance”. This documentary film was released in 1994 and was directed by Maureen Judge. The production of this documentary film was done by the National film board of Canada. This documentary film mainly talks about women’s roles in World War 1 that's the reason I named my title World War 1: Women’s roles. In addition this film tells us about variety of women’s experience during world war. It tells us about their jobs and what were their feelings about their jobs.

In this film I saw that the director tries to make a documentary on the women’s who worked in war effort during World War 1 and try to teach us about it. Director learned about women’s roles in World War 1 but interviewing the women’s who were there during World War 1. It interviews 12 women’s who worked in different areas. The age of the women who were interviewed were between 86 and 101. Their age when they started working was 14 and up, but the minimum age required to qualify for the jobs in war effort was 18. One women spoke about how she got the job even though she was just 14. She told “after I applied I got interview and they select me”. The women sign up for the war effort because some of them needed a job or something to do, some of them needed money, some of them wanted to serve the country, some wanted to get the government jobs. And some were forced by their family to get this jobs because of their financial conditions or because they wanted their child to help their nations. This film mostly focuses on how women felt while working in war effort: some women told they were feeling sad because they were away from their family, some told they felt happy because they were getting paid and they were serving their country, some told they missed their home. Their job titles were different some were: vad (voluntary aid detachment), some were nurses, some were munitions workers and supervisor, some were farmerette, and some used to work as farm workers.

The second main thing this film focuses about the women’s wages. In the documentary one women said that she was getting paid 35 cents to 50 cents. The other women said they were getting 8-9 dollars per week to take home after cutting taxes and after paid some to the commissionaires.The other lady told they were getting paid around 15 dollars per week. One woman married a men who worked with her in war effort and then she spoke about how her cheque used to go to her husband rather going to her. The pay wages weren’t fair at all, it was really low compared to men’s wages. One women talk about how her mother used to take away all her salary from her and gave back very little of it. In the documentary I heard that some of them were anxious of getting this job, some were even getting proposals of marriage from fellow men workers. Some women felt little scared and shy because men made their work hard by teasing them. Men thought women shouldn't be here, it’s not their capability to serve in war effort. In addition the women’s had different dress codes, dress codes varies upon their job titles. Also, the women's were trained similar as male candidates, they also used to wear uniforms and used to march. Though they weren’t going to actual war, they were still helping in war effort. So, they were taught everything men’s used to do. They have to follow same discipline rules as soldiers do.

Now let’s talk about the positive strength of this documentary. I personally think this documentary film is very helpful to learn about the history. It makes learning very interesting and easy. The main strength is that they interviewed the real persons who were present in war effort, by that they can feel the real emotions womens had while they were working in war. This documentary used Visual and auditory learning which is way more effective than reading a book. The music makes it even more and more interesting. The world war visuals and videos make us wanting to keep watching it over and over. The interview process was really impressive, the interviewed women’s talks about their real life experience and about the feelings while they serving in war effort. You can tell by looking into some of their eyes that they were feeling the same while giving the interview as they were feeling while they were serving in World War 1. The women’s must be happy that they will be in the documentary film.

The original footage was really good it showed us the women used to work while serving in the World War 1. This documentary did a fantastic job delivering important informations about the womens who worked in war. I would definitely recommend my friends to watch this documentary film who is interested in learning about World War 1 and women's roles in world war. Though this documentary had positive side, it also has some weaknesses. According to me in this documentary film there are some weaknesses. In the documentary the interviewer didn’t asked lot of questions to the women’s they interviewed. The women’s are just talking about general stuff in the interview, they should have been asked more detailed questions by the interviewer. I suggest interviewer should ask more questions to the women’s who were giving interview to know about women in war effort in more details. The women's didnt give full details of their experience, they just showed the main events.

In addition, I think they should have showed more original footages of women working in war effort and they should have showed some footages of men teasing womens as one women talked about she felt uncomfortable and scared because mens used to give them hard time. The quality of pictures shown of women’s working in war was little blur they should have chosen better pictures. Also, the background should have been better. Some women were sitting in their chairs and some were shown in the couch of their own house. I suggest to have same simple background to make the documentary more reliable. I even saw in the documentary that some women were nurses, there was not a single footage of nurses curing the soldiers or nurses working in the hospital, they did sowed an ambulance but they could have shown the footage of womens taking care of the offices and the soldiers. They should have even showed some original footages of war. Because documentaries are the best source of learning. I think documentaries about history is a very reliable source of learning about. It’s a good source for professors to teach students about history, it will make learning easy and interesting for the students. Filmmakers should keep making documentaries on the main events happened in past which could be a subject to learn about in the history field. It has been said by the researchers that students learn more information by watching films and listening to audios rather simply reading a book. And I think even students will be happy to learn about history by watching documentaries rather reading about it in the book or listen to lecture from a professor. The main strength of the historical documentaries is that it helps to capture or even learn about a particular subject easily. It’s like a storytelling process, it’s quite simple so you can understand it easily and it's not even boring.

Documentary film is also good for High-School students who learn about World War 1 and World War 2. I have noticed many High-school teachers already uses historical documentaries to teach about some famous events happened in the past. In the conclusion I want to say that overall this film was really interesting and had lot to learn about. I liked the way they interviewed real persons who were present while the milestone happened. I even liked the way they showed some original footages but wish to see more of them. In addition, I also liked the way they talked to different womens who used to worked in different areas, that gives us brief view of mostly all job titles. I felt that the wages given to women’s were very low comparative to men’s wages. It even showed us how women contributed in war effort.

I wish to do assignments same as this in every class or at least would love to watch more historical documentary films in other history classes if I ever get a chance. It was really great first time experience of film review assignment. By rapping this paper I just want to say that will be I watching historical documentary films in my own time as I really like to learn more about history.