Coward is a moving short film war drama based on the tale of two
cousins that leave the countryside of Ireland to fight in the First World War.
In the brutally cold and unforgiving trench warfare of the battlegrounds of
Ypres in Belgium 1917, two boyhood friends set out to find adventure. Instead
they are victim to enemy fire by inner chauvinisms, politics and eventual discriminations
of the British Army.
What makes Coward such a gripping short film is not just the action and
violence it brings for the action junkies. It is the raw human nature that is
lost with our protagonist Andrew (Martin McCann). The moral ambiguity or
ambivalence is shaken to the core and the loss of innocence is always the first
casualty. Even though he has been in many battles, it only takes one moment in
one conflict to break the spirit of a soldier. Even after battles that are won
or lost, there are no true winners in war. In the end, it is the dead that will
see the end of war and for those who survived will be haunted.
Coward focuses its narrative drive in a time when soldiers were
seen as deserters, cowards and disobedient. For the act of such cowardice, they
were put on trial and even executed. At the time where psychological injury was
unknown, Andrew’s journey was seen as a voyage to pusillanimity and loss of
honour. In reality our protagonist’s sanity is pushed to the point of no
return, as his innocence is stripped away from him; even though, in the eyes of
his officers, he seemed an abled body. Sadly his mind was the victim of
shellshock. The stresses of trench warfare and his position repeatedly shelled caused
a mental break down, that left our Irish soldiers lost. His fragile heart and
innocent soul was broken by too much combat, death, devastation and to whoever
saw this young man now, was not the same.
With a compelling narrative and touching story, director Dave Roddham had certainly made a powerful war film. It is no surprise when he has worked as special effects technician for both Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998) and War Horse (2011). Its solid performance from a great cast, a subject that focuses on the untold stories of the horrors of WW1, gives Coward a tragically dark and thrilling short independent film.
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