Cinema: Battle with Boredom

Seven British soldiers in postwar occupied Germany are assigned to guard the obsolete, World War II Bofors antiaircraft cannon. Their mission is obviously a useless exercise but the soldiers nonetheless mount their guard in a battered barracks, awaiting the dawn. Thus unwinds a tightly spun military yarn that has a touch of allegory. Shrouded in canvas, the Bofors gun is never seen in its entirety; though it orders their lives, it remains irrelevant to the soldiers, who blandly carry on their battle with boredom. So painstakingly does The Bofors Gun record the brutalizing effects of military routine that it has been...

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