Birdsong

Birdsong burrows down into the individual stories and dreams that die on these killing fields, and in that sense it is terribly sad.

Birdsong doesn't really have a feel for the loss of control that comes with romantic passion, but it does shamelessness like a Hollywood pro.

The BBC, then, have done something important - they have made an elegiac, lyrical film (that is better than Spielberg's War Horse) with which the next generation can associate the war. It aspires to the sentiments of the war poets.

More war and peace than War and Peace, the battle scenes are intense and the romantic chemistry no less so.