Review of The Imitation Game, Morten Tyldum

by mh7mjs

 

Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) tackles with and helps crack Germany’s Enigma Code during World War II, but is later prosecuted by his own government for illegal homosexual acts.

This information is widely known. Yet, it is the ways in which this film brings to light these ideas, and more surrounding Turing’s life, that vividly colours and shapes an understanding as to how and why both his barbarous treatment (and another estimated 49,000 accused in the time of war) was such a horrific tragedy.

‘The Imitation Game’ is divided into three time periods – the time of inquest and consequent arrest in 1951 (Manchester, England), 1939 in Bletchley Park where the majority of the film takes place and in 1929 where the school days of Alan Turing are explored, and the view of the natural relationship that forms between two young boys with a passion for conversational codes occurs.

Benedict Cumberbatch, who has had the pleasure of working as Sherlock in the TV series by the same name for three series, executes his character with ease and all the awkwardness expected of a bullied outsider who struggles with human interaction.

In the opening scene, Charles Dance (who I frustratingly can see as no one else other than Tywin Lannister after watching Game of Thrones), is interviewing Turing for the position at Bletchley and a hilarious conversation ensues about the consideration of how to tackle the problem of Engima, but also the process of interview and the apparent simplicities of human conversation. Within this, the tone of the film is set; urgency.

German bombings were not only on the country, but also on the American food supplies shipped to help a starving Britain. It is this element of the war that helps to elucidate the fact that not only were the British at war with the Germans, but time – the clock – itself.

Keira Knightley, Joan Clarke, adds an element of understanding in terms of how women were treated barely a hundred years ago. When she first enters the room, late, to take on a test to see if she might be able to join the team of code crackers – she is rudely belittled and told to leave by a soldier standing guard, until Cumberbatch comes to her rescue. In return, Joan who works in a nearby town, and eventually becomes Turing’s platonic wife shows care through all her conversation with Turing – helping with the creation of the imitating machine.

Due to time being of the essence, and the Germans capacity to alter the codes to their liking every 24 hours, Turing’s machine was a way in which to imitate the very Enigma code faced. The ‘Bombe’ (a name not discussed in the film), helped decipher the Enigma machine and saved millions of British lives and cut the war short by an estimated ‘two years’.

Ironically (given Turing’s inability to relax and speak freely within social constructs), conversation is the centre point about which Turing manages to think of a way to crack the code. Seemingly simplistic phrases of speech such as ‘Heil Hitler’, and the commentary upon the weather that they had been able to crack – can help to see the rhythms or patterns of conversation.

“Sometimes it’s the people that no one ever imagines anything of, that do the things that no one can imagine.”

The film is visceral at the close after such a heavy weight of time and effort pertaining to cracking codes and the manner by which human conversation is wittily described. Turing remarks on his illegal activity as his ‘homosexual predilections’, perhaps best illustrated when speaking to a detective on the reality of what a ‘machine’ is. He says that in order to determine whether something is a machine you must ask questions and get answers from them – this way of thinking helps to underline just how preferences are not something to be feared, but part of humanity, “I like strawberries, you like racing cars.”

I find the news article in 1952 ‘Cambridge Professor Convicted of Gross Indecency’, to be one of the most emotionally stirring and disturbing parts of any film I’ve ever seen. There are homophobic, but accepted, comments made by a number of different people throughout the time period displayed in the film. And yet, it is this public display – the headline itself – that really drives home exactly what was thought of people who were simply loving who they wanted to love.

Turing is responsible for the fact that I can simply write this article on a computer. There is a whole field of education devoted to his codes and his knowledge and understanding of how coding works.

He committed suicide due to the lack of acceptance and loneliness he felt in a time period so very close to us, that many of us have relatives that lived through it.

An absolutely incredible, cathartic and insightful film, that I would highly recommend, but don’t forget the Kleenex.