Enigma: Angels Dancing Upwards

You know, I’ve really got to catch up, at some point.

Because, of cause, I almost forgot to mention that this week’s seen a bit of a double, in terms of movies …

As you may know myself, Adrian and Paul managed to get together on Tuesday, with a copy of Daniel Craig’s debut ‘Bond’ outing, “Casino Royale”.

And as you might guess, last night saw myself, Adrian, and Allison, this time, getting together with a copy of the wartime drama, “Enigma”.

Think Allison was a little overwhelmed by the consequent geek speak that turns up whenever a film about Bletchley Park turns up, but she did rather like the film …

Which is a great thriller, made back in 2001, and based on the Robert Harris novel of the same name. And about an hour or so shorter than the same year’s “Pearl Harbour”. Quite a bit of a plus, that!

Actually,“Enigma” has quite a broad appeal to it. As well as the thriller side to it — focusing on the arcane subject of the Bletchley Park code breaking activities, during World War Two, and makes it very understandable for us without a technical understanding of crytography, or computers — it works a love-story into the tale, as Dougray Scott’s character, Tom Jericho, returns to Bletchey Park after his tortured affair with a co-worker leads to a nervous breakdown … and a blossoming romance with his former lover’s room mate, as they try to understand why the ex has stolen some highly secret messages.

And the attempts of Tom Jericho and Hester Wallace — played by Kate Winslet, who looked rather good in those spectacles — to try and find out what exactly happened at Katyn, in the Ukraine …

All this played out against some nicely filmed scenes of the Battle of The Atlantic, the closed and intellectual atmosphere of Bletchley Park itself, and the hothouse feel of the code-breaking huts.

Character	Actor
Tom Jericho	Dougray Scott
Hester Wallace	Kate Winslet
Claire Romilly	Saffron Burrows
Wigram	Jeremy Northam
Logie	Tom Hollander
Puck	Nicolaj Coster Waldau
Others
Novel by:	Robert Harris
Screenplay by:	Tom Stoppard
Director:	Michæl Apted

Which does raise the actual history, as a side issue. It’s fascinating stuff to browse through, for those of us who take an interest, but, to save myself time, you can read the Wikipedia entry for Bletchley Park, here, the Enigma machines, here, and look at the Bletchley Park Museum, here.

But I’d also look up Alan Turing, as well, who the character of Tom Jericho is very — very — loosely based on. Alan Turing was the scientist recruited to Bletchley Park, as he’d been the man to develop the theoretical basis for modern digital programmable computers. Tommy Flowers, the General Post Offce engineer who designed and built Colossus, the first such working computer, would have had a trickier time, as far as I can see.

Neither man was given credit during the war — understandably — nor after. Which leaves films like this as some of the few times we can mention them.

They are war heroes, after all.