In the film the luxurious world of the upper classes is brilliantly detailed. But. as is characteristic of Poliakoff ’s work, there are heightened contrasts with layers of much darker imagery, foreboding pointers to the Holocaust and the Blitz links of london earrings. One crucial idea that fired his visual imagination was the discovery that, as the war loomed, the animal-loving citizens of Britain, fearful of carpet bombing, evacuation and food shortages, began to put down their pets. 4I thought this was such a haunting image; it was one of the things that made me feel 1 could tell the story links of london rings.
‘In a matter of weeks, once war was declared, the world turned completely 180 degrees in terms of what was normal. It would have been easy, with those horrific mountains of dead animals piled up outside ever)’ high street vet, to say “we don’t want this, let’s do a deal with Germany links of london jewellery“.
‘I didn’t want to take away from the heroism of what happened in 1940, which was genuine, but it could so easily have been different. That’s an incredibly important thing for us to remember. At the end of the film what Anne does is heroic; there were a lot of people all over Europe who did stand up to evil and there were as many who, if we had been invaded, would have collaborated. 1 am under no illusion that we would have gone the way of France Charm Bracelet.