Film Review - "I Am Henry"
Many thanks to the creators of “I Am Henry” for giving me a special viewing of their film! It’s a short film focussing on after Henry VIII’s death. The King is dead, but his soul is stranded in a kind of half-way house in the afterlife. There he meets Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn and Anne suggests that this is probably his “Purgatory”. He meets with both wives, reflecting on how things went right and how they went very wrong, before he can move on to the next stage of the afterlife.
In his reunion with Catherine, he then meets a mysterious, young man. This young man is revealed as Henry, Duke of Cornwall - the son that he had had with Catherine who died at only two months old. Here he is now, a grown, young man in the afterlife and he tells his father that his siblings, who also died as babies, are also here. I thought that it was very good to include this, the idea that even though a baby has died, it lives on and even grows up in the afterlife. The meeting with his son is also important for Henry as this would help him to move on from his perceived failures in his life.
The reunion with Anne is very interesting too. Given the circumstances, Anne is very calm, witty and surprisingly this reunion doesn’t result in a blazing row! However, Anne has definitely not forgiven him for what he did and she is still understandably bewildered by his decision to have her executed. Equally, Henry is showing mixed feelings in this reunion. Even in the afterlife, his feelings and reflections alternate from why he fell in love with her in the first place, to what did he ever see in her. Compared to the relationships he had with his other five wives, I think this reunion helped to show that his relationship with Anne was definitely the most complicated. All that was needed was for Jane Seymour to show up, but then that definitely would have resulted in a fight!
“I Am Henry” is a brilliant, new and interesting perspective on Henry VIII’s story and I definitely recommend it to those interested in all things Tudor! The film is available to rent, or buy on VIMEO ON DEMAND at the following link - https://vimeo.com/ondemand/66333 .
