Mending the Line

A stunningly moving film about 90-year-old World War II veteran Frank Moore returning to Normandy, some 70 years after he first went there as a part of the US Army in 1944, this time with a very different goal: to catch a salmon from the Normandy stream that he once crossed as a soldier. Fishing evokes all kinds of emotions - joy, frustration, elation to name just three - but this film is about more than fishing: it is about tenacity, and how even the terrors of war can't quash that part of an angler's soul that leaps when they see a new stretch of water. It is about remembrance, and how even the bleakest times can give rise to something truly special. In this instance, the feelings that fishing brings to the surface are ones of admiration, astonishment even, at the strength of the human spirit, and the power of fishing to help people through even the darkest times. Above all this is a study of the eternal, unconditional love that is shared by Frank and his wife Jeanne, and the strength that this gives them both.