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Enigma

Secret Intelligence
ENIGMA
Cert. 15
Director: Michael Apted

The fascinating story of the code-breakers who worked at Bletchley Park during WWII remained totally unknown to the public until the mid-1970s.

Their task was to crack the ingenious Enigma cipher used for high-level Nazi communications. Though Polish intelligence had given the British a copy of the Enigma machine in July 1939, the settings of the machine were changed continually, and each day the German operators had some 159,000,000,000,000,000,000 possibilities from which to choose. Unravelling the code was indeed a daunting job for the Bletchley team and the fledgling computer they managed to construct.

The film, starring Dougray Scott and Kate Winslet, is pure fiction, based on the novel of the same name by Robert Harris, with a slightly changed ending. It has the feel of one of John Buchan's ripping yarns, but sadly includes a fairly unnecessary sex scene and a light sprinkling of foul language to make it 'realistic'. The plot is an absorbing puzzle in itself, with a trans-Atlantic convoy about to be totally devastated by U-boats unless the code can be broken. But there is nothing profound about the film.

However, the whole Bletchley Park saga is a timely reminder that in warfare often the best and most effective work goes on unpublicised and behind the scenes. Particularly with the current world crisis in view, Christians might reflect that perhaps the key breakthrough to its solution may be found in the secret place of prayer.

JEB
John Benton