Rewatching Henry V with Kenneth Branagh

I have to say I was never a Shakespeare lover. We had to read one play in high school and I just didn’t care for it. Over the years we have tried to watch several movies. I think Henry V with Kenneth Branagh changed things. That was back in the 1980’s when we went to our art house movie theater in the Midwest. It took a while to catch on to the verbiage, but the music and the speech were mesmerizing. We ended up getting the CD just to hear the music again. When we moved to Capitol Hill we visited the Folger Shakespeare library and theater in our neighborhood and even went to a play there. We also went one time to visit Mr Darcy’s shirt from Pride and Prejudice. A couple of months ago we watched the king trilogy Hollow Crown on Prime which includes another version of Henry V played really well by Tom Huddleston. Since there is currently a lull in British programming as of late I stumbled across Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V on Prime. My husband was all too ready to watch it again. As soon as the music started we were enthralled again with the whole thing. Luckily we always have the closed captions on because it is very difficult to understand British accents and Shakespeare all at once. It was as moving this time as the last - the speech of course, but the hymn sung at the end. It’s still looping around in my head now. In the end it’s another rendering of a sad state of affairs. When will we ever learn?