In Ken Branagh’s film version of William Shakespeare’s Henry V, we watch a tale of royalty from a very specific point of view. We see Henry, the King of England mocked by a French messenger with a gift of tennis balls in response to his claim to the French throne. From here the young King leads his nation into battle, but is it for the good of his people, or is it his own personal conquest he is after? This is the question that Branagh pulls beautifully from Shakespeare’s text. We see the weight of the decision that Henry has made, how he realizes what he has pulled his people into.
This reality is evident when Henry walks the camp grounds of his men the night before they go to battle. He wants to gauge his men’s response to his decision. And the king is met with mixed responses, some of love and others of bitterness. War is being waged on behalf of the royal family, but the price weighs heavily upon the common people of England as they are the ones who must gain the throne for Henry. Thus, this is the importance in the flashback scenes where Henry is with Bardolph and Falstaff prior to each character dying. We see Henry enjoying himself with the men as friends as they drink and laugh in the dim light of a fire and candles. But each memory ends with Henry having made a critical decision against the men in favor of a greater objective. Most poignantly Bardolph in a flashback scene asks the young Henry not to hang a thief. And Henry’s response is that he hasn’t. Bardolph has hung himself. It shows the King’s vision goes far beyond the life of a man who’s made the wrong decision.
In the end, we see that children have paid with their lives on the field of battle. These young ones who believe with all faith in their King have no longer another breath to draw. Thus, Henry carrying Robin in a long tracking shot across the field of battle displays the great price that Henry and his people pay in order for him to have a second throne and that this price weighs heavily on him.
