lighting and the lyric poetry of Auden to convey the grand scale of the postal endeavour. These techniques were championed by Wright, a lover of experimental European cinema. Finally, the film occasionally employs narration to explain the particular marvels of the mail system. This factual exposition was promoted by Grierson. Night Mail, though edited in a naturalistic style, nevertheless utilises potent lyric symbolism. The film contrasts the national importance of the postal system, embodied by a train journey which literally enables cross-country communication, with the local accents and colloquial behaviour of its staff, demonstrating that a great nation is composed of its humble and essential regions and peoples. Night Mail further reinforces the strength of national unity by juxtaposing images of cities and countryside, factories and farms. The technologically advanced rail system, nestled comfortably in the immutable landscape, demonstrates that modernity can be British. The main body of the film uses minimal narration, usually in the present tense and always underscored with diegetic sound. This ancillary commentary serves to elaborate on the onscreen action (“The pouches are fixed to the standard by a spring clip”) or invigorate and expand the world of the film (“Four million miles every year. Five hundred million letters every year.”) The bulk of the story is conveyed through dialogue and imagery, however, leaving the narrative thrust in the hands of the postal workers. Night Mail’s significance is due to a combination of its aesthetic, commercial, and nostalgic success. In contrast to previous GPO releases, Night Mail garnered critical notice and commercial distribution through Associated British Film Distributors (ABFD). Night Mail was also one of the first GPO films built on a narrative structure, a critically influential technique in the development of documentary filmmaking. More broadly, the personnel of the GPO and Night Mail contributed to the development of documentary film worldwide. Grierson, in particular, pioneered not only a highly influential theory of "actuality" film, but developed structures of funding, production, and distribution which persist to this day. He advocated state support for documentary film as well as arguing the civic merits of educational film. Night Mail, one of the first commercial successes of the GPO, served as a "proof of concept" that his methods and goals could be publicly successful. The film's blend of social purpose and aesthetic form position it as an archetypal film of the British Documentary Film Movement. For these reasons, the