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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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6
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6 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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It's
sadly ironic that Moustapha Akkad, the Syrian-born filmmaker
whose cherished goal was to bring historical figures of Islam
to worldwide audiences, would ultimately die at the hands of
Muslim extremists. Only a few days ago (as of this writing)
Akkad succumbed to wounds he received in the November 10 terrorist
attack on the Radisson Hotel in Amman, Jordan. Ironically for
me, I had literally just finished watching his 1981 epic Lion
of the Desert
when I learned of his death.
Best known as the producer of Halloween
and the long-running franchise spawned by its tremendous success,
Akkad also directed three films during his career, of which
Lion
of the Desert
was the last. The $35 Million production generated controversy
because most of the financing came from Libyan strongman Muammar
Khaddafi who fortunately had no 'creative' input on the project
despite his substantial investment and for its less-than-flattering
portrayal of the Italian military. (According to the IMDB it
remains banned in Italy to this day, for "defamation.")
The nearly three-hour film was a massive box-office bomb. That
Akkad populated his principal cast with known Western actors
and shot it in English in the style of a conventional Hollywood
epic didn't make a lick of difference to audiences at the time,
for whom historical spectacles had become passé.
The script, written by Irishman H.A.L. Craig
(Airport 77), is certainly not
a polemic against non-Muslims. Lion's
protagonist, guerrilla leader Omar Mukhtar (Anthony
Quinn), is shown deriving strength and wisdom from the Koran,
yet the film sagely concentrates on the universality of its
story, that of freedom fighters resisting foreign invasion and
exploitation... In modern-day pitch jargon it'd be called Braveheart
of North Africa. It's a handsomely mounted throwback to
the likes of Lawrence of Arabia
and Khartoum (only this time with
an Muslim hero), which does not deserve its near-total obscurity.
Lion
of the Desert opens
with a newsreel-style prologue giving us a thumbnail sketch
of Italy's seizure of Libya from the Turks prior to World War
I and the subsequent colonization of that North African nation.
A low-level insurgency among Bedouin tribesmen has been a thorn
in Italy's side ever since assuming control. With the rise to
power of Mussolini greater emphasis is placed on crushing the
rebels once and for all, but success proves as illusory as the
dictator's dream of a new Roman Empire. Tougher measures are
needed, along with the right man to carry them out.
Mussolini (Rod Steiger)
has that man in General Rudolfo Graziani (Oliver Reed), an experienced
field commander and staunch supporter of the fascist regime.
Appointed military governor in 1929, the general arrives in
Libya to plan his strategy. His predecessors, Graziani feels,
were too soft on the natives. The rebels must be cut off from
their support, pinned down and then annihilated. He orders a
ruthless campaign of punitive reprisal against villages aiding
the insurgents: civilians are executed, crops destroyed, dwellings
burnt, precious wells filled in with cement. Yet the tempo of
rebel attacks only increases. In retaliation Graziani has the
entire Bedouin population rounded up and herded into concentration
camps; a massive barrier of barbed wire is constructed along
the border with Egypt, from where the rebels receive supplies
of arms and ammunition. Reinforced with tanks and additional
troops from Italy, Graziani launches a two-stage offensive to
first drive the rebels into the southern mountains, trapping
them far from the colonized areas along the Mediterranean coast,
then ultimately crush them there. All the implements of mechanized
war to include aircraft and poison gas will be used in this
pre-WW2 desert blitzkrieg.
Against the might
of a modern European army stands Omar Mukhtar and his small
force of mounted guerrillas. They may be poorly equipped and
totally lacking in heavy weapons but Mukhtar, a master of the
ambush, makes the enemy pay dearly in blood and treasure. A
teacher by profession, the now elderly Mukhtar has been fighting
the Italians for two decades and his will to resist remains
undaunted. In all those years of conflict, however, he has never
faced an opponent as skilled, relentless and utterly ruthless
as Graziani "the Butcher"...
Briskly paced for
a nearly three-hour movie, Lion of the
Desert will engage and entertain any action movie fan
who's also a military history buff. (A small niche audience
perhaps, but I'm a member.) Think Lawrence
of Arabia, just an
hour shorter in length and with more battle scenes and less
talking. While the 'freedom fighters take on impossible odds'
formula comes with its own set of seemingly unavoidable clichιs,
Lion's setting Italy's inter-world
war colonial conflicts is extremely rare for an historical
film. (Actually, this is the only such flick I'm aware of.)
Great attention and expense was paid to getting the details
of 1930s weapons, vehicles and uniforms as accurate as possible.
Producer Akkad strove to put every penny up on the screen and
handily succeeded. With his director's hat on he's somewhat
less successful, content to helm the picture in the style of
Hollywood spectacles of the 1950s and '60s; his approach is
completely conventional and old fashioned, though this isn't
necessarily a bad thing. Quinn (Zorba
the Greek) and Reed (Curse
of the Werewolf) make for well-matched adversaries whose
single scene together, near the end, nicely underscores the
reasons why each man fights for his respective cause. Lion
deserves a small amount of credit, too, for resisting the urge
to paint things in stark black and white terms a trap very
easy to fall into with stories like this, fact-based or not.
Not all the Italians are depicted as brutal oppressors, as exemplified
by the colonel (Raf Vallone) who works for an honorable settlement
and despairs at Graziani's iron-fisted policies. Nor are the
Muslims all virtuous fighters for freedom; Sir John Geilgud
cameos as a sheik and former friend of Mukhtar's who is quite
content to submit to Mussolini in exchange for gold.
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Originally
released on DVD by Anchor Bay in 1998, at the dawn of the format,
Lion of the Desert was reissued by
the company this month as a two-disc set. Disc 1 contains the
uncut 173-minute*
version of the film with an optional audio commentary by Akkad
and a making-of documentary. The second disc is exactly the same
except that the film, featurette and commentary are in Arabic.
Given the times we live in this is a highly unusual move on Anchor
Bay's part; I extend kudos to AB for making Lion
as culture-friendly as possible to Arab-Americans and their counterparts
in Canada. The film itself is presented in 1.77:1 AR (apparently
cropped) and enhanced for 16x9 TVs. A grainy sheen is present
throughout the picture, looking its worst in the opening minutes,
but otherwise the transfer is blemish-free with strong, solid
colors. The main audio track is in basic Dolby stereo, which does
a fine enough job with sound effects and Maurice Jarre's majestic
score, but unfortunately some passages of dialog notably by
Reed, who plays Graziani as a soft-spoken man are simply too
weak in the mix. (I strongly advise cranking up the volume whenever
Reed appears in a scene set indoors.) Although I don't understand
Arabic, I sampled chapters from the film on Disc 2 and was surprised
at the quality of the Arab voice actors and how good the dubbing
looks nobody's still talking even though their lips aren't moving,
as is the case in Asian movies dubbed into English. Dialog audio
levels are higher and clearer-sounding in the Arabic version,
too... Not that this did me much good, as English subs are not
provided.
The 32-minute featurette
is a somewhat worn-looking promotional piece put together during
the film's production. It's completely uncritical, of course,
but still provides some interesting behind-the-scenes glimpses
into the staggering logistical feat of shooting such a large-scale
movie in the African desert. Much the same ground is covered in
Akkad's audio commentary (delivered in Arabic on Disc 2), which
suffers from some rather lengthy gaps. (To be fair to the man,
it's a long film for which he had to record two separate tracks.)
A few anecdotes concerning the cast are offered, though: Quinn
greatly enjoyed living among the Bedouin for a month prior to
the start of shooting; minders were hired to keep Reed who did
not get along with Steiger (and vice versa) from drinking.
11/15/05 |
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*
A typo on the packaging lists the running time as only 93 minutes!
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