War Crimes Denial Movie?
First of all, a big hello to imdb and to film fans, especially Powell & Pressburger fans. I've recently bought a 9 DVD box set having seen 'A matter of life and death' which is a great film, and tonight watched this one.
Depicting politics in film can be a very touchy and controversial area, so I feel a little wary about opening this topic up, and yes the film has to be into historical context. Namely its 1943, Britain is in the middle of the second world war, this is a propaganda flick. However there are some major pieces of historical revisionism going on in this picture which need to be counter-balanced to give a fair account. Revisionism which could well be classed as a denial of British war crimes.
So, what's my beef here:
The major focus of the film is the protagonist's struggle to come to terms with the concept of fighting dirty. As stated in the imdb intro 'Clive Candy V.C. has fought in the Boer War and the first world war. He still believes he can win any fight with honour and maintaining "gentlemanly conduct".'
He serves in the Boer war and the first world war and at the end of film is part of the preparations for the second world war. A constant theme of the film is the Colonel's insistence that the British fight fair, a belief that even sends him to Germany to defend the Britain's reputation following the Boer war.
Sorry Colonel, but things just don't add up:
The film sends us back to 1903, a year after the end of the 2nd Boer war. Blimp says 'nothing dirty going on in Africa' - so you didn't know about Britain's concentration camps?
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War#The_concentration_camps
Later we join Blimp in the first world war, he doesn't know about the torture going on (fair enough). But he does rant on about the Germans using chemical weapons and says that the Brits didn't, a statement made in 1918.
Wrong again:
See this information from J Paxman and T Harris, 2002, A higher form of killing – the secret history of chemical and biological warfare, London, Arrow Books
June 1916
Allies use phosgene at the Somme
9 April 1917
Livens projector first used by the British at the Battle of Arras. The projector allowed a 30lb drum of gas to be exploded in lethal concentrations over the enemy, allowing for greater precision.
Ok so it can be argued 'Hey Blimpy didn't know anything about all this bad stuff, even if he was a general.' But my feeling is, the government aren't going to want any dirty washing about past war crimes to be aired in the middle of the most important war since the Napoleonic conflict, and maybe this is the source of Blimp's ignorance.
Aside from trying to correct this historical imbalance, I must say that I enjoyed the film and that it had some real classy touches in it. It can be read that actually Powell and Pressburger have produced a film which on the surface portrays Blimp as lovable but in actuality is cruelly mocking. What fighting does he actually do? The Boer war was a cake walk for the British and in the first world war he doesn't fight, he just drives around looking for some food and a train. He's the classic 'tin soldier man' - a general who never really did anything. Oh I forgot, he hid inside a fort for 7 months and got a VC before we join him in 1903.
Anyhow I hope this pushes a little more information out into the world, and helps to correct another example of censorship in the cinema.
Regards
Another great link for dirty tricks by the Brits:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/secondworldwar/story/0,14058,1640957,00.html
'Marquess of Queensbury rules old chap'
- Oh I am English, and having studied History at GCSE (for 14-16 year olds) level can assure you, that this didn't come up in the curriculum back in 1993. In fact no British war crimes did.
Postscript
Oh here's another quote for American readers from 'A higher form of killing', I'm sure you may well know about it but its so wild, I thought I'd repeat it:
1950
Between 20 and 26 September a spray contaminated with two supposedly harmless bacteria was released in the port of San Francisco by two US Navy minesweepers to test the effectiveness of a chemical attack in the harbour. From the six mock attacks an estimated 117 square miles of the area was contaminated, in other words, every one of the 800,000 inhabitants. These tests were conducted in total secrecy.
Go check the book out if you want to verify this, its really good. Err I'm not a salesperson by the way, and I'm not getting any commission on sales.