VERY, VERY HEAVY, FILM BREAKING SPOILERS BELOW:
Ray Winstone says in the Making Of Doc that his character takes the job to stay close to Carlysle, because now that Arjan knows Carlysle is most likely one of the men who was there when Arjan's family were killed/taken he wants to know what happened to them and probably kill Carlysle for his role in it. This motivation is never explicitly stated in the movie itself but it is heavily implied, particularly in the opening exchanges between Arjan and Carlysle, and again in their conversation at the film's epilogue.
I think Arjan's line "I don't hate the British" is a mixture of a few things - he does feel strong antipathy towards them (and in the case of Carlysle, who may hold the secret of his family's fate, it's an antipathy that could well become hate) but Arjan also recognizes that the Boers he fought alongside (and he himself) committed their own atrocities. Arjan says that he did hate God for a while, but explains that he gradually realised that God did not cause him, his friends, or the British to sin, they chose that for themselves.
Arjan is, as noted above, a God fearing man who believes that Kereama (the Maori) is a murderer. As a result he does not accept Kereama's protestations of innocence and has no compunctions about turning Kereama over to the authorities. That is, until the moment when Arjan realises Kereama is incapable of taking a life during the fight in the forest and therefore cannot have committed the crime.
Kereama explains several times that he's going back to a place that is sacred to his people. This isn't a village, this is an ancestral site of worship high up in the mountains. He has to go back there to conduct a ritual that will restore his family's (and his own) honour - the honour that they lost years ago when their rebellion was defeated.
Carlysle employs Arjan as a Tracker partly because he knows how good he is, but mostly out of guilt at what had happened to Arjan's farm and family- The absurdly high bounty of 100 sovereigns is blood money for the atrocities of his superiors out in South Africa.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT8jZk8AWHc
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busterbboy
13 years ago
Wow, thanks a lot for that Henry williams.
This wasn't at all clear in the film - Ray Winstone's heavy accent didn't help! There were times I couldn't understand a word he said. I must admit I have criticised our American friends for complaining they can't understand a regional British accent, but here I was lost.
At the time, I enjoyed his accent and thought he did a good job with it, and normally you don't need to know exactly what is said, use your imagination and read the scene. But I was startled when he turned up with the posse. Here was a man who wanted to 'confront the British for what they'd done', now working for them.
As he had seen the event and was a shrewd man with a good sense of character and justice, I assumed he was going to do what he could to allow the man, obviously a kindred spirit from the start, to escape the hated British Army. He would have been glad to see the nasty drunken oafs killed, surely? I know he read the Bible, but it was obvious to all that the dead man was a wrong'un.
But no, he doggedly hunted him down for his enemies. No 'the enemy of my enemies is my friend'
And I would have thought Arjan would see the truth about Kereama pretty much immediately, and have no faith in British justice after what they - and Carlisle - had done to him. And Kereama was obviously a good man. I was expecting them to team up and off the British, especially 'sideboards', and Carlisle would live to restore dignity somehow.
For me, this remains a weakness in the core of the script.
I'd give it 6, for the setting and acting plus I liked all the hunt stuff.
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