I've been sitting on this movie for about a week and a half now because I just couldn't find chunk of time or I could dedicate 3 hours to sitting down and just watching a single movie.
Well now that time has come. And thank God this movie proved to be just as good as I was hoping.
The film follows the life of one Colonel Blimp. A hyper romanticized Victorian figure of a man who served in the Boer Wars. Went on to command in both the first and second world wars and in the intervening time spent most of his leisure hunting around the world shooting more animals than Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt put together.
In a lot of ways he's kind of an amalgamation of these men. A stern fast high-spirited (supposedly) Good-willed man who is completely and utterly blind to the suffering and destructive world around him.
A person who believes in gentlemanly conduct and never stooping to the low depravities of his enemies.
Forgetting for a moment that the Empire he lives within is not only as violent as his opponents but ultimately more so.
Often pioneering the very vulgar tactics that he claims to be so readily against.
So it should go without saying that the movie is riddled with propaganda.
But oddly enough, I'm not sure where the propaganda goes.
Sometimes it seems like the film is playing itself completely straight-laced and you're supposed to be taken in by this romanticized image of the British Empire fighting against the evils of the world. But other times the whole spectacle was played so immediately out of touch that you start to suspect that it's a satirical mockery.
Heck, sometimes I think the film's trying to do both and once. Wanting you to admire this man and his ''gentlemanly'' ways but also point out that everything he stands for is ultimately fictitious. At least on a grand scale.
But I have to admit that profuse propaganda didn't really get me down one way or the other.
For the acting and overall piecing of the film is so well done, that I was able to look past any incongruity and enjoy the film for what it is.
And ultimately it's just a fun. You see this cocky high-spirited kid getting involved in a duel with a man he has no connections to. All because he insulted the entire German Army while trying to get in the confrontation with a single man who's been badgering the British military efforts from one of their many colonial wars.
He would eventually become close friends with the very man he was supposed to do deal to the death and the two of them would intermingle from time to time. Usually when their respective countries were at War.
Their perspectives on how they see the world completely separated as one of them was able to enjoy the privilege of travelling the world and living in a consistently strong nation while the other one deals with a battered and constantly bombarded country who formerly held Imperial Glory and is now completely subservient to some fascistic modern ideology that is completely incomprehensible the Colonel Blimp.
And there's a whole monologue towards the end of the film where the Colonel pretty much has to acknowledge that he's out of step with the world. Which in my opinion comes 30 years too late as by the time the first world war runs its course he's already out of touch with how things actually work. So to see him stagger on for another 30 years is quite an achievement.
But really the main reason to watch this movie is to enjoy the well-placed but semi-fictitious playwright dialogue. As 30 to 40 different characters react to each other with quickshot and mediate comebacks to each other's conversations.
Really I don't have that much to say about this movie. The acting is satisfactory for the type of movie that it is. The transitions from one scene to the next are done just at the right as to make you forget the washing a 3 hour long film.
I guess I can talk about the fact that it is 3 hours long.
From my understanding this film throughout the years got chopped up somewhat and was shortened significantly either due to complaints from certain powerful individuals such as Winston Churchill. Which makes sense given that he pretty much the prime role this entire movie and then supposedly cut again for late night syndication in the 1970s route the United States.
Supposedly this film was kind of lost in a way as it was thought the original cut was long forgotten.
But that doesn't seem to be the case it's out there now on the web and possibly out on DVD as well.
Which is nice as we miss so many other films from years passed that have been cutting mutilated never to be returned to their former glory ever again.
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