Zulu

This being the season of epic films on telly, I treated myself to a rewatching of Zulu.


From the extraordinary opening sequence showing the aftermath of a battle, the field strewn with bloody corpses, we know this is not going to be a typical "boy's own" heroic tale of derring-do.


We're introduced to our main characters early on -- Michael Caine, in his first major role, playing against what later became his type, as the extremely posh, upper class officer; and Stanley Baker, the officer of engineers, sent to build a bridge and finding himself officer commanding at a desperate post.


This is, of course, primarily a boys film but a woman is shoe-horned into the script for lusting purposes. She is soon sent on her way, so the men can concentrate on the manly action that is to come.


And there is no shortage of action.


The action is not gratuitous, in the way of most modern films: here, it is earned, through blood and sweat and tense anticipation, and through getting to know some of the characters who will be forced to act -- they become real humans rather than being unknown ciphers.


Nigel Green's magnificently composed Colour-Sergeant Bourne, seen there with Stanley Baker's Lt Chard, is a calm centre for the film (and was the father figure I always wanted).


Michael Caine's Lt Bromhead is credibly transformed during the film from someone we despised into someone for whom we are rooting. The one flaw in the magnificent Blu-ray release of this film (and it is a truly staggering Blu-ray) is that his eye-shadow seems a tad, well, gay, actually.


It was made in 1964 so, of course, we don't get to see the Zulu warriors as individual human characters: but there is a dignity in their treatment, and they are shown as extraordinarily brave and skillful warriors, and men who have nothing but respect for their opponents. And all that makes the death of so many of them seem even more appallingly wasteful.


Even an anti-imperialist like me finds it impossible to resist tears forming as the small band of survivors of this Welsh regiment sing out Men of Harlech when faced with overwhelming odds; at the fortuitous intervention of a herd of cattle; and at the stirring, horrifying sequence where three ranks of soldiers fire in volleys at the advancing charge of the overwhelming force of Zulus, both sides defiant in the face of death.

This is no time to question what they were doing in Africa: this is a film to stir the heart.