David Conrad
If a producer had received the stereotypical Hollywood pitch for "Breaker Morant," I imagine it would have gone something like this: "It takes place during a war—no, not one of the popular ones, it's the Boer War—and the protagonists are three probable war criminals, quite unrepentant... Likable? Well, one of them likes to recite his own poetry... Yes, it has some beautiful outdoors shots, so we'll need to send the whole cast and crew to South Africa, but most of the action will take place in an ugly little army prison where the characters debate the finer points of British military law and Edwardian-era geopolitics."Luckily, if any producer at the South Australian Film Corporation received such a pitch, they agreed to make the film. Patriotism may have had something to do with it. Beneath the shouted legalese of a movie court martial and the scenes from a cold-blooded guerilla war, "Breaker Morant" is about the place of Australia in the British Commonwealth as understood by three men from different strata of turn-of-the-century Australian society. Their loyal service in time of war lands them in deadly peril when London decides that they are more useful as scapegoats than as soldiers. In the most moving, character-driven scenes, each man remembers and longs for Australia, where they have families and where the title character once enjoyed "breaking" horses. Meanwhile, the script takes numerous not-so- subtle digs at the part-German royal family and at Lord Kitchener, Britain's most famous soldier.For a certain kind of patriotic Australian, this based-on-a-true story must be a rousing defense of Australian independence and Australian bravery. It's a fascinating watch even for those without a dog in that hunt, but it is fair to ask whether the movie is too uncritical of its three heroes. Are they, after all, war criminals responsible for the mistreatment of prisoners and noncombatants? Or does the movie prove its thesis that the real guilt lay farther up the chain of command, and that the King's Australian soldiers were caught up in an unprecedented and complex kind of war from which nobody could come out both alive and clean? The heroic tone at the end is hard to swallow if you haven't been persuaded of the latter interpretation. But the beautiful shots of the veldt, and the thoughtful examination of a historical moment seldom depicted on screen, make it a satisfying film nonetheless.
tieman64
1880. The British Empire goes to war with Transvaal and Oranje, two independent republics in South Africa. Transvaal and Oranje are ruled by the Boers, descendants of Dutch settlers. The British want to colonise South Africa for the usual reasons: to acquire rich mineral deposits (specifically gold), deny other European nations the same, and to establish a staging ground to strengthen their hegemonic rule over the African continent. To this day, similar colonialist manoeuvres, largely ignored, continue across Africa.The Empire initially expects its little war to be nothing more than a colonial police action, but the Boers prove to be tough opponents. Using various guerrilla tactics, the Boer resistance manages to stretch the war out for a number of years. By 1889, over half a million British soldiers are stationed in South Africa. As news about the Empire's actions start to filter back to Britain – the British were essentially engaged in genocide, massacring civilians and setting up huge concentration camps – the British public began to raise protests. An anti-British coalition between France, Germany and Russia begins to form, ostensibly to lend humanitarian aide but really for their own Colonialist purposes.Determined to end the war as swiftly as possible, Lord Kitchener, a British Field Marshall, creates numerous "special" commando groups. These commandos are given carte blanch to rape and licentiously kill Boers. One such unit is the Bushveldt Carbineers, populated by several Australians, including Lieutenant Harry "Breaker" Morant. In total, 16000 Australians saw service along with 6500 New Zealanders.The fighting continues. Germany threatens to enter the war under the guise of protecting South African civilian populations from "the unorthodox military tactics and civilian internment programs of the British forces". In response Britain cooks up a plan to end all hostilities. They will charge Lieutenant Morant, and several others, with having committed war crimes. The gesture is meant to be seen as a "peace offering", a symbolic gesture which will end all hostilities and reconcile all nations. More importantly, it will give Germany no pretext for entering South Africa (she had been arming the Boers for over half a decade). Australia also supports the trial; the execution of these men will prove that she is a newly independent nation, a mature, modern state worthy of joining other big boy nations. Yeah right.Based on a stage-play by Kenneth Ross, Bruce Beresford's "Breaker Morant" is a legal drama centring on the trial of Morant and several of his fellow commandos. In the UK, upon release, the film was read as another bit of anti-Empire, anti-Britania bashing, then in vogue. In America it was treated as being about Vietnam (particularly the Mai Lai massacre), whilst in Australia its oft viewed as being about a poor, victimized Australia, a nation which paid a horrible price for being loyal to the British Empire. Morant is himself typically viewed as an Australian folk-hero, a brave guy scapegoated by evil Brits for "doing his duty" and who dies nobly against an exquisite sunrise.Beresford, though, is aiming to say something else. His Morant is a good guy, a poet and intellectual who is sacrificed on the altar of political expediency and who is corrupted and made monstrous by the very institution of war. The British and Australians, meanwhile, are hypocritical power brokers who execute men for crimes which the state itself sanctions. This is the chief interest of the film. Beresford isn't interested in condemning Imperialism but in chewing on the hypocrisy of an Empire which condemns soldiers for violence which it itself promotes. The Colonialist, then, has an ethical compass which points any direction but always for the same reason: to preserve Colonialism.Though at times powerful, "Breaker Morant's" overly verbose, Beresford can't escape his story's stage-play origins, all points are signposted, characters take too long to say the same things, the film's audience is always several steps ahead of a script which hermetically seals up all issues, Beresford's anti-Christianity is too heavy-handed, characters are turned into walking mouthpieces, there is little ambiguity or nuance, and Beresford's aesthetic is one of predictable shot/reverse shot patterns, which are themselves predictably "opened out" by periodic flashbacks or attempts at pseudo-monumental compositions. It's not only that the film isn't formally adventurous, but that it says all the right things in a lowbrow manner, less righteously indignant than predictably righteous.Elsewhere historical subtleties are erased. The Boers are given no voice (the ethics of killing Boers is likewise pushed aside), the fact that they were themselves apartheid-loving is ignored, Black Africans are, of course, absent and Morant and his gang are presented as underdogs (Morant was a violent racist, described by his biographer as a "con man, a cheat, a barefaced liar, the greatest male chauvinist pig of all time, an exhibitionist, racist and sadist" and who "joined the forces specifically to kill Boers"). The film's ancestors are Stanley Kubrick's "Paths of Glory" and Joseph Losey's "King and Country". Kubrick's film, machine-like, foreboding and portentous, dealt with a French state which views its subjects as ants, which sacrifices soldiers on the battlefield for meaningless lumps of dirt, and which then executes them for refusing to do the same. Like Beresford's film, soldiers exist in a twisted double bind. Losey's film, meanwhile, deals specifically with the British class system. Here, a soldier is charged for abandoning his post, is viewed with scorn by his upper class lawyer and is finally executed at the hands of the British class system; despite being an exemplary soldier in all respects, our hero is deemed disposable solely because he is not a member of the ruling classes.In 1902 the Treaty of Vereeniging was signed, adding Boer territory to yet another domain of pink on the British Imperial map.7.9/10 – Worth one viewing. See Beresford's "Tender Mercies".
Spuzzlightyear
Awesome movie here that teaches as well as entertains. In this case, it's the Boer war, which I didn't know (or care) much about. This movie is pretty much the tale of a court martial of 3 Australian soldiers on trial for killing prisoners of war and a missionary. Much of it can be applied to today, as we question how much openness can we interpret the rules of war? Although shot simply (the court martial set-up is just a few tables and a simple witness chair), the court scenes are quite done masterfully. The old acting war-horse Jack Thompson (though not really old here!) plays the the defence counsel quite brilliantly, showcasing a status switch (an improv term!) that is really quite jarringly effective. I'd heard of Breaker Morant for years, almost close to when it came out, and just watching it now makes me sad somewhat that I had neglected to see it all this time, but then again, there's tons of movies like that, and you know what? That makes me excited.
