The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp"It addresses something I've always been profoundly interested in — what it means to be English ... it is about bigger things than the war. It takes a longer view of history which was an extraordinarily brave thing for someone to do in 1943, at a time when history seemed to have disintegrated into its most helpless, impossible and unforgivable state."
--Stephen Fry
A while back I saw The Life and Death of Colonel Candy and I have to say that I'm thoroughly impressed. It hits a whole series of notes that are perfectly in pitch with many of my interests-- World War II, technicolor, the Boer Wars, duels, red heads form England, and taxidermy. It's also an incredibly well written, acted, and directed film. That it was made during the height of World War II is even more impressive.
It should be stated that a film with a practical credit sequence, that is credits which appear on a drawing or a painting or, in this case, a tapestry, are easily twenty-five to thirty percent better. It's a simply fact of the visual arts that I do not entirely understand, but there it is. Any time a gong is hit a film also improves substantially in quality.
Another aspect of this film that I find wonderful is its love of the household and of stuffed animals-- taxidermied animals, more specifically. As a kid who grew up in a manor full of elephant feet, water buffalo heads, and petrified ravens, I love seeing a home that is full of these kind of grim, but beautiful things. A house filled with animal heads is a house that feels like home to me. It's a shame that all of the cool animals you'd ever want on your wall are incredibly illegal to trade in.
I have mixed feelings about hunting. Most people probably do (except for the people that out right hate it), but then again, there is something kind of amazing and thrilling about it. It's something that is usually shown in an ugly light and rightfully so. But it also shows how wonderful we are as a species, how we can basically go anywhere and do anything and come out on top. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is wonderfully unpolitically correct about this kind of thing and intentionally so, I mean, how are you going to make a film about the British gentry in the turn of the century if you aren't going to have an elephant shot at some point?
You can't, damnit! It's simply not done!
All this reminds me of another fantastic film I mentioned a few weeks back, The Naked Prey. It's a film which deals directly with hunting and imperialism in a far darker way than Colonel Blimp (of course, Colonel Blimp really isn't about either of those things, it's just in the background). The Naked Prey served as the inspiration of Apocalypto (a favorite of mine) and when you watch it, it becomes obvious why Mel Gibson, or anyone else, would want to borrow from it heavily. It mixes all of the basics of the American adventure genre and throws them into a far more interesting setting (the South African bush) with far more political and racial subject matter.
In a very tenuous way it's kind of a companion piece to Colonel Blimp, because neither both films are about things like the Apartheid government or Nazi Germany, rather they're dramas about a set of particular characters who happen to live in this world. There actually isn't a single battle in Colonel Blimp and the one fight that the movie is built up to ends entirely differently from how most other movies would end such an event.
Another similarity between the two film is that The Naked Prey (which was made in 1966) deals with the antagonists in the film (Africans of an unnamed tribe) with a balance and respect unusual for both the time and the location of the movie. It doesn't simply make the hunters persuing the main character obstacles to be overcome, they're people that are presumably as complex as the unnamed protagonist in the movie. Colonel Blimp treats its enemies with the same decency, while he combats Prussians, whipsnappers, and fogeys, they're all eventually shown in a favorable light, one that makes them more than just people with opposing values to the often clueless and boisterous colonel of the film's title. In either film the villains of the movie are far more likely to be friends with the main character than anyone else. It's simply time that seems to separate them.
It was a profound statement to say in 1966 that maybe Africans, even Africans with throwing spears can be as intelligent as any white man, I think it was even more profound to say that Germans could be just as humane and petty as any member of the Allied forces.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp understands that a man can be a man of peace and at the same time be a man who follows orders and shoots and people or gets into sword fights with them. This extends to things like war, as well. It's both and attractive thing and a grotesque thing (I mean, just look at their uniforms!) and it is something that we, as humans, will never, ever be able to entirely make sense of. Or do away with.
This is a movie made (partially) about World War II
during World War II, and yet it isn't a movie that is entirely of the time. It still manages to be relevant to many issues we see in the news today.
The "issue" it talks about, even though the term "issue" was never used by those of the generation that made the film, is that of torture and of ungentlemanly warfare. People worried about it then and they worry about it now. Guantanomo Bay, Abu Ghraib, blacksites, drone wars, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Basically, somehow, Colonel Blimp brings up these timely issues and reminds us that even in 1943, when it was far more necessary to play rough that people were still concerned about being brutes.
There's one particular quote that I was struck by. It came about three-fourths into the movie and it comes from one of the good Colonel's friends. Not to spoil anything, but his friend has had a rather rough go of the 1930's and he argues with the Colonel about what he sees as foolishness and naivete.
"If you let yourself be defeated by them because you are too fair to hit back the same way they hit at you, there won't be any methods but Nazi methods. If you preach the rules of the game, while they use every foul and filthy trick against you, they'll laugh at you. They'll think you're weak, decadent."
It might not be great advice considering some of the uglier things America has been responsible for, but it's something to think about, especially considering that particular war. Sometimes a little bit of bad manners can go a long way, but you can only do that for so long before people start thinking of you as rude.
"I wonder if he's going to be a grand old man as you."
Though, at the end, if you ignore all everything else, this movie is about growing old, in all of its distinguishment and indignities. The Colonel is constantly transformed from one kind of person to another, from being a bachelor to being married to being a widower, from active duty to retirement and back again. Through through all of this he remains a soldier and in his own way (and thanks to a frame device), he is very much the same man in the beginning of the film as he is in the end. A profession which is more than just a job, it is his vocation. The Colonel is a man, for better or for worse, is comfortable with who he is and even at his lowest point doesn't forget this. It's why he's such a lovable character.
"My idea of perfection is Roger Livesey (my favorite actor) in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (my favorite film) about to fight Anton Walbrook (my other favorite actor)."
--David Mamet
(The photos are all from Google, except for the one of the hunter, which I believe is from Wikipedia)
