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"A great construction feat," the titular mound at the center of a military compound, a grunt trudges up it and collapses in the opening shot. The camera is most active in these early scenes, a particularly complex set-up (mobile long take with busy backgrounds) introduces the newest batch of British Army prisoners—insubordinate NCO (Sean Connery), thieving West Indian private (Ossie Davis), shirking contrabandist (Roy Kinnear), AWOL office clerk (Alfred Lynch), and brawling sot (Jack Watson). North Africa during WWII, "the front line is going to be a damn sight more comfortable than here," the sergeant (Harry Andrews) makes sure of that. A regimen of grueling bustle, doled out by the sadistic martinet (Ian Hendry) with beady eyes shaded by the visor of his cap. To make soldiers is to break them, punishment kills the gentle deserter and the camp erupts in hope of justice. "Do you know why I make you suffer?" Masculine groups grinding in hierarchical systems, already a Sidney Lumet specialty. The models include Ustinov's Billy Budd and Losey's King and Country, barking visages in cramped close-ups are prevalent, a woozy POV from inside a gas mask is noticed by Kubrick. (Intense physicality pervades the analysis, a tight view of a fly crawling on a stubbly mug cranes away to a high-angled panorama of inmates lined before the flapping Union Jack.) Sun and sand, "medicine and duty," cf. Borges' "Deutsches Requiem." Connery's macho suavity is purposefully cracked by pain and angst, Davis meanwhile faces the absurd with something like drollness, liberal officer (Ian Bannen) and fearful medic (Michael Redgrave) can only sympathize, "we're all doing time." De Palma in Casualties of War takes stock of the moral situation. Cinematography by Oswald Morris. With Norman Bird, Neil McCarthy, Howard Goorney, and Tony Caunter. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |