I suppose the first thing to say is: if you�re not a fan of war films in general, you might not like this film. If you are a fan of war films in general, you also might not like it. Why? Because Waterloo is a war film entirely absent of the recent mode of jingoistic, yelling, visually nauseous affairs that Black Hawk Down and Saving Private Ryan exemplify.
The film starts with Napoleon�s failure, and ends with it. Most introductory beginnings to films are zippy and stylish, an hors-d�oeuvre. Instead, the twenty-minute preamble to is a main dish of a study of Napoleon in itself, and is our first taste of Steiger�s astonishingly convincing portrayal of this obsessive, brilliant tyrant. Napoleon bids farewell to his beloved Old Guard, signs his abdication papers and sets off to exile on Elbe, and you realise you�re in for the long haul.
The gritty intensity of Steiger�s Napoleon is set off wonderfully by Plummer�s languid, supple snob of a Wellington, although we get the feeling that Plummer is simply being Plummer. One expects the Von Trapp children to come prancing in at every moment. Steiger stubbily sweats out his role like Sisyphus; Plummer simply wafts around in sexy Regency gear. But the effect is enough to understand the two very different strengths behind these men: Wellington is bred with the effortless self-assurance of the British aristocracy, and Napoleon has the madman�s iron will and the love of his men. Both have a sublime sense of his own importance.
This must have been a cinematographer�s dream project, for the camerawork is an almost painterly masterpiece. I wanted to freeze-frame every other moment on the battlefield. Bursts of cannon-powder, white and gunmetal grey, provide a chiaroscuro of smoke, lit by the fading light of the day. The ferocious charge of the Scots Greys, slowed down and set to a lachrymose violin, is a prime example of cinematic self-indulgence, yet is sublimely beautiful.
The insecurities and failings of every man is illustrated as the battle unfolds, an essay on the human condition. One soldier, maddened with fear, cries out for peace in the confusion: later we see him as dead as everyone else in the mud. Apart from anything else, this is an organisational masterpiece for thousands of extras were required in the pre-Space Invader days of zero computer effects.
This film requires effort on the part of the viewer. It lingers self-indulgently simply because this is the only way you can do the subject of war justice. There are no sides taken, no patriotic stories told; simply the story of what led two sides to battle, told with the patient eye of the oil painter and the conviction of theatre. |
