Zulu

Max Sawicky sawicky at bellatlantic.net
Wed Feb 6 15:00:01 PST 2002



> Well it's anti-war/critical of war in a lot of ways:
>
> 1) The Zulus end the fight even though they could have clearly
> won through
> a massacre. So one can only conclude that their idea of victory did not
> include massacre. Actually, according to the historians, they ended that
> battle because they were taking too many causalties.

It's the latter that I took from the movie -- that the Zulu's decamped to cut their losses.


> 2) The British commanders clearly say at the end of the film that they
> never want to fight again and, in real life, they never did.

well-taken.


> 3) The plebe discussions throughout the movie argue against their having
> any purpose in being there; at one point one soldier even remarks in
> disgust that the soil is very poor for farming...so what the hell
> are they doing there...

also well-taken, but if the battle was so meaningless, there would be less point in consuming an entire film with it.


> 4) The "god is with us" argument is the most ridiculed in the
> entire movie.

This doesn't contravene the nobility/courage theme. The absurdity of god is with us points up the manner in which the combatants substitute their own personal strength for an ersatz religious-based one.

I watched it (again) recently because I did remember it as a good film. In particular, I remember the faces of the Zulu warriors, which contrasted with more typical, demeaning Hollywood representations of third world people resisting colonizers (i.e., Cary Grant overcoming scores on Indians in hand-to-hand combat). Could you imagine Grant against two or three of the Zulu's?

mbs



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