Posted: 09/23/2002

The Four Feathers

(2002)

by Darin Tretchikoff

A disappointing effort and an unsatisfying experience…

A little more than a hundred years ago, the technological prowess of Europe transformed parts of Africa into a killing field. The European armies (and occasionally their African opponents) made efficient use of the grisly advantages wrought by the breech-loading rifle, an innovation that transformed warfare. A young Winston Churchill, participating in the British campaign of 1898 to avenge the defeat of General Gordon¹s army, looked out upon the Sudanese Dervishes set against them and wrote that:

…bullets were shearing through flesh, smashing and splintering bone; blood spouted from terrible wounds; valiant men were struggling on through a hell of whistling metal, exploding shells, and spurting dust suffering, despairing, dying.

After five hours of fighting, some 11,000 of the Dervish army of 40,000 were dead. British losses amounted to 20 dead, along with 20 Egyptian allied soldiers.

This is the true story of the European conquest of Africa. The history of this conquest and much of the rest of the world by Britain and France is a story of captive markets, a global strategy, and technology. What it was manifestly not about was the sort of banal heroics and unexamined cliches that form the text of The Four Feathers, Shekhar Kapur¹s new film.

Kapur wants to re-tell this story of very British honor and dignity, even though The Four Feathers is one of the most re-made movies ever. (The 1939 version is still the best, with Ralph Richardson playing one of Harry Faversham’s pals.) The worst thing about Kapur¹s version is the dialogue—by Hossein Amini and Michael Schiffer—which sounds and is acted like an awkward play by aspiring high school thespians. Although the issues are supposedly profound, the lines are written in short sentences with as many mono-syllabic words as possible. The cast utters their lines with Utmost Seriousness, but the dialogue is so simplistic that one wants to either go to sleep or leave the theatre.

There is no character development, no inner examination of the kind one would expect of a man who willingly throws away his very identity. Not one moment of reflection takes place, even though our hero Harry Faversham (Heath Ledger) risks everything in his quest.

And for what? Screenplay authors Amini and Schiffer never tell us. Harry simply up and quits the army when his regiment is assigned to go to the Sudan and fight the Africans. No explanation is given except for a sudden and brief fit of anti-imperialist musings followed by Harry declaring that he¹d rather stay home with his wife-to-be Ethne (Kate Hudson). Instead of rich dialogue in which the duties to ones we love are weighed against the very real loyalties to Empire that must have pulled men like Harry in two directions, we are treated to stilted speeches such as, “I wouldn’t have gone to war for anything or anyone.” Huh? He’s an officer in the British Army!

But hold on—he changes his mind. Sort of. You see, his mates (well, three of them) decide he¹s a very un-officer-like coward, so they each send him a white feather, a symbol of their contempt. And so does Ethne, for good measure. (The white feather really was such a tradition in Commonwealth armies even into the twentieth century.) So what does Harry do? Making a decision of convoluted logic that I don¹t pretend to understand, he vows to go to the Sudan anyway to show everyone he¹s not a coward. Mind you, he¹s not doing this for some principle. The script makes it quite clear that he is simply worried about his image.

So Harry goes on a quest. Much of the movie concerns this quest, for Harry is finding himself with the aid of his African protective spirit, Abou Fatma (Djimon Hounsou), who apparently hasn¹t been hanging with the Dervishes recently.

Compounding the textual problems are the painful attempts at mannered English speech and affect from the three principal actors two Americans (Hudson and Wes Bentley, who plays Harry’s best friend Jack Durrance) and an Australian (Ledger), for some reason. Maybe Kapur couldn’t find anyone at RADA. The only Brits in the film play minor roles, including Tim Pigott-Smith, an actor of considerable charm and talent, who is wasted in this film.

The story of the European collision with the peoples of Africa and Asia can be told from the British perspective in a way that is as grand as the landscape of the desert and the rainforest. David Lean did this in Lawrence of Arabia, which touches on the consequences of imperialism while delving into the complexities of an extraordinary man. (And the restored version of this superlative film comes to select cities this week.)

Someday a director from the West (which is Shekhar Kapur¹s current milieu, although he is an Indian) will show us what the invasion of European armies was like for the people on the receiving end of the Maxim guns and Martini-Henry rifles. But a film like The Four Feathers teaches us nothing, stirs us not at all, and leaves us feeling vaguely like we were cheated for two hours.

Darin Tretchikoff is an American writer living in British Columbia.

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