IronWatcher’s review published on Letterboxd:
Watched on Blu-Ray
"Lawrence of Arabia" is a film title that has become a statement. There is more to see here than rectangular images shot into your eyes twenty-four times a second. David Lean made the impossible possible, moved to the desert, directed a bombastically huge film production. The result takes your breath away - not because you have sand in your lungs, but because you don't get to see such visual power every day. The film is loosely based on the autobiographical text "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" by the British officer T.E. Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia (Peter O'Toole). Historical authenticity is not a priority for director Lean. He is much more interested in using an image of the First World War to examine and criticise the questionable expansionist practices of world powers - at the time of the Vietnam War, of course.
David Lean characterises Lawrence early on with the first image; a famous man, the great warrior, the hero of many nations, the great diplomat and leader - he is shown from above. He doesn't seem that big. He meticulously tends to his motorbike, then drives off, caring less about the danger signs of a construction site. Lawrence speeds to his death. A bronze bust is erected in his honour. With some critical visitors questioning whether the deceased deserved it, the film steps back to recount the life of T.E. Lawrence, who initially holds an unimportant job in Cairo. He is not really accepted, acts rather silly and has (deliberate?) difficulties with all the military gestures and customs he always has to be reminded of. Lean does not direct without humour. Lawrence's superior is an idiot who only says, does and knows what he is told. And someone like that is supposed to change the world order for the better? Good luck.
But the core of the almost 4 hour masterpiece is Lawrence and his struggle with himself, his struggle with his god complex. He is warned about the desert; Bedouins and gods have fun in the desert, for everyone else it is doom. Lawrence gradually becomes one of both. With a recklessness that is inherent in Lawrence's very first scene in the film - his motorbike accident - he accepts the task of going into the desert. He holds a lit match, smiles, blows it out. Cut. Glowing red sky of the rising desert sun. David Lean's Match Cut was considered the most famous in film history. He was replaced two years later by Stanley Kubrick "2001-A Space Odyssee". The glowing red sky, the fiery rising sun. Truly a sight for the gods and a red-hot warning to all humans. Humans? Lawrence doesn't feel that way. He is a daredevil, courageous and clever man who is seriously challenged at most by the tasks he sets himself.
"It is written." the Arabs belonging to many tribes always argue when they are satisfied with the overall situation. God had intended it that way. Lawrence refuses to accept this sentence several times. Nothing is written for him. He writes himself. He does not need Godliness in the desert. He arrogates to himself the status of God and eventually gets it. When he is forced to act like a god - that is, to give life and take life - he realises for the first time what it means to be a god. He loves it and recoils from himself. It is moments of megalomania like this that could bring the narcissist Lawrence down to earth - at least temporarily. For success fires Lawrence up immensely. He feels divine, he feels invincible and sets out to emulate the achievements of Moses and their ilk. Until he is brought back down to earth and wanders through the deserts like a ghost. He has seen death, he has conditioned death, he has felt it, executed it. Consistently, at the end of his first trip into the desert, Lawrence is shouted at from afar, "Who are you?" Lawrence doesn't know.
David Lean slams images onto the screen here that no one dared dream of before and that have inspired many filmmakers since. Be it the match cut, be it the mirage or the giant ship in the desert. The important thing is that the visual power does not fulfil an end in itself, but is always in the service of the story. Lean remains clever in staging Lawrence's hero status as a shell. The young (self-proclaimed) god strutting across the hijacked railway, glinting in the golden sun. That war has no place for gods and heroes is something Lean is yet to impress upon his central character. War has no understanding of either; it is rather the pure antithesis of them. The reporter who accompanies Lawrence in order to get the American population in the mood for war with his reports must also understand this. The soldiers shoot with their rifles, the reporter with his camera. All the shooters have destructive targets. For Lean, war is also always a deeply masculine, because stubbornly proud display of power. An abyss of humanity. Not in the cruel, but in the pathetic. It is better to pour water down the hot sand than to allow it to run down the throats of those who are different. It is not enough that one wins. The others must be destroyed.
