How can I fight a bloody war without artillery?

Rating: 10/10 (15 February 2007)

Reading "The seven pillars of wisdom" does enhance the film experience indeed. Several times you have to hear "No, I didn't know him well, you know." at his - T.E.Lawrence' - funeral and it will ring some more bells inside you, if you've read his biography. One might accuse the film here, that it missed the opportunity to show what his extraordinarity consisted of other than his control of pain and fear. But at the time, 1962, it wouldn't have made too much sense to include those things. Today though... the man is so severely against the modern grain that it would have been a delightful thing to have him privately portrayed. He is an anti-future, so to speak, a glimpse on a branch that history just didn't pursue any further.
So much for Lawrence, now to the film itself. "Lawrence of Arabia" seems to be a monumental film, but all the wide shots do nothing to disturb its personal tone, probably because there is nothing that they capture, just the emptiness of space. Anyway, as such, as the exhibition of emptiness, they don't really work, that's better left to the imagination of the reader or the eyes of the tourist. The important thing though is that they do not disturb the personal tone, which is the quality of the whole film.
That statement might surprise after my prelude, but personal isn't the same as private. In this film we see only ordinary stuff, people getting shot at, arguing, riding horses or camels and laying bombs. Yet artificial as it - as any film - is, it radiates warmth. The characters are convincing. Their dialogue is essential and sometimes, where you'd least expect it, namely in Auda, it is even philosophical, touching Lawrence' religious considerations "It is my pleasure that you dine with me in Wadi Rum!" This exposure of hedonistic thought illuminates a wider principle. What it means to be truly free. So free that you can even choose what you want to believe in, what you want to make the religion of your tribe. And what it means to be truly tolerant.
Now, having stated all that, I still haven't even remotely begun to tell anything about the film's plot, about "big things" in Arabia. How "big" these things were in Lawrence' head, you won't be able to tell by watching the film, the term "New Asia" doesn't occur once, a shame, considering the influence of more recent ideas on the same subject. Still, a "big thing" remains essentially a "big thing", no matter how far you drive your fantasy. And standing against "big things" there'll always be the common things. Verily, both sides do their best to drive each other mad.
And then, there's something more, something elusive that is never clearly mentioned in the film... o.k., enough of that parody. I missed the quote "Preaching is victory. Fighting is illusionary." I did miss that, because it captures the soul of this whole thing and gives the answer.