Prescient

Rating: 10/10 (20 March 2010)

Considering the subject matter, it's no surprise that a few reviewers =do= see that LoA is probably the most significant motion picture of the 20th century. Lean's epic is, after all, nothing less than the first of several vital chapters leading to present-day Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran. The dialog offers =all= the clues. Listen carefully.
The white man sees only his white enemy (here, it's the Germans; two generations later it would be the Russians) and Yergin's "Prize." The white man arms, trains and unifies the disparate and dispirited tribes he shredded a millennium ago after three centuries of wars over real estate, trade and "spices."
Lean leaves petroleum and opium out of it here. But will whoever it is who makes "Rumsfeld of Afghanistan" (or =whatever=) do likewise?
I've no idea if Lean or Spiegel understood the gravity of the tale. And it appears that most of it's hundreds of millions of viewers didn't get it, either.
Pity. Perhaps if they had, certain parties might have thought again about enlisting a world with a very long memory to fight their battles for them.