The story of our war in Afghanistan

Rating: Null/10 (19 October 2011)

Plot: Two Victorian British soldiers desert and go to Kafirstan in Afghanistan to make their fortune and end up ruling their own kingdom and masquerading as gods.
Combining the talents of two great creative men, Kipling and John Huston, makes for a rollicking old fashioned adventure of the sort that men ought to watch with their sons. Caine and Connery make a superb duo whilst Saeed Jaffrey is an excellent Gurkha even though he looks nothing like a Nepalese. The visuals are terrific, although it is sometimes possible to tell that this has been shot in Morocco rather than Afghanistan. The story provides an interesting look at colonialism. Caine's character wants to go in fast, make a bundle of loot and peg it for the border. At first Connery agrees but after making himself King and being mistaken for a god he grows to develop feeling of paternalism and tries to create a European style state involving religious and social reform. Predictably the natives discover that he bleeds, hence is not a god, hence is a deceiver and promptly decide to butcher him (leading to one of the best and bravest death scenes in cinema). Kipling is much excoriated these days but he was no mere jingo but a clear sighted man with no illusions about imperialism. This fable is not just an adventure but also a warning.
A warning that has not been heeded by ISAF in Afghanistan. As the film tells us, in a land of mountains each valley will fight the next. Yet Connery and ISAF have tried to make a centralised state out of disparate and often hostile peoples whose terrain defies such attempts. Furthermore these are people with their own beliefs and attempts to change them are almost certainly doomed to failure. Thus Connery's abortive efforts to marry a local woman in defiance of tradition and ISAF's promotion of causes, particularly women's rights, that are not only inimical to much of the native population but which promote resentment. The British Empire learned this after the loss of her American colonies. With the conquest of her second, non-American, empire, they would learn to rule through the locals rather than over them. Connery, like ISAF, can win the battles because, spurning the indecisive raids an Afghan chief urges them to fight, they can organise men, drill them, equip them and bring them to one decisive battle. But winning the battle is only half the war, for you need a political solution to go with your military one. In the end Connery dies, Caine is mutilated and ISAF will return home, leaving a sorry state of affairs.