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The Return of the Soldier [1982] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
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Comments by Michael Calum Jacques, author of '1st Century Radical'
Review date: 2008-06-16 Rating: 8 out of 10
Directed by Alan Bridges, this exquisite yet disturbing 1982 film which was not released in the USA until February, 1985, is a reasonably faithful adaptation (the screenplay is by Hugh Whitemore) of Dame Rebecca West's 1918 novel of the same name. This, West's first novel, has been adapted for the stage, too, by John van Druten, ten years after its first publication. West is known for a variety of other prose works (including critical studies of Henry James and D.H. Lawrence) and, of course, for her liaison and subsequent ten year long (1913-23) partnership with H.G. Wells, following the latter's partial disclosure of his libertine sexual views in his work `Marriage', 1912.
As far as the cast of the film is concerned, the hugely successful triumvirate of Alan Bates, Julie Christie and composer, Richard Rodney Bennett (yes, all key factors in John Schlesinger's 1967 remarkable adaptation of Thomas Hardy's `Far from the Madding Crowd') return here; fans of Bennett will be enthralled by the brooding, spell-binding soundtrack ferrying many of this composer's atmospheric hallmarks. This score conspires perfectly with the subtle, understated cinematography and with the poignant silences, which result from Bridges' admirably discrete direction of the film.
Each member of the cast is somewhere between competent and excellent; they all handle the delicate nature of their characterisation - and of the plot - rather well. It is in no way an action film; it explores the daunting filial, social and emotional implications of mentally paralysing brain damage inflicted by the most bloody and unjustifiable of conflicts; World War I. Emotional, class, and ethical issues become interwoven in an `inextricable whirl' of tensions, conflicts and values. The film will `speak' in different ways to different individuals, dependent, this reviewer suspects, upon each viewer's personal disposition and `conditioning'.
Alan Bates plays the aristocratic army officer, Chris, who has his memory `frozen' at a certain stage of his past through suffering a form of shellshock in the trenches, meaning that he no longer is able to either recall or even recognise his wife, Kitty, Julie Christie, but does vividly remember a previous fiancée, Glenda Jackson, now a married teacher living humbly yet, apparently, also contentedly. The cast includes Ann-Margret, Frank Finlay and Jeremy Kemp.
Probably not a film to be watched whilst enduring a `night of the soul' experience, or the like, but a film which I can specifically recommend as a sensitive adaptation of a hugely challenging novel, well ahead of its time in 1918 and one which now, perhaps just as much as then, begs us to assess the real, tangible, and life-throttling cost of a `war with no reason'.
Michael Calum Jacques, author of '1st Century Radical'.
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Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
William Booker
Patsy Byrne
Alan Bates
Dorothy Alison
Ann-Margret
Creators:
Dorothy Alison (Primary Contributor)
Ann-Margret (Primary Contributor)
Stephen Goldblatt (Cinematographer)
Richard Rodney Bennett (Composer)
Director(s):
Recording label: Trinity Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: Trinity Home Entertainment
EAN: 0692865137337
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: Colour, DVD-Video, NTSC,
Release date: 2005-09-14
Universal product code (UPC): 692865137337
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Region code: 1
Running time: 93 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1982
Language: English (Original Language)