Below is a list of worthy anti-colonial (#anticolo) movies—perhaps the best ever made. A cursory Google search has not uncovered a single list of the best anticolo flicks of all time. The aggregated minds of East Portland Blog have come together to generate a list and potentially be the first website to broach this subject.
Apocalypse Now (1979) – That’s right. Boom. You weren’t thinking THAT were you!? The first post Vietnam fantasia and still the[se are men, America’s] best. It is also the hardest to get your mind around. The National Review calls it “The Greatest War Movie Ever Made.”
The following seven minute scene from Apocalypse Now, “The Arrival,” while loaded with crazy Dennis Hopper and grisly, graphic, evidence of homicidal violence which may not be suitable for all viewers, is the most succinct distillation of the anticolo aesthetic and the best seven minutes in anticolo cinema history. (And here’s Brando as Kurtz.)
The Quiet American (2002) – UK novelist Graham Greene worked as a correspondent in Saigon from 1951-54 and watched France say the long adieu to their Indochinese empire. In the process he collected material for his extraordinarily prescient 1955 novel, The Quiet American. Written early in America’s tragic entrance into Vietnamese politics, Greene effectively anticipated the myopic, chaos-inducing choices the newly powerful post-war US would make and expressed them in the form of a darkly beautiful but doomed love triangle. A 1958 American movie version of the novel had to change the plot to make the film more pro-American for US cinema audiences. However, the 2002 film version starring Brendan Fraser and Michael Caine, drawing on 47 years of perspective, was much more effective at developing Greene’s post-colonial themes, giving them depth, and filling out both the characters and the action. Fraser is perfect as the energetic, optimistic, doctrinaire galoot out to impress his Iowa idealism on the impervious and long-suffering Vietnamese. Michael Caine is equally well-cast as the wrinkled, world-weary, wise European who seeks only to report on his far Eastern assignment and not to interfere. Vietnamese actress Do Thi Hai Yen is affecting beyond words as the beautiful native woman who gets between the two men and exposes the moral failings of both. Filmed on location in surprisingly well-preserved Hanoi, the entire film has the look and feel of authenticity.
Breaker Morant (1980) – Directed by Bruce Beresford and released in 1980, this is the first of several beautiful Australian anticolo films. Apparently Aussies, living as they do in a Pacific beachside paradise (with many lethal animals) which started as a penal colony before maturing into a wealthy Western power, have a feel for the trials and tribulations of Europeans in the tropics. This supremely well-acted courtroom drama examines the wartime forces which motivate ordinary men to perform barbarous acts. Starring Edward Woodward and Jack Thompson, this film dramatizes the trial of historical figure Lt. Harry “The Breaker” Morant, an Australian officer fighting with British forces in the Second Boer War. While Morant and his co-defendants eventually admitted to the killing of civilian Boers– European transplants settled in South Africa—the film suggests the soldiers were victims of a British Government so eager for a peace treaty that they were willing to scapegoat and sacrifice Morant and his cohorts, loyal soldiers who were simply following orders, before an aptly-pejoratized “kangaroo court.” Breaker Morant contains the most beautifully filmed execution of all time and may be worthwhile for that and for the Breaker’s defiant last words, “Aim well: don’t make a bloody mess of it you bastards!”
The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) – Set during Indonesian political unrest in the mid 60s, this Peter Weir-directed Australian thriller is from 1982, long before Mel Gibson outed himself as an anti-Semite. In this film he’s young, handsome, forceful; a charmer from down under with infinite upside. The searchlight eyes of Gibson’s character Guy Hamilton project energy and illumination from scene to scene potentially symbolizing all that was good about Australian and Western intermeddling in this benighted former Dutch colony. Only after Hamilton is struck down and nearly blinded during a coup can he “see” that the love of his beautiful British girlfriend played by Sigourney Weaver and not the sufferings of the impoverished native victims of colonial oppression were what truly motivated his first world passions. In a gender-bending tour de force—not an overstatement– Linda Hunt played male photographer Billy Kwan, a tragic figure struggling halfway between East and West. For this she received a well-deserved Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Indonesia received 24 more years of oppression.
Our Man in Havana (1960) – The first rule of anticolo cinema is that more than likely Graham Greene wrote the novel upon which the film is based. Such is the case again here. All the exterior scenes were filmed in Cuba in 1959, the year before Castro’s revolution. Memorably, Ernie Kovacs stars as the menacing Captain Segura, but he’s not to be outdone by Alec Guiness, Noel Coward, Maureen O’Hara, Ralph Richardson, and Burl Ives in the performance of his career. Directed by Carol Reed. For bittersweet entertainment, you can’t beat it with a sugarcane.
No Escape (2015) – In two lines of dialogue Pierce Brosnan– not playing Bond this time, but still on Her Majesty’s Secret Service– explains the anticolo sentiments at the heart of the film and plainly states that US and UK interests and actions continue to harm the developing world. Beyond that, this taut, B movie thrilla, shot not in Manila, but in Thailand, flies like a bullet through the jungle. Owen Wilson and his adorable family are chased through two hours of terror which move fast and pack a punch. This is a film where viewers feel the heat, smell the decaying flesh at the wet market, and wince at the hard rain as it beats upon our heroes.
A Passage to India (1984) – The eighties were loaded with anticolo flicks of varying degrees of grandeur, and this David Lean-directed adaptation of E.M. Forster’s ponderous novel of the same name has to be among the most posh in terms of production values. Everything has the look of beauty and opulence about it. Even the trailer has a moneyed distance which suggests colonialism.
Mister Johnson (1990) – This could be the most significant anticolo flick on our list simply because it’s the only one with a native character in the title role. Directed by Bruce Beresford, who directed Breaker Morant, this tearjerker is set in Nigeria. Maynard Eziashi gives a profoundly endearing performance, with Pierce “Bond, James Bond” Brosnan and Edward “the Breaker, the Equalizer” Woodward as supporting imperialists.
City of Ghosts (2002) – Underrated and under-seen, this movie was written by Barry Gifford and Matt Dillon, and directed by and starring Matt. It’s not a bullseye anticolo movie, but certainly has some implications. Dillon was a surprisingly good director and kept it moving well and kept a consistent tone. The soundtrack features a Cambodian language version of “Both Sides Now” by Dengue Fever.
Zulu (1964) – Like a lot of these, it can’t help glorifying colonialism to an extent—or perhaps it was designed to glorify it and can’t help but condemn it.
The Battle of Algiers (1966) – This may be the ultimate anticolo film. And while we’re cranking up the old Francophone, though I’ve not seen them (I was an English major, literarily educated when Her Majesty still had a handful of colonies out there; I feel no compunction to actually have knowledge of the things I pronounce upon) the films of French director Claire Denis—especially Beau Travail and White Material—deal explicitly with colonial fall out.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) – The creepy Klaus Kinski character and the eerie dude playing the pan flute freak me out still. Kinski is a one-man argument against colonialism.
The Man Who Would Be King (1975) – Caine AND Connery!
The Comedians (1967) – Cynical Richard Burton at his best… cynicalnessss… Novelist Graham Greene returns.
Under The Volcano (1984) – Not exactly Colonial-related but I love any movie about drunken expats behaving badly. But there’s an unpleasant scene of Albert Finney…naked. ewww.
The Night of The Iguana (1964) – Just more drunken expat Burton!
Diamond Head (1963) – Involves US inter-colonialism. Chuck Heston as a raging asshole racist Hawaiian plantation owner.
The Descendants (2011) – OK again about Hawaii but with the great Beau Bridges as a a sort of hippie colonialist prick!
Farewell to the King (1989) – Stars Nick Nolte. Aboriginal people wanting nothing to do with the Japanese or the Americans.
The Sand Pebbles (1966) – This one stars Steve McQueen and is not really about colonialism, but definitely considers the consequences of “Western interests.”
12 Years a Slave (2013) – If you want to disappear down the rabbit hole of the consequences of colonialism, this film would qualify—as, I suppose, would almost any film on any subject in any genre except the airiest rom-com (a genre that I am sure someone somehow could argue is itself a consequence of colonialism). Probably not a fruitful line of inquiry.
Invictus (2009) comes to mind…
Ballplayer: Pelotero (2011) – For an insightful take on baseball’s current colonialism (at least in the Dominican Republic), take a look at this documentary.
Black Skin, White Mask (1997) – This is a documentary about Frantz Fanon whose writings had a tremendous impact on the European anticolo movement. His book, The Wretched of the Earth is considered by many to have been a bible for anticolo activists. A French citizen born on Martinique, Fanon fought Nazi oppression as a member of the resistance. After studying medicine and becoming a psychiatrist, he moved to Algeria where he did his writing and activism in support of the rebellion to free Algeria from French rule.
Paul Robeson: On colonialism, African-American rights (Spotlight, ABC,1960)
Paul Robeson sings to Scottish miners (1949)
And, as a coda, here’s a nifty article in Pop Matters about anticolo music:
