Torn Allegiance

Those imperialist Brits get a trashing again in this otherwise well paced film about the Boer War in South Africa from 1899-1902. Seen from the viewpoint of the Dutch farmers (Boers) in the area and especially centered on the experiences of one "on the brink of womanhood" character, the story unfolds with both quiet, beautiful moments and unbelievable, senseless violence, committed by the British soldiers, who admittedly "are not Sandhurst or Aldershot boys", but rather from the low life side of England. There are protracted scenes spoken in Dutch (or something) which are not captioned and one plot device- a relationship between a British general who is a brother to the wife of a Boer farmer - that goes nowhere, but otherwise this movie has merits, mostly visual ones.

Here is one of those movies - this one from South Africa - that are destined to slip through the cracks of unknown film limbo, the only copies of which can be found as old rental VHS tapes. I randomly found one such copy from long-defunct distributor Prism Entertainment, and decided to watch for two reasons: A) The subject matter of the Boer War was topical, unique, and I thoroughly enjoyed the only well-known film on the subject, "Breaker Morant, and 2) Any period drama is at least guaranteed not to be terrible.

The story takes the point of view of the local Boer farmers in 1900 South Africa, and the ones portrayed here are subject to property seizure and other humiliations at the hands of British Imperial soldiers fighting a guerilla war (the first time the term was used) against Boer rebels. First, the good points: I give the filmmakers credit for portraying a little-known and embarrassing historical footnote in British history - its treatment of imperial subjects in general and the Boers in particular. The cinematography is generally good, and the costumes and sets are appropriate.

Now, the bad points: subject matter as explosive as this should be a fine catalyst for a solid period drama, but the filmmakers somehow failed. Their biggest failure is a shallow approach to what was a very complex war. During the Boer War, neither the Boers nor the British could be considered the good guys. The British treated South Africa as another imperial resource to be exploited, and the Boers employed ruthless terrorism on the British. One thing I greatly respected about "Breaker Morant" was its dive into the myriad complexities in its storyline. However, all we get here is a maudlin storyline about how a Boer family must face injustice after injustice from British soldiers. Historically, events such as these were probably accurate, but without much background expository, they feel like soap opera or a made-for-TV movie. None of the acting is what I would call stellar - there are no prolific actors in the cast - but most of it is passable. My conclusion is that there is some terrific material here, but the acting and film-making was just not professional enough to give it the treatment it deserved (evidently, the writer/director had little film experience and did not make much after this film). It is worth a look if you are completely unfamiliar with the Boer War, but don't expect anything in-depth.

First of all, this movie, 1986, you must be confused! It was big news in the local press, I can still see the headline 'Nooit weer kaal voor die kamera' (Never again naked before the camera)* back in early 1984, so I would wager it was filmed during South African summer 1983/1984). Media attention mainly because of Trevyn McDowell's nude scene filmed in a country governed by prudishly uptight people during the time when the old regime still proudly ran this country like it was a part of Western Civilization, which it no longer is, what a pity.

*yes, a good Calvinistic girl, little Trevyn assured the whole nation tearfully that she was gong to be a good girl (sob) from now on (sob) and she fearfully hoped and prayed (sob) for God's forgiveness (sob) after having been so (sob) sinfully n-a-k-e-d (sob) in front of God and (sob) the world.**

**okay, artistic license here, writer admits to exaggeration, but you get the idea how she had to grovel for re-acceptance into the community! Laugh, but South Africa used to be a staunchly moralistic country.

The language referred to by that other reviewer, is Afrikaans, defined as South-African Dutch. There was a taste of it earlier in this review.

Rest assured that the war crimes against the Boers took place, no fiction, for real, it was horrendous, atrocious, a blight on Britain's history, with concentration camps, women and children dying, farms ravaged, everything bad you could imagine, there were no difference between the English oppressors and the Nazis 40 years later.

Political comments now left behind! I am focusing on the movie.

It seems to have been available on DVD at Amazon, but the item was sold by the next day, and it was just VHS, VHS, VHS and nobody wants a VHS tape anymore, and I'd need a VHS-PAL anyway, being South African. Movie has been on my Hard-to-Find list for years. Downloaded a trailer, all I have.

Oddly enough, for somebody on a quixotic charge after it, I've never actually seen it decently. It was on TV some Saturday night decades ago, but I considered it as part of the local junk and didn't pay much attention, and then it turned out to be watchable after all, but I missed a whole lot of it. Main interest of course was Trevyn McDowell, but watching the downloaded trailer I can't see what my fuss was about back then.

I well remember that scene where the guy on horseback whispered something in the girl's ear at the end of the movie. Besides a vague memory of the soldiers clamoring to get at the girl prior to the rape, there is nothing else that I remember besides refreshed memories after the downloading, yet I do want to see this again.

As a point of interest, due to black-listings as the rest of the world was so against the old regime, this movie was released under a different title elsewhere, and I've done research to find this title during my quest to locate it on DVD, but years later on IMDb, no sign of this. Do know, IMDb, that at least on two counts, your info is lacking...

newsflash **** newsflash **** newsflash

It's years and years later. I've long since given up on DVDs. USB transfer after download made it possible for me to gain access to this today. It is of extremely poor quality, I mean, it looks terrible, but I can finally revisited this dim memory. And I have started to submit quotes, don't know if controversial lines will be accepted, also the use of Afrikaans. Plus the plot summary is all wrong, it's totally some other movie. As for what I'm watching, it really is something worth watching, it deserves way more than I gave it back then. But it's an mp4 download... very weak. Tells you a lot about the movie that I am struggling through it. Had it been 360p I'd have had real fun, but this is maybe not even half that.

Editing note: IMDb eventually used my contributions. The plot summary is now of the real thing.

I have recently watched some clunker movies on high-res, and it's a compliment to this old junkyard treasure that I then yell out I'd rather have watched TORN ALLEGIANCE on better quality film!