Sword of Honour

I was unaware of this film adaptation of Waugh's trilogy until today's showing on British freeview TV, and missing the first half hour, also missed the chance to record it to DVD. Drat. Until I saw it. Very pretty production by Channel 4 TV and Talkback, made some 8 years back, before Daniel Craig became a superstar.

I've read and reread a lot of Waugh but believed Sword of Honour to be an inexplicably stolid, inaccessibly unreadable work, so big, so long, so dull. Brideshead was the beginning of the end, the trilogy was the end writ large.

Until I found the BBC radio adaptation from 1974, over 11 hours rather than this film's 4. After a few hours I began to see the early Waugh wrapped inside the less obviously satirical wrappings, his humour and gravity. The genius, in short.

They don't make them like Waugh any more, nor do they make the people; the 1974 recording was made in time to catch many authentic sounding voices from the era, and some very fine acting. A gem which I recommend to any Waugh fans.

This film seems to be, probably, a rather adroit shot at a script which condenses a huge tome to a few hours, but the vowels are comprehensive school, Craig is hopelessly wrong, and there are but a few flashes of sharp observation and very little wit. But the audio version is available on the internet, and of course the pictures are better.

My only real gripe is about the Sten gun used by Crouchback during the Crete campaign...they werent issued yet....historically, it would have been a Thompson.

'Sword of Honour' can be seen as an update of the Boultings' 'Pilgrim's Progress' - an anachronistic idealist fights in World War Two for reasons of chivalric honour, only to see the world overrun by liars, cheats, murderers, cowards and lunatics; where decency is pointless, even dangerous.

William Boyd's restructuring of Waugh's war trilogy is a miracle of adaptation - his leavening of verbal humour with slapstick; his capturing of Waugh's elliptical tone; his creation of haunting visual patterns acting as counterpoint to the horrific satire that is the war. There is one haunting sequence amid so much disintegration, the false bomb warning during Virginia's post-natal party, that magically hints at forces beyond man's self-defeating endeavour, while also rescuing a character Waugh was rather hard on. In the moral sense.

This movie has all the qualities to be an entertaining and teaching film. There is a beautiful story of an honest and courageous man in a difficult and troubled world that revolves around. The actors and the sets, at certain moments, have some problems but the plot, the ideas, and the completeness of the life of man during the war, make us understand many useful things.

Worth watching for the solid character and moral challenges ( bad luck if you no longer believe we have them ) even though for many, the caricature and patheticness of the big boys and girls in the play make us less than warm to them in the film version.

Waugh has taken on the tough job of telling the truth from the inside and its not nice, good or even very inspiring. Unfortunately that's what we are like .Ultimately its these truths , not fantasy ,that sets us free .

The son ,father and growing men figures whose bouts of courage to do the right thing, give the play a gritty guts that make this drive through the sordid and mad mess of war really worthwhile . Because its so punchy, and even funny, if you a boy yourself , about stupid men, it should be shown in all public schools.