Mastered, Commanded
Peter Weir's Film Is Epic Not Just in Title
Tools
dir. Peter Weir
Opens Fri Nov 14.
Peter Weir's great and beautiful new film, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, opens quietly and mysteriously, offering at first only creaks and shadows and the clanking of equipment. We are at sea, onboard a musty vessel known as the HMS Surprise, which is a rickety and outdated ship in His Majesty's Navy. The year is 1805 and Great Britain and France are in the midst of a rather nasty squabble; Napoleon aims to conquer Europe, and as the picture begins he appears to have one of his stubby legs up on England. In nine years, Bonaparte will wind up exiled on the island of Elba, spending his days muttering palindromes and scratching out a plan for his return, but for the time being he has England's ships under the constant threat of cannonballs.
Stranger Personals
The captain of the Surprise is "Lucky" Jack Aubrey, who is a pile of sea salt in the shape of Russell Crowe. His hair long, his pants and sleeves blooming, Aubrey rules the ship with a fair but stern fist, demanding excellence and sacrifice from his men. The Surprise may be at war, but that doesn't mean order shouldn't prevail; tasks must be performed, even if those tasks are maddening in their formalities. And Captain Aubrey is nothing if not a stickler for formalities. When a lowly sailor bumps into an officer--a rather meager offense, given the deadly threats surrounding them--the captain declares said sailor will be lashed before the crew. When someone is needed to lead a charge against the enemy, that someone must be of the ship's higher ranks, even if no one but a one-armed 10-year-old boy is available. Aubrey believes--and rightly so--that rules and regulations protect his vessel from chaos, even when the choices he is forced to make are solidly disagreeable both with the crew and himself. Order must always be followed, so his thinking goes, even as cannons are splintering his ship.
This thinking is not fully shared by at least one member of the Surprise, however. Dr. Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany), the vessel's surgeon, is not one to always bow to Aubrey's governances; a naturalist, Maturin is a disciple of the reasons of science and finds many of the navy's shackles silly, if not outright counterproductive. The good doctor is Aubrey's friend (as well as cello accompanist to the captain's violin), and their friendship--built upon a mutual respect that is often troubled by differing viewpoints--resides at the heart of Master and Commander. Maturin patches wounds and saws limbs for King and Country, but his beliefs are counter to the Surprise's campaign; war is a decidedly foolish venture to him, and his questioning of Aubrey's decisions--always done in private, and always with the kindest of words-- occasionally threatens an uneasy peace between the two men, especially once Maturin catches sight of the Galápagos Islands nearly 30 years before Charles Darwin.
It is what brings the doctor to the Galápagos--where he hopes to study strange and new species--that truly spins Master and Commander. Science, as always, takes a back seat to warfare, and what lands the Surprise on the island's shores is the enemy, specifically a French ship that moves so quickly and stealthily among the waves that the crew of the Surprise takes to calling it a "ghost ship." Faster and, at times, better captained, this ship first attacks the Surprise out of the fog, nearly sinking her before Aubrey manages to steer her to an escape. Despite the many holes in both his ship and his men, however, Aubrey eschews returning home for repairs in favor of hunting the enemy down, a decision that puzzles many in the crew, especially doctor Maturin; the Surprise is clearly outclassed, as everyone can see, but Aubrey (via a thoroughly engaging Russell Crowe) rallies his men. One does not simply turn tail and run, after all--at least not when one is English.
And so it goes, with Aubrey and his French counterpart (whose face remains a mystery for the bulk of the picture) engaging in a bit of chess on the high seas, seeking leverage against one another with their wits--and the hearts of their men--as their only tools. And if all this makes Master and Commander seem soundly square, that's because square is exactly what the film is; massive and solidly made, Peter Weir's picture is a throwback, of sorts, to the works of David Lean, delivering the sort of rousing, smart, and earnest adventure rarely delivered nowadays. As Aubrey inspired his men before they set out to hunt their French nemesis down, memories of Peter O'Toole proclaiming "Aqaba... from the land!" rang in my ears, and I realized that it had been far too long since I'd felt the joy and excitement such spectacular entertainment as Master and Commander provides. This is not to say the film is equal to Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, but that it reminds one of that film's greatness. Big and loud, thrilling and expensive, it is the type of film that only major Hollywood studios can produce. It is also, perhaps, the best work a major Hollywood studio will produce all year.
Share via
Also by Bradley Steinbacher
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
Comments (0)