The latter, taking place roughly in the same high mountains, was a recent documentary, showing a small outpost of men high up in the mountains where people live on the edge of existence. The two dimensions that have remained through time are the difficulty of communicating across what is not just a language but a world view and the mystery of why soldiers were up there "conquering" villagers anyway. “The Far Pavilions” are an imaginary place in the high mountains of Afghanistan. The idea of the movie’s conclusion is that living there would be a kind of Shangri-La where lovers from different contexts could live happily. The reality shown in “Restrepo” is no such thing.
Around the world we’re still wrestling with the problem of people marrying across social barriers, except that now they’re often gender-based. “The Far Pavilions” has a gay tone sort of threading around subliminally, but when one princess declares a love for the other princess so deep that she will stay and die for her “sister” rather than leave with her lover (how could anyone leave Ben Cross?), we are clearly meant to understand that is a good, beautiful and pure thing. It's just a sahib marrying a half-caste that is forbidden. Rumer Godden loved the book. (Godden’s book “The River” and its movie incarnation directed by Jean Renoir are heart-key scriptures for me.) "The Far Pavilions" was meant to be in the style of “The Jewel in the Crown,” and indeed both films were successful. Mollie M. Kaye was a petite blonde married to a General who spoke Pashtun. She knew what she was writing about. www.mmkaye.com
These movies about the Empire in India (and the same in Africa) are as archetypal as “Star Wars.” Long rueful films proceeding at a stately pace, savoring the pomp and ceremony without any interpretation -- they offer no alternatives to Empire even as they hint at coming disaster. "The Far Pavilions" is really a boy’s movie with beautifully painted elephants, balky camels, and those strange narrow long-legged horses with curly ears. There’s a sassy prince in most of the story and lots of boys roaming around in the background. The love story is passionate enough, but the real story is the camaraderie among men. Honor! It is the highest goal to die in defense of what you believe! Old-fashioned. Though Restrepo, the soldier for whom the documentary was named, presumably died for honor, too.
“The Far Pavilions” I watched by streaming on Netflix, but parallel I’m watching “Homeland” on discs. It’s a woman’s movie: spying, figuring, maneuvering, never able to leave well-enough alone and always confronted by men out for themselves: dishonest, tricky, trying to take control, be the alpha dog. It’s not about war but the aftermath of war in Iraq and all the tangled loyalties. Contemporary. Sleeping with the enemy. Neither main character is quite sane. Being half-breeds would be a mild problem compared to the split identities of these two, one bipolar and the other an Irish redhead. The glamour of the military is now plainly only an illusion.
Recently I've also watched “Crossing Over” (2009), an Indie film weaving several stories together, all of them about people trying to become naturalized citizens of the United States. This border is the northern edge of Mexico. Now the “military” are internal police, the immigration service trying to keep them out. The idealization of patriotism and willingness to die is in the ordinary little people now. A sort of confusion of prosperity with personal salvation drives these stories.
Harrison Ford (AKA Han Solo) has the umbrella story which is the simplest: a woman who walks up from Mexico with her young son, but is deported. The other vignettes are ripped from the headlines: an idealistic Bangladeshi girl who defends freedom of speech a little too intensely, a wannabe movie actress from Australia who becomes a victim of her sexy appearance, a young Korean who gets pulled into a gang, a young British man who pretends to be Jewish and is helped by a wise rabbi. These are LA-based stories so naturally the Village Voice hated them, sneering at the “lurid” stories while using obscene language to show how hip New Yorkers are. (Someone ought to do a movie about the bicoastal cultures hating each other.) “Crossing Over” is written, directed and produced by Wayne Kramer who is from South Africa where they know a thing or two about empires.
The movie wasn’t the right kind of cynical for the politically correct and the critics, even those lesser than the Manhattan caliphs, hated the film. I don’t think their dislike was based on cynicism about the naturalizing ceremony in which a lady judge gives a very a nice sermon. I doubt that any critic knew these kinds of lives in real life. It was released in the shadow of 9/11 and I was watching it in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing. That has made a difference.
Maybe the difference is recognizing that the Empire, ANY Empire, triggers desperate behaviors both by holding their citizenship up as though it were access to Shangri-La and yet at the same time enforcing borders with bureaucracy and military-style raids. It is a fabulous Eden! But you can’t come! Such a situation is a magnet for crime, corruption, and a million tiny tragedies that add up eventually to hatred of the nation, coming both from outside and from inside. We know examples of this system clear back to the 12th century. Like the Crusades it’s a system based on us-against-them and wanting to take possession of them. So maybe the bottom line is what is addressed in “Homeland,” the psychotic confusion between the two categories (us v. them) and the desperate need for a new way of looking at nations and religions, entitlements and means that overwhelm the ends. We have internalized so many “third world ghettos” that national boundaries to keep undesirables out seem redundant. They are already in our prisons.
We know about “Star Wars,” the Empire striking back, but we need to think more about “Star Trek” and it’s basic principles of respect for other cultures. I haven’t seen the newer versions of "Star Trek", but I think I should. In fact, I’m finding a need to revisit the whole oeuvre of science fiction. The past seems to offer more negative solutions than new ideas, so maybe visiting the future will work a little better. I’m eager to see Ben Cross as Mr. Spock’s father.
This insight is from Carl Pettit. http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-good-life-conspiracy-man/ “It’s only under the cover of a seemingly inexhaustible supply of astute, crazy and almost always contradictory conspiracy theories that the actions and misdeeds of the less-than-benevolent among us can be hidden in plain sight.”
Often we figure the conspiracy is fomented by the government itself. Pettit suggests “Which makes me wonder how the same group of folks who’ve botched disaster relief, entire economies, military occupations and the day to day governance and protection of common citizens (guns laws, health care, immigration) could carry out conspiracy after successful conspiracy throughout the annals of history.” Today we expect Obama to be Mr. Spock. He tries, baby, he sure tries.
(I’m picking up Pettit at http://goodmenproject.com/ where you can read about men who are heroes or NOT, in their own words.)
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