Zulu - Movie Review Example

Teacher Zulu During the process of watching the movie Zulu, I cannot help but recall and compare it to cowboy and Indian movie except that in this movie, it was not the Americans who are involved but the British. The savages were not the North American Indians but the native Zulu. The argument of the movie is the same, to uphold and perpetuate white supremacy. The film was done in 1969 where colonial movies were predominant and followed the same theme of the white man supremacy where he is always the good guy and will always prevail in the end of the film. There was nothing special with the Zulu victory in the Battle of Isandlwana on January 22, 1879 as narrated by Richard Burton in the early portion of the film. It was designed to make the British victory more pronounced at the end of the film. It is very obvious that the film is fictional or exaggerated. This may have been based on a true story except that it was exaggerated to make the colonist British look good with their bravery and fortitude having withstand 4,000 savages and surviving volley after volley of attacks. Also, the engineer Lt. John Chard being pushed to assume leadership of the 135 man British detachment due to the seniority of his commission date compared to an infantry officer Lt. Gonville Bromhead is really just to add flavor to the film where an unassuming British officer rose to the occasion of defending Rorke Drift during the Zulu war. At the beginning of the film, I already have an idea about the plot of the story which proved to be correct when the film ended. There were some details of course that is difficult to anticipate because they are too unrealistic such as the singing of the Zulu warriors in praise of the British troop bravery and leaving the battlefield afterwards. In reality, it would be ridiculous for the opposing party to sing a song of praise to its enemies except of course in the movies. The film however is relatively good and probably this was highly acclaimed back in 1969 where the audience were not yet that sophisticated and film technology was not yet that advanced. But if this will be shown today, Zulu will probably receive negative review for being too simplistic in its plot and narrative that obviously perpetuate the colonials as the good guy. It would also be easy to pigeonhole the script because there were a lot of inconsistencies with it. The film is a good representation of western colonialism in Africa. It evidences that indeed there was a time that the Europeans which includes the British sought to colonialize Africa where the natives opposed and fought the colonizers. Except that the film only showed and highlighted European bravery and the supposed savagery of the natives of Africa. It did not show however how the Europeans brutally subjugated the Africans where they kidnapped its men to be sold as slaves. Basically, the film was supposed to be a representative of how slavery started except that it did some slanting in the story and showed the colonialist point of view that they are brave, civilized and good and the natives to be savage and uncivilized. In passing, the film also showed how condescending the British were about the natives. Even in the opening of the film where the Minister Otto Witt and his daughter was a guest in wedding ceremony, the two were not at all fascinated with the culture of the savages. They even left unceremoniously when news arrived of the British defeat against the Zulus and the latter’s impending attack on the British outpost. It is very noticeable in the film that Minister Otto With is highly esteemed by the Zulu natives that he even sat beside their king during the wedding ceremony. Otto Witt on the other hand is perceived by the soldiers as pest who was often described “he is with a bottle” which implies he is an uncontrollable drunkard. In one of his drinking fit, he spewed religious premonitions which demoralized the much men causing them to desert that at some point, Lt. John Chard had to send him away before he does more damage to the troops. Again, his high regard among the natives again became evident when he was allowed exit in the midst of war. This is quite strange and incoherent in the film considering that the natives were portrayed and described as savages by the Britons and the act of letting the minister pass the road unharmed is a civilized act during a war as if the Zulus were signatories to Geneva Convention on the rules of war when in fact they were portrayed as savages in the film. Assuming that the portrayal of the natives were consistent to be honorable that contradicts to the description of the British soldiers, this again was contradicted in one scene of the film. In the near end of the film, the natives attacked the make shift of the hospital when they broke through the line of the Britons. Attacking and setting hospitals or even makeshift hospital on fire is a humanitarian crime in international law. These inconsistencies in the film made it look to be obviously fictitious designed to make the colonials look good. Perhaps the film was not also meant to be historically accurate which explains why the narrative and script are too inconsistent. After all, films are supposed to be morality plays and the protagonists are only as good as their villains. This could explain why the Zulus were portrayed to be savages and at the brink of crushing the British soldiers in their outpost as they have already done at the Battle of Isandlwana to highlight how brave the British soldiers were by stacking all the odds against them and the British overcoming them all. After all, the film was intended to a western audience during its showing in 1969 and was not intended to be a documentary that is historically correct but rather just a film to entertain people. Work Cited "Zulu (1964) PL." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 3 Aug. 2014. . Read More