NOOB FILM RETROSPECTIVE - LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962) directed by David Lean (Netflix)

SYNOPSIS (Google): Lawrence, a lieutenant in the British Army, is asked by Colonel Brighton to moderately assess Faisal, their ally. Lawrence is impressed with Faisal and seeks his help to plan an attack on the enemy.

(IMDb): The story of T.E. Lawrence, the English officer who successfully united and led the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes during World War I in order to fight the Turks.

REVIEW

OF GOD'S EYE VIEW PROLOGUE AND 'MACGUFFINS'
One must wonder, why an old movie like this stands the test of time while most of the current new ones, with hundreds of millions in film budget, are forgotten as soon as you leave the movie theater?

As soon as the opening credit prologue starts, showing an aerial shot (also known as the God's eye view) of a guy filling his motorcycle tank I am taken into a place with a theatrical and thematic orchestral tune, an overture, that made the soundtrack (something that is totally missing in today's film. They are all about void visual spectacles now).

The guy then rode his motorcycle on a rural English B-road, before he went off trying to avoid a couple of school kids running on their bicycles. The next scene is of his bronze bust in the war museum (St. Paul Cathedral, to be exact) where a reporter asks who Lawrence of Arabia is to those who have known and worked with him, which resulted in different accounts.

Thus the question of who's account does the whole film being constructed? To me, the intro and prologue said it all. Being taken from God's eye view, it is said that a film director is a 'God' of his own film universe. The T.O.A.A or The One Above All. Like how Stan Lee is the T.O.A.A of the Marvel Universe, for Lawrence of Arabia it is David Lean.

This death of the protagonist in the prologue quickly reminded me of another classic, Citizen Kane, which caught the audience invested with the keyword 'Rosebud', which is the last word that Kane uttered before the movie shifted back into the past to tell a story.

Even though many say that it is just a 'MacGuffin' (an object or goal that drives the plot forward but has no intrinsic value), it has been artfully carved into the audience's mind and sparks curiosity in wanting to know more, thus keep them tight in their seat for the whole length of the film. And boy was I glued to the seat for the whole three-and-a-three-quarter hours of the film (including the mid-way 'Intermission').

LAWRENCE'S 'HERO'S JOURNEY' CIRCLE AND DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE
No prize for anyone who guessed that this film uses that infamous storytelling template by Joseph Campbell. It is quite obvious but it is magical how each and every derivation from it appears different for us yet still links us to the ups and downs of the main protagonist. From the journey of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars (Episodes 4.5 and 6 only), The Matrix, and LOTR to Kungfu Panda.

Lawrence of Arabia is no different. From a philosophical British officer who read a lot of literature and painted the war campaign map, to someone who changed the whole outcome of the Middle Eastern war campaign (departure from the 'Ordinary World' stage) Yet for him, it ends with a personal tragedy with his death after retiring back to his hometown in England, after surviving all the tasks deemed impossible by all in the desert (after 'Reward' and 'Returning with The Elixir' stage)

Like in The Matrix, when Neo suggested rescuing Morpheus from the Agents HQ, Trinity told him that it was impossible and nobody else had done it. To that Neo answered, 'That is why it is going to work.' The same goes for Lawrence when he planned the surprise attack on the Turks from behind the Acaba beach, which requires the impossible and suicidal journey through the Nefu desert. Like how Moses leads the Israelites across the Sinai Desert to again do the impossible by walking across the Red Sea.

OF JOAN OF ARC, SCRIPT OF LIFE AND FATE
It is quite intriguing for me to draw some parallels between the character Lawrence with another infamous character that gone through a similar path. It is The Joan Of Arc. Both characters did the impossible which elevated their status, but then in some part fell to the ground and realized that they are just human.

Lawrence at one point believed that he was invisible and could walk on water, which ended in him being caught by the Turks and beaten almost to death.

One of the reasons that made him think that way is the presence of the reporter character which inadvertently created another persona for him in the media which is almost prophetic, which Lawrence later got caught in his own narcissistic bubble.

A rough wake-up call for him to return to the land of the living, which he did. He went through fate or the script of life as determined by God (of both real life and film), until at a point he fell crying and laughing at the same time thinking about what made him do all these things he did.

Unlike Joan Of Arc who was captured and executed, she 'rose' from the dead (the 'Ressurection' stage) and acquired Sainthood from the very church that executed her. In Lawrence's case, he survived the impossible yet died in this peaceful English hometown, which was his choice after got tired of war and being remembered and immortalised in the St. Paul Cathedral at the start of the film.

On God of the real life and in film (the auteur), Joseph Campbell once quoted Arthur Schopenhauer saying, “When you reach a certain age, at the back of his life, seems to have had an order. Like it has been composed by someone. And those events when they occur seem merely accidental and occasional, turn out to be the main element of a consistent plot. Who composed this plot?”

The Middle Eastern theater of World War I becomes the stage for Lawrence and his circle's enactment of the "Hero's Journey," as seen from God's perspective. Thus the title and the opening shot (akin to that famous Akira's bike shot). And this review does not yet take the filmmaking aspect of this all-time classic masterpiece. They don't make films like this anymore.

Currently available on Netflix.