Day 57: Lawrence of Arabia

During World War I, we’re shown the fighting taking place in the Middle East, a lot of which is spearheaded by Lawrence (Peter O’Toole). He commands the respect of many tribes and leads them in various battles against the Turkish people.

I did not like this film, I’m going to just say that up front. The whole way through (almost four hours, by the way, I’ll never get that time back) I was whinging and checking the clock to see how long it had left to go and trying to stop myself from clawing my eyes out.

Literally the only good thing about the whole damn film was Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif). He was such a great character. Handsome, intelligent, loyal, total badass. He respected Lawrence but he could see how he was affected by it all and it really hurt him because he cared so much for him. His entrance was great too, coming out of the heatwave like that. Good shot. Wait, maybe he wasn’t the only good thing. There were some nice shots, I can’t deny that. The desert is an interesting place but unless David Attenborough is narrating it, I can’t say I want to stare at it for four hours.

Not my kind of film at all. I don’t like soldiers, I don’t care what army or what war they’re in. And I don’t like a main character with an insane white saviour complex. It’s far too long with some completely unnecessary shots that take an absolute bloody age. I understand that it’s an epic and all that noise but it was dull. Just so completely dull.

2/10