One of film history’s most decorated films shares a true story of history’s most enigmatic personages, the British eccentric soldier T. E. Lawrence, who managed to unify the warring Arab Tribes against the settling Turkish army. It was mysterious, indeed, about how a man of different colour and race seemed to promote harmony between two endpoint clashes to battle a more solidified stronghold that was the Ottoman Turks. More mysterious was that how a man of different culture seemed to have his heart on the sands of Arabia, and sympathised its people and its vast deserts.
However, there is one moment in the film that explained the character of Lawrence and his reasons. In a suicidal trek into the immense landscape, almost never-ending expanse of desert towards Aqaba, one of the men fell behind. In choice between a nearby shelter and water, Lawrence turns around and goes back to save the friend who had fallen behind despite of being impetuously yelled by Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif) as a foolish act. Foolish it may be, but it took the courage of Lawrence to find the lost man in the desert.

There’s also another scene: a young Arab boy stays at the middle of nowhere, in the harsh sands, as he pulls out a stick to prop a sort of umbrella to protect himself from the undying heat, then he saw a small speck in the horizon. He thought it was a mirage, a trick. But the speck slowly emerges, and that tiny speck was a human; it was Lawrence. Another memorable one, Lawrence and the Arab boy reached the Suez Canal and were saved by the British Army from Cairo, and as they reached back to the city of Cairo, Lawrence just stared into the bustling street, tears in his eyes, apparently couldn’t believe that he had crossed a desert and united two warring tribes. Another one again, Lawrence, in his white dirty Arabian dress, caught much attention of the British soldiers as he brought the Arab kid with him inside the building. He asked for a glass of lemonade but wasn’t given straight away. Then he asked for a soft, comfy bed for the night but insisted it was not for him, he gave it to the Arab boy. Tiny moments like this, I realise, flecks of dialogue and situation, a touch of human and honest intention, makes this film astoundingly great.

So Lawrence of Arabia, a spectacular breed of filmmaking already is vanishing in this turn of the decade, an epic with a scope that amasses real landscapes, history, characters, battles, swords and sandals, is made out of scenes that could singularly stand alone and could still call this movie a great masterpiece. It’s a kind of film that doesn’t heavily rely on the war, the battles between Arabs and Turks; it’s a kind of epic that puts its shoulder into one characters that brings everything moving, Lawrence of Arabia. Spielberg called this “A miracle of a film”. True enough, cinema was at its pinnacle when David Lean shot this. No other movie in history, as I could recall, which made camels against the backdrop of deserts so glorious that it takes your breath away. Lean manages to bring visual poetry in his images, like the transformation of a lit fire into a glowing ember sun, the silent shots of the desert and the wind, the almost mirage-like scenes of humans in the form of tiny specks in the horizon, heat wave crashing like evaporating water.
Of course, knowing Lawrence as a man of history, one would expect that this was a biography of some sort, and an action-adventure film. Aside from that, David Lean (whose name now belongs to the list of film majesties Coppola, Kubrick, Spielberg, Kurosawa and Stone) uses the desert as an element to tell Lawrence’s story and his multi-dimensional character. He used Peter O’Toole sculptured face, almost innocent-like yet sharp and commanding, to bring out a troubled hero who finds himself a purpose in the barren lands. Although it could be foolish of me to call the desert “barren lands” because Lawrence himself said when he was asked why he was fascinated by the desert, he utters “The desert is so clean”. Simple and true.

This has to be one of the most timeless classics of all time, with a performance by Peter O’Toole that could have saved him from Oscar upset. Praised to be the best acting performance in movie history, O’Toole delivers his own triumph at this time, but was sadly ignored by the Academy Awards. Omar Sharif and Alec Guinnes also stars and delivered respectable job for their roles.

Lawrence of Arabia is a gem – one of the finest works that came to the screen, awe-inspiring and intelligent enough to paint a troubled yet inspired character amidst the canvas of sands. Unforgettable.

Rating: A