"The Australians have never really seen their history on the screen before," director Bruce Beresford once said, aiming to explain how 'Breaker' Morant had become the biggest hit of all time in its home country. There had already been Peter Weir's The Last Wave in '77, The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith in '78, My Brilliant Career and Mad Max in '79, but none of them came close to achieving the popularity of 'Breaker' Morant. Shot in Australia in 1980, Beresford's military suspense drama heralded the arrival of Australian cinema on the international scene. In the National Review, John Simon said that it was "easily the most distinguished film of the year. Beresford makes no false moves. The film, so full of wit to the very end, wrings the heart and stirs up the mind without ever raising its voice."

Who would expect that the public would be the least bit interested in a court martial involving Australians who kill a German in a skirmish with Dutch settlers to keep South Africa British? It's the story of "a side issue in a backwater war, an infinitesimal snag on the fabric of Empire," Variety said at the time. But as in much great art, the more specific the artist gets, the more universal the result, and 'Breaker' Morant pushes all the right buttons. As Bruce Beresford said, "If any sort of human experience is accurately observed, it's going to be understood around the world."

The script, which got an American Academy Award® nomination, was based upon the play 'Breaker' Morant by Kenneth Ross, itself based upon the book Scapegoats of the Empire written by the one survivor. It tells the true tale of the prosecution of three Australian soldiers by the British government. As in Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory, the court martial has everything to do with political expedience and nothing to do with justice.

The British, with 250,000 soldiers from all over their vast empire, were losing the Boer War (1899­1902), fighting against a mere 50,000 Boers. Faced with the possibility of the Germans entering the war on the side of the Boers, the British decided to mollify the Germans by indicting three soldiers involved in the killing of a German missionary. The Australian government wouldn't help their countrymen because they were eager to rid themselves of their frontier atmosphere. Forget the fact that the missionary was a spy for the Boers who provided information resulting in an ambush responsible for the death of a British officer. Forget the fact that the soldiers were under orders and simply following the standard rules of engagement for this new type of guerrilla warfare. What are a few lives when a peace conference is at stake? The outcome of the court martial is a fait accompli before a word is spoken.

So the three soldiers languish in jail, defended by a lawyer with absolutely no trial experience. The railroading is complete. Things reach the height of irony when the fort is attacked by Boers, the prisoners are released from their cells to kill Boers, then returned to their cells to continue their trial for killing Boers.

The parallels to the war in Vietnam are inescapable. A major world power fought locals who simply wouldn't obey the rules of civilized battle. Like the Green Berets, the Bushveldt Carbineers found themselves fighting behind enemy lines against an enemy whose refusal to wear uniforms made them blend in with the population. The British, with no clear way to distinguish between the enemy and innocent civilians, simply decided to commit genocide, ordering their soldiers to take no prisoners.

In Forbes, Malcolm Forbes himself wrote that the film was "one of the best in ten years," and Janet Maslin of the New York Times declared that "Its greatest strength is that it delivers what it promises."

Not exactly. The film never answers a very important question. Why is it that men of principle always end up the scapegoats? Maybe it can¹t be answered.
 
 

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