Lord Jim (some spoilers)

Awesome film.  Sailor is made first officer of a ship full of Muslims on a pilgrimage to Mecca, believes in a strict code of honour that if a ship cannot be saved he must go down with it, but succumbs to fear at the last minute and his false ideal of heroism is stripped away and he confesses his cowardice and goes into anonymity doing odd jobs.  He finds real honour once again amongst the rabble and without his status and rank.  The system fails, and a sailor who believed so much in the system kills himself.  He is then assigned to deliver guns and gunpowder to a resistance group up a river deep in the jungle who are enslaved by a tyrant general.  Refusing to give in to fear once more he's captured and held prisoner, tied to a pole and made more powerless but more heroic in his resistance to torture and temptation, and is released by the resistance, before leading them in an attack and killing the general, but after that he finds further tests as corruption and fear seeps back into his newfound paradise in the form of a cunning smuggler/pirate.  His renewed self-love is not enough and he must sacrifice himself completely in order to be free, as the wheel of doubt waits for him wherever he turns, even when everything happens at the same time as he intends and victory is achieved.  This film follows one of my favourite themes, conflict and violence amongst nature and order, appropriately set in a..buddhisty kind of temple like place.  After his sacrifice the boat goes on down the river in the dusk.  It's an awesome film filled with truth and logic, about the inward and outward disintegration of appearance and vanity and the inner struggle at the heart of the river for power and freedom.  Filled with great images, the jungle beautifully photographed, obvious but great symbolism like the wheel of choice that comes back to haunt him.  Peace can never belong to him alone, he can never be free in the way he wants so he gives in.  I thought Peter O' Toole's acting was great, it's long but never boring.

Awesome film!

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