The War That Never Ends

It's very unlikely that you'll ever see this tv-play (again). It was made and aired on the eve of the Gulf war and gave a perfect insight in how these "civilized" wars start. The actual {Peloponnesean) war self is not covered, just the built-up. This is about failing diplomacy, propaganda, people that misjudge situations at cost of many lives. There is no "action", just talking. The acting and direction is, as you would expect from the British, fantastic. the only "special effect" is that it literary gets darker as war becomes every more likely. If you get the chance to see this play, do it. It's probably the only chance you will get.

This film is available on DVD and VHS. A reference librarian found it for me on educational audio-visual web site and I ordered it from there. I cannot remember details now, but don't give up without trying to find it. Not everything out there pops up on a google search or on the IMDb shop at the top right of the screen.

The film takes liberties with the text, of course, to trim the story to seventy minutes. The major debates are there, and also the infamous dialogue at Melos. For some reason part of an ersatz Platonic dialogue, the Hippias, is inserted in the middle, concerning the education of warriors, I guess is the justification. Bob Peck is superb as the doomed Nicias at Syracuse. I have screened in a class a few times with students, for some of whom it is an eye-opener about how powerful the words are without the slam bang of special effects.

An exceptional work. It gives true insight into how civilized societies (nations) get into terrible messes. The acting is superior and the meanings are clear. A must see for those who seek to understand the actions of the powerful and the lost.

In my humble opinion: This is much more than a brilliant analysis of the 27-year war between Athens and Sparta that destroyed the Athenian empire. While watching this program, you can plainly see and identify our own parallel events being argued by our own leaders. I particularly could recognize the sincere as well as the disingenuous machinations of political expediency and the appropriation of moral right through the speeches and dialogue of the political and military men of that time (and ours). I thought it had truly clever style as presented in an old television theater style simulated and much like current hyped critical news programming.

I was so inspired that it was one of the reason I went back to making video. I don't think it will be released again. It's too bad because this is what good television was and could be all about.