Lawrence: After Arabia

Imagine an amateur dramatic society at its first meeting gaining access to film equipment & you have some idea of the quality of this film. Sound, photography & continuity were embarrassing in places & the glimpses of good acting brief. The story could have been so much more in depth & instead far too much time was spent on peripheral activity eg the funeral procession.

Having been looking forward to this showing for some time, with a keen interest in the life of T E Lawrence, I was sadly disappointed.

I had high expectations for this film but unfortunately I found it disappointing. The story itself was interesting and held my attention, but the sound, continuity and photography were all inadequate, not to mention the tedious, incessant and inappropriate music score. The acting, with a few exceptions, was weak, and to bill Brian Cox as the star in the opening credits showed some nerve - what a con! He never even appeared on screen, just providing brief narration. I sat through the whole film wondering how on earth it could have won any kinds of awards or indeed how it was even selected for various film festivals. Clearly this film was made on too small a budget, making it look like an over-stretched amateur production.

The worst film I can remember seeing. Memorable only for the screenwriter, actors, sound recording, cinematographer, editor and director duelling it out for who could deliver the worst performance.

That said I would recommend it if only for comedy value. Films as terribly made as this don't come along often. Enjoy.

What a dreadful mess this film was. It took the most banal conspiracy theory about Lawrence's death and failed to offer any evidence in support of it. Didn't seem able to get anything right. Ok the bike had the right number plate and Clouds Hill seemed to get a look in. Given that what makes Lawrence especially interesting is what he did with the latter part of his life, this really was a wasted opportunity to add something. Now i have been told i need to write a longer review. Seems more helpful to keep it short and sweet. But that's not what this website seems to value. I suggest potential audience instead read the very helpful book published about Lawrence's death which highlights the weaknesses of an inadequately serviced bike and the good thing that came out of it; a recommendation at the inquest for riders to wear helmets which was followed up in the war for despatch riders.

First things first, This was made on a non-existent budget for a feature, a first time director and a tiny crew. So I'll try not to be too harsh, but the director needs to know where he went wrong, so he can improve on it next time.

So there isn't a single aspect of this film that didn't have issues, some more glaring than others. By far the biggest issue is that technically is this the worst film I've ever seen. From Inaudible sound due to the lack of sound mixing and background noise, green screen issues such as jpegs being used as background and no effort to make these believable, visible artefacts from poor keying, horrendous editing (was there anyone keeping an eye on continuity??) along with all that, the camera work really felt like a lazy student film, shots being over and under exposed, lack of thought put into the shots, no colour grading and the footage just looked so dull, and finally I've never seen a film reuse so much footage before, you could turn it into a drinking game (which probably isn't a bad idea if you're going to watch this)

The acting wasn't the worst, but I can't see anyone getting any Oscars any time soon, and oh my god the pacing was mind-numbing this felt like a 4 hour movie. I hope the director reads and takes in all the feedback he will inevitably get and uses that as a jumping off point to improve his skills as a director.