Lawrence: After Arabia

Having watched it twice (with growing dismay) I have to say this film will probably be used by film schools to demonstrate how NOT to make a movie. The acting is, with few exceptions, terrible. Barber-Duffy as Lawrence puts in a wooden and unconvincing performance which is amply demonstrated by his first scene.

May of the scenes are framed so badly they highlight both the inadequacy of both sets and direction. (See for example the scenes where the Head of Intelligence briefs his agents, and the hospital scene later in the film).

Access to Clouds Hill was infamously limited: but why does the Director use the exact same bit of film (Lawrence arriving on his Brough to find the cottage door open), multiple times? It's just so obvious.

The blue-screen scenes which are meant to represent Arabia are simply atrocious. It would have been better not to use them at all.

I find it hard to believe the film has gathered so many awards.

On the positive side, (yes there is one) the Dorset countryside is beautiful and does evoke the landscape around Clouds Hill.

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 applaud the director for giving it a go but the film was very poor and terribly shot. The acting, with a couple of exceptions, was a amateurish and the shots were over egged and tedious. A couple of beacons in the mist were the inquest scene (although terribly framed) I totally believed the actor presiding over the scene, I've seen him in lots and he's very believable, and the Cameo from Michael Maloney was enjoyable.. the rest were over acting I'm afraid.

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.

I know much of this story from Rodney Legg's 1988 book, so was interested to see it turned into a narrative. And I knew it would be low budget - but low budgets can often be a spur to imaginative and exciting solutions. Not in this case, sadly. Almost every department of moviemaking was shoddy. Direction was leaden. Editing was stodgy. Sound recording was mushy, and sound mixing woeful. Grading? Forget it. Continuity. Ditto. And, as for the acting... From the opening sequence, with a child actor who would have made a primary school nativity audience wince, to our hero, who was presumably trying to convey a tortured soul but only succeeded in looking mildly dyspeptic, even while squeezing out a tear. To be honest, I didn't get far enough into the movie to reach the actors we've heard of. After the second sequence of 'Arabs' running single file right to left I decided to either stay and laugh or go and do something more life-enhancing. I went. If you're interested in the story, track down the book. If you want to see a good movie, go elsewhere.