La vallée perdue

The Last Valley, a serious historical and sociological drama, is just about the only English language feature film to deal with the Thirty Years War. It's about a valley that because of its inaccessibility escapes some of the ravages of that very brutal conflict.

17th century Europe was the century of the great religious conflicts between Catholic and the many Protestant faiths. The Catholic Hapsburg Holy Roman Empire was gradually losing its grip on more and more of the various little domains that made up their empire. More rulers and the populations of those small kingdoms were converting to either Lutheranism or Calvinism.

Of course the rest of Europe was concerned as to who would come out on top and from 1617 when the conflict first started, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, France, Spain, just about everybody got involved one way or another. Religion was the key factor, but hardly the only one. France because her prime minister Cardinal Richelieu feared the Hapsburgs more than Protestantism allied themselves with the Protestant rulers.

The war itself was fought mostly in Germany, not Germany the nation, but Germany the geographical expression, just a place where the German language predominated. The German people, weak and disunited, were just prey for the other invading powers.

The looting and pillaging you see here is exactly what was going on in 1641 when scholar Omar Sharif who had lost his entire family and home to the war is now reduced to being a wandering beggar and stumbles into this valley which has escaped the struggle. Unfortunately following him in is Michael Caine with a company of mercenaries.

But Sharif talks Caine into doing winter quarters there instead of just sacking the place and moving on as per the norm for the day. An uneasy alliance is formed between, Sharif, Caine and his soldiers, head honcho in the town Nigel Davenport and priest Per Oscarsson.

The peasants here are hardly a noble lot, Sharif's very education makes him a figure of suspicion. Yet they're just ordinary folks trying to survive in a world that they must think is coming to an end. It would have not been out of the ordinary for them to believe that what they were seeing was Armegeddon.

The Thirty Years War is not something that is taught in American schools. I think because the United Kingdom was not involved in it. they had a nice struggle going between the crown and Parliament in the first half of that century and what became the original thirteen colonies of America were all being settled by various immigrant groups. The Last Valley is a tremendous educational tool for anyone teaching European history. We don't see any of the great figures of the war, what we do see is a glimpse into the peasant life of the period that once seen is unforgettable.

James Clavell who later wrote and directed Oriental epics like Shogun and Taipan wrote and directed The Last Valley. He and the rest of the cast and crew should be proud of being involved in a cinema masterpiece.

Over my many years of cinema-going, I've viewed a whole range of movies with titles beginning "The Last .." including "The Last Emperor" (1987) and "The Last Samurai" (2003). "The Last Valley' may not be the best-known film with this kind of title, but it made an impression on me when I first saw it at the cinema in 1971 and still resonated with me when I viewed it again on DVD some 46 years later.

It is partly the unusual historical context: the story is set during the repeated bloody clashes of Catholic and Protestant armies largely in German-speaking continental Europe in the Thirty Years War of 1618-1648 and reference to a particular battle in a line of dialogue places the period more precisely in late 1643 and early 1644. It is partly the important subjects that it addresses: the narrative is a sharp critique of the role of religion and superstition in fostering hatred and war and the leading character eventually shouts at the local priest: "There is no Hell. Don't you understand? Because there is no God. There never was. Don't you understand? There is no God! It's a legend!".

This British film was written, produced and directed by James Cavell before he became famous for his blockbuster novels. The 17th century village in question was recreated in the valley of Trins in the beautiful Tyrol region of Austria. The Catholic villagers who live there may look rather too clean and well-clothed for the period but the mainly Protestant soldiers who occupy the valley certainly look the part. The music is from John Barry who had made his name with the early James Bond movies.

At the heart of the story is the changing fortunes of the characters as they are subject to competing sources of power: civil authority in the shape of the head villager Gruber (Nigel Davenport), religious dogma provided by the village priest Father Sebastian (Per Oscarsson), military authority imposed by a character known only as The Captain (Michael Caine), and the voice of reason and tolerance offered by the academic refugee Vogel (Omar Sharif). In the course of the story, each will have his moment of triumph but each will suffer grievously in this under- known and under-appreciated film.

This is a movie made during a time when writers, novelists, like Clavell and Crichton, were allowed to make their own films. What you have are literate, probing plots and stories, sometimes failed by low budgets or

lack of experience. With LAST VALLEY, there's an otherworldly quality to Clavell's work, steepled in strict historical fact; Clavell postulates a fantasy valley where humans live hidden from the brutality and horror of war; they are genetic angels, of a sort, but those in control are wise to the ways of a world ruled by knife. A band of soldiers, lacking a country or

home to call their home, caught in the hurricane of this war, stumble into a seeming Elysian Fields and begin to infect it with pragmatic survival and certain doom. The ways of human beings as a mass descend on the slight-populated community.

People criticize the film as dark, equating realism. Fact is, Clavell shows a contrast between the world Michael Caine, as the Captain, knows and is scarred by, and the hidden land in which beautiful women and children are protected, fed and safe. Caine's Captain has been a wanton butcher in the war, the murderer of women and children. Yet he only understands the quality of this paradise after he has nearly destroyed it.

The most telling sequences are those in which these men from outside the hidden land, knowing the damage they are causing to this one place where beautiful women can live unraped and men as equals, are forced to leave. The women in love with them wish to accompany them into the horror the men know. Caine, in particular, leaves his lover under a false sense of security, believing she will be safe. His heart-breaking understanding of this woman's loyalty to him, bred in her by a hidden land where love can be expressed devoid of force and tragedy, comes only in the end; his last touch with this lover is with a glove made of armor, outfitted for the killing he will do once he leaves the valley and rejoins the war.

There is probably the great performance of Caine's career up on screen in this film. Outside of GET CARTER, you'll never see Caine inhabit a role more fully. Even if the scope of the story gets away from Clavell at the end, and could have benefitted from the expanded format of SHOGUN say, this is a big-time view of a great actor in Caine and a literate script from Clavell that will, without doubt, remain fixed in the mind.

The bad news is the critics savaged this movie when it first came out -everything from Michael Caine's German accent, to Omar Sharif's bedroom eyes to James Clavell's lyrical "Lost Horizon" take on the Thirty Years' War in Europe. The good news is that audiences loved the movie and each generation that rediscovers it recognizes what a terrific movie it really is. Fleeing from both the Black Plague and a savage, unending war, Omar Sharif stumbles onto a hidden valley in the Bavarian mountains, where everything is lush and untouched by outside influences. Then comes Michael Caine, leading a small band of savage mercenaries, who makes the valley his home for the Winter. Multiple themes of peace and war, religion and witchcraft. A well told story, gorgeous to look at, the valley itself is breathtaking. A haunting musical theme, a threatened love story, good action sequences, terrific acting, what more do you want? As happens all too often, the critics were wrong. Add this one to your video or DVD collection.

It's a mystery why this film is not better known. It has a magnificent cast; a fascinating setting, a fine script and it is superbly filmed in its European locations. As a microcosm of European society at the time of the 30 Years War it is impressively erudite, yet it is also a highly accessible epic drama, even if you are not particularly interested in the historical background.