If Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957) is the general of all anti-war films, Bruce Beresford’s Breaker Morant (1980) is the colonel. Winner of 10 Australian Film Institute awards, Beresford’s film brings to life one of that country’s most contentious moments, an incident that still resonates today in a world where combat no longer means two opposing armies shooting each other on a battlefield.
Set in South Africa in 1901 during the Boer War, Breaker Morant begins as three Australian soldiers are brought to trial for wartime atrocities. Members of the Bushveldt Carbineers, a mounted infantry unit for the British Army, the men stand accused of murdering Boer prisoners and a German missionary. The Australians could not be more different. Harry “Breaker” Morant (Edward Woodward), the leader, is a poet and a drifter. Peter Handcock (Bryan Brown), a quick-to-temper womanizer, joined the unit to earn extra money for his wife and young child. George Witton (Lewis Fitz-Gerald) is young and naïve and still values the notion of a British Empire. All three are brought to trial, under the penalty of death, for their crimes. The war has already lasted a few years and the British are concerned that the death of the missionary will force the Germans to enter the conflict on the side of the Boers.
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But here’s the catch: according to Morant and his defense lawyer, Major Thomas (Jack Thompson), the men were acting on the orders of the head of the British Army to kill any Boer prisoner without discrimination. The prosecution thinks otherwise, hoping that a conviction will help put an end to the war. With the trial running as the film’s narrative thread, Beresford fills in the story with a series of flashbacks that show that Morant and his men actually did commit the crimes of which they are accused. Herein lies the essential question, are all bets off in a wartime situation?
Morant is something of a folk hero to Australians, his story the inspiration for numerous books, a play and even an aborted television movie. After he and Handcock were executed by the British (Witton had his sentence commuted to life in prison before being released), Morant quickly became regarded as a scapegoat or even a martyr. However, lionizing this man was never Beresford’s intent. Instead, he hoped to make a film about the horrible acts normal people could commit in “abnormal” situations. A condemnation of war, not an excuse for the behavior of the film’s three protagonists, Breaker Morant explores the murky moral boundaries of wartime behavior. Beresford claimed that he was “amazed” that many saw the film as a story about “poor Australians who were framed by the Brits.”
This message differs somewhat from Kubrick’s film because the men here are clearly guilty. In Paths of Glory, the French Army executes three soldiers for acts of cowardice, refusing to take part in a suicide mission. Both films take a critical look at the military and the devolution of the value of human life during a war. Why is it okay to kill in some instances and not okay to kill in others? Why can’t Morant and his men execute enemy combatants in cold blood (here it’s to avenge to loss of a comrade), but it is fine for Morant and Handcock to die in front of a firing squad?
While Beresford would soon move onto Hollywood and direct a few acclaimed films such as Tender Mercies (1983) and Driving Miss Daisy (1989), he was part of a new wave of Australian film directors which included Peter Weir and Gillian Armstrong. Even though Breaker Morant is tragic in a different way than Weir’s Gallipoli (1981), there is one moment at the end that is heartbreaking, and historically accurate. On their way to the face to the firing squad, Morant takes Handcock hand. According to Beresford, this detail wasn’t something he created, but instead taken from a letter written by one of the men on the firing squad. Whether or not you consider Morant and his men murderers or scapegoats, Breaker Morant is a charge against the dehumanization and hypocrisy of war, as well as a disturbing investigation of when, if ever, killing is justified.
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