FILM CLUB - The Battle of the River Plate

The Powell & Pressburger Season - 1956

During the early years of their professional partnership, Powell and Pressburger between them created a style of war film making that felt like 'cinema verite' even though it wasn't.  One Of Our Aircraft Is Missing was one such film, Frequently they used an actual event as the basis for it eg Ill Met By Moonlight. With The Battle of the River Plate they were using accounts of a pivotal incident in World War 2, and reconstructing in film a version that presents it as though it were a page by page reenactment. This is not a constructed drama with an essentially made up storyline. This is what happened. Their role in the making of this film, is to extract the drama from that event, and not build in some sort of artificial highly romanticised facsimile.

The film revolves around the activity of The Graf Spee, a German 'pocket' battleship which had gone to ground. Emerging to trap, capture and destroy cargo vessels bringing much needed supplies to the UK. Captain Longsdorf ( Peter Finch ) the German commander, is not at all your classic Nazi baddie, he's actually quite kind and understanding, a bit of a gentleman. Treating his captured crews with such dignity and respect that they hold him in high regard. But he has a job to do, to blow up supply vessels, so the Allies have to put a stop to his activity. The ships The Ajax, Achilles and Exeter, lead by Commodore Harwood ( Anthoy Quayle ) are the first to catch up with the Graf Spee and engage it in battle. The Exeter becomes severely damaged and is forced to retreat to the Falkland Islands. 

The Graf Spee limping away to Montevideo for repairs. Uruguay as a neutral country, permits the German pocket battleship only to stay for a couple of days for basic repairs. If it were to stay any longer the ship will be impounded. The British need her to stay, for the longer she remains in dock the more Allied ships will be arriving in the vicinity. When the deadline arrives, what will the Graf Spee do - make a run for it - engage in a suicidal confrontation? In the end Captain Longsdorf, realising he is facing a no win situation, takes his ship out of harbour, evacuates his crew and destroys the ship. 

The Battle of the River Plate is filmed in glorious technicolour that is beautifully sharp and so clean edged. As ever, Powell and Pressburger find a subject matter that suits their desire to subtly subvert your expectations. Yes, the battle sequences have guns, explosions and heroic endeavour, but this has a much grittier and slower paced realism than that. A real battle at sea being as much about the tactics and skills in out maneuvering. Getting as close as you can, without grievously endangering your own ship. The actual conflict and conflagrations are these brief intense clashes. The character of Capt Longsdorf is allowed to have some nobility and an ability to self sacrifice. He cares about the well being of his men, almost above and beyond the act of winning a sea battle. Ten years after the end of the war, it feels odd that in their last two films they returned to wartime subject matter. Perhaps they felt they could extract more from it, now they were in peacetime. But it is an odd trajectory to take after the richly colourful imaginatve films they'd produced during the forties. Maybe this was a sign that the partnership was beginning to run out of steam.

CARROT REVIEW - 6/8