Deserter Blu-ray Review
A Different Kind of Legionnaire's Disease
Reviewed by Michael Reuben, June 30, 2012
Deserter is a 2002 British film that was originally titled
Simon: An English
Legionnaire. IMDb says it was released in the U.S., but Box Office Mojo has no record of it, and
the MPAA hasn't rated it. The film is based on the memoir of Simon Murray, an Englishman who served in
the French Foreign Legion in Algeria during the troubled time when the former colony became an
independent nation. Murray was an executive producer of the film and is portrayed by British
actor Paul Fox, but you'll have to look hard to find Fox's name or likeness on the Blu-ray and
DVD covers. The name and image that feature prominently are those of co-star Tom Hardy,
billed as "The Star of
The Dark Knight Rises and
Inception"—which should tell you
everything there is to know is about why this obscure trifle is being released now.
Is it worth your time? It has its moments. The film was shot on location in Morocco, and the
landscape lends it a dramatic scale, regardless of the script's shortcomings. Hardy may not be the
star, but his role is substantial, and even though he was only at the beginning of his screen career,
he already had the indefinable presence that makes a movie actor compelling. Other supporting
cast, including Yorick van Wageningen (now much better known since his turn as the odious
Bjurman in David Fincher's
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and Félicité Du Jeu
(who has since appeared in
Casino Royale and
Munich) bring depth and conviction to
otherwise underwritten roles. Ultimately, the film doesn't add up to much, but it may whet the appetite
for more substantial fare dealing with the same material (starting with
The Battle of
Algiers).
Murray (Fox) narrates the film in prose that is more atmospheric than enlightening. In 1960,
wearing proper business attire, he marches into a European office of the Foreign Legion
(presumably in London, but the city is not identified) and signs away the next five years of his
life. His reasons are never fully explained, and Murray states at the outset that he doesn't know
why, thereby establishing a vagueness to the central character that handicaps the story from the
outset. There are references to a troubled relationship with a woman and to an absent father
whom Murray romanticized in his imagination as some sort of soldier of fortune. But Murray
doesn't seem to be running from anything, and whenever he hears from family or friends, he
experiences intense homesickness. He's obedient to authority, helpful to his fellow recruits,
sympathetic alike to both the colonized Arabs and their colonial occupiers—in short, the very
essence of the stereotypical Englishman who fears giving offense above all other things. Fox has
been criticized by posters at AmazonUK for giving a "wooden" performance, but what else can
an actor do with a character who has been written as a sales clerk in a soldier's uniform?
When Murray arrives in Algeria for the Legion's equivalent of basic training, the reality is
anything but romantic. Under Lt. Thibault (Christian Mulot), Corporal Muller (Dugald Bruce
Lockhart) and Sgt. Crepelli (Enzo Cilenti), the recruits are subjected to brutal physical and
mental abuse (worse even than the marine training in
Full Metal Jacket). Murray makes a friend,
though, who helps him survive: Pascal Dupont (Hardy), apparently a Frenchman, who therefore
should be ineligible to serve in the Foreign Legion. As Murray will eventually realize, however,
Dupont isn't strictly French; he's a so-called
pied-noir, a French Algerian, and his presence
in the Foreign Legion has a distinct purpose that Murray should have suspected all along if he
weren't so absorbed in being the perfect Englishman abroad.
Much of
Deserter is loosely episodic, as Murray and his fellow trainees bond, clash and
struggle through the various stages of training. As inevitably occurs in stories of this kind, one
recruit buckles under the pressure and makes a break for freedom, with dire consequences for both
himself and the entire company. But in a narrative jump that is typical of
Deserter's haphazard
style, that incident abruptly ends, and we skip forward into the middle of an unrelated training
exercise, in which Murray, Dupont and another soldier are playing the quarry in a game of seek
and evade.
Eventually the recruits progress to the point where they begin active duty seeking to crush the
growing Arab rebellion against continued French occupation. They come under fire, lose
comrades and learn what it means to kill an enemy (which, for some, is no big deal, and for
others, is a moral dilemma). They're also allowed leave, and Murray has the opportunity to play
tourist in the neighboring city. There, Dupont introduces him to Nicole (Du Jeu), the cousin of
the proprietor of a nightclub. A devoted
pied-noir who believes that Algeria rightly belongs to
the French, Nicole shows Murray her favorites places. They become involved, even though
Murray, himself a child of a dying empire, can't share Nicole's faith in France's ability to hold
onto Algeria. Besides, he finds himself entranced by the beauties of Arab culture, even though he
doesn't understand it. You have to wonder whether, at some level, Murray knows he's a walking
contradiction, flitting about the Arab quarter admiring the architecture and sitting in on Muslim
prayer ceremonies one day, then returning to duty hunting down rebels fighting for Algerian
independence the next.
The single best sequence in
Deserter occurs near the end when French President de Gaulle
accedes to Algeria's demands for independence. For a short time, there is the threat of a coup,
and the Legion is ordered to seize control of the airport and repel the French military. It is at this
point that loyalties are tested and true allegiances revealed.
Deserter Blu-ray, Video Quality
Inception Media's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray has an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 (1.86, to be
precise), although IMDb claims that
Deserter's original aspect ratio is 2.35:1. I have been
unable to confirm IMDb's information anywhere, and certainly nothing in the film leapt out to suggest
altered or cropped compositions. IMDb's aspect ratio listings are frequently wrong, and its
"technical specs" section for
Deserter is conspicuously incomplete. In the absence of other
authority, I will assume that the AR on the Blu-ray is accurate. (If any reader has additional
information, please send me a message.)
It appears from the film's credits that
Deserter was shot with Panavision hi-definition cameras
and completed on a digital intermediate by the EFILM division of Deluxe Laboratories. This is
consistent with the film's appearance on Blu-ray, which, with minor exceptions, is clean,
detailed, colorful without bleeding or oversaturation and particularly strong at capturing the deep
blacks of night scenes. The exceptions are the film's earliest sequences, before Murray begins his
basic training. These scenes have a more film-like texture, as if they were either shot on film and
harmonized with the HD footage or manipulated in post to add "texture" to their appearance.
Either way, the appearance changes at about the point the recruits have their hair shaved off and
become truly part of the Legion.
