Review: The High Bright Sun

Set in British-occupied Cyprus in the 1950s, Dirk Bogarde stars as Maj. McGuire who gets involved (romantically, despite supposedly having a wife back home in England) with American-Cypriot Susan Strasberg, who is in the country as an archaeology student. She’s staying with relatives, a Cypriot family headed by Joseph Furst. The brooding George Chakiris is also a frequent and shady visitor of the residence. When two soldiers are killed, Strasberg is a witness to the event, but McGuire isn’t convinced by her vague version of events. She must know more than she’s letting on, and so he keeps putting pressure on her. Meanwhile, radically-minded Chakiris is skulking about, highly suspicious of Strasberg and not being very fond of Americans in general. Gregoire Aslan plays a Cypriot rebel, Denholm Elliott is a hard-drinking Brit operative and acquaintance of McGuire, and Nigel Stock is McGuire’s S.O.

 

Uneven, rather vague 1965 film from director Ralph Thomas (“Venetian Bird”, “A Tale of Two Cities”) never quite fully explains the geopolitical situation at hand for dummies like myself who frankly had no clue. I haven’t been this politically discombobulated since it took me far too long to figure out that that “The Quiet American” (the one with Michael Caine) was meant to be about the early stages of the Vietnam War. That one was kind of on me for my rather shameful ignorance perhaps, but in my defence it was a very different depiction of that particular event in history than is normally presented. This one’s about a far more obscure conflict, apparently a Cyprian war of independence against the British in the 1950s. For much of the film’s length, I just assumed that George Chakiris and Joseph Furst were meant to be secret Commies or Fascists or something. Perhaps you’ll have less trouble following the plot than I did, but I think the film is best left to people who are up on their Cyprian-Brit politics. That’s definitely not me, and I don’t think the screenplay is terribly helpful in outlining the various characters and relationships at the outset, regardless of the larger conflict they’re all involved in. The relationship between Dirk Bogarde and Susan Strasberg is tough to latch on to at first too, frustratingly.

 

I tend to have differing views to everyone else about the performances here, as I actually think for instance that Susan Strasberg is one of the better things here. She’s distressingly pale for someone who spends a lot of time out there in the “High Bright Sun”, though she’s very pretty in the Claire Bloom mould. It’s a really good performance in quite a difficult role. She’s easily sympathetic. I also completely disagree with most critics about George Chakiris here. He’s not an overly expressive actor but I actually think he’s perfectly cast. Long-time Aussie resident Joseph Furst is also good, and Nigel Stock is his usual solid self (though he sure did pack on the pounds in the few years between “The Great Escape” and this film). The real scene-stealer is actually a sweaty-looking Denholm Elliott as a man with personal and professional history with Dirk Bogarde’s character. He’s terrific, and plays a very un-Denholm Elliott character really well actually. So it’s a shame he’s a late arrival to the film. For a shabby-looking drunk, he proves to be quite useful and proficient, like 007 gone to seed or at least on a serious fucking bender to end all benders.

 

The one person I wasn’t entirely sold on here was actually leading man Dirk Bogarde. He’s OK, but seemed rather disinterested in being in the film for some reason, and it does hurt the film a bit. On the plus side the music score by Angelo Lavagnino (“The Wind Cannot Read”, “The Savage Innocents”, “Duel of Champions”) is rather good and there’s some nice action here and there too.

 

If you’re more learned about the situation depicted in this film, you might get more out of it than I did. I admired some of the performances, but found myself a bit lost and eventually rather bored by it. Attractive to look at and listen to, but intermittently engaging. I don’t ask to be spoon-fed by a filmmaker, but a little more help for the uninitiated here would’ve been appreciated given the situation depicted here is hardly world-famous. I think Thomas and screenwriter/author Ian Stuart Black (who wrote episodes of TV’s “Danger Man” and “Dr. Who”) assume a little too much of their audience’s intelligence/knowledge perhaps.

 

Rating: C+