Lawrence of Arabia, Movie Review Example

Lawrence of Arabia was a movie made in 1962 by David Lean. It tells the story of a disillusioned British Army officer in WW1 who finds himself in the Middle East with a mission to protect the British interests and prevent the Turks from gaining control of the Suez Canal. This introduced the superb Actor Peter O`Toole to the lead role as T.E. Lawrence. The film has a star studded cast including Claude Rain, Omar Sharif, Jack Hawkins, Anthony Quale and many more.

The epic finds Lawrence on a mission to find Prince Faisal a Bedouin nomad. Faisal is already worried about his experiences with the modern Turkish army having already experiences a series of defeats.  Lawrence teaches the Bedouins how to become strategic guerilla fighters and to take advantage of their natural terrain.  Lawrence becomes an admirer of the Bedouin and try’s to help them create an Arab State. Ultimately he is betrayed by the British who only wish to use him from military strategic gain. Ultimately though no matter how Lawrence assimilates himself into the Bedouin culture the barriers are too great for him to control the men he leads.

The Moors occupied Spain between 711-1492 and was mainly influenced by the Berber tribes from North Africa. This introduced Islamic or Moslem faith to Spain.  The similarity is the Moors were trying to stem the rise of Christian conquest in Europe.  Whereas in Lawrence of Arabia the Turks were allied to Germany and an invading Islamic army. Occupation and capture of the Suez Canal would have stopped the allies supply line from India. Nevertheless the Moors added to the cultural history of Spain and built tremendous palaces and philosophers like Averroes expanded many disciplines including that of law, medicine and philosophy.  The Christians recaptured Spain in 1469 when Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile married, thereby unifying Spain into one powerful state.