The Last Valley, James Clavell (1971)

Dur

 During the XVIIth century, Europe was devastated by the Thirty Years War. In 1641, an educated man, Vogel (play by Omar Sharif), that the confrontation between Catholics and Protestants left indifferent, wanted to flee destruction and starvation . He came to a fertile, idyllic valley, seemingly empty and untouched by the surrounding devastation. Shortly after, a group of mercenary, led by the Captain (Michael Caine), arrived in the valley and caught Vogel. While his men wanted to rape, despoil or burn some villages, Vogel managed to convice the Captain to spare the new village and its inhabitants, so that he could rest there for the winter.

But Vogel intuitively felt the Captain was tired to fight and hastily thought out a plan to save the Valley.

  The inhabitants came back and made a deal with the Captain, in spite of the reluctance of the priest, an intransigent catholic priest : The mercenaries would be provided with board and lodging and some of them could get married. In return, they would have to ensure the defense of the valley. At first, the locals accepted their fate, Vogel became a sort of mediator in order to settle the disputes between villagers and soldiers. When winter faded, the Captain and his men left the village, ordered to Vogel to stay there. After his departure, his woman from the village was caught engaging in devil-worshipping witchcraft. The priest ordered for her to be tortured and burned at the stake, and one of The Captain's men killed the priest pushing him into the fire. Meanwhile, the Captain and his men engaged in a major siege operation.  Most of his men were killed. The Captain survived long enough to return to the valley, only to find himself ambushed by the villagers, and Vogel trying to escape before the villagers kill him too. The Captain died of his battle wounds, declaring to Vogel, "You were right. I was wrong." A young woman from the village wanted to leave with Vogel, but he told her to stay and ran off alone in the mist.

The first image of the film is a cross, turned into two warriors.

With the medieval music of John Barry, this opening suggests that religion will be the only reason for that theological battle. At the release of the film, the two main conflict areas in the world were Middle-East and Northern Ireland, where religion was the cause for conflicts. The Last Valley, adapted from a novel of J.B Pick, illustrates this context even if it's a film

The movie deals with a historical period rarely treated by cinema: The Thirty Years War. A dark period during which the Holy Roman Empire lost the third of its population. From the first minutes, we follow Omar Sharif rovering in a world similar to hell. Starvation, slaughtered villages, rapes, mass graves, Clavell multiplies apocalyptic pictures showing the atrocities humanity can commit.

The contrast is even more gripping when the action takes place in a heavenly place, a sort of eden,  a place where everyone could live happy and safe.

 But it is just an illusion and problems remain. The only force of control is the mercenary army led by Michael Caine. The history depicts the tensions due to the thought coexistence between soldiers and country people totally dominated by a cruel fanatic priest and a headman.

 Many situations show the strangehold of the priest and the headman on the weak mind and the way they use to satisfy their sadistic liking. The headman does not hesitate to offer his own daughter to the soldiers in order to receive absolution. Religion turns out to be an instrument of power and manipulation, ruling over peasants by fear.

Clavell wants to show three things with his film :

1-  the barbarity of that war touched every part of the country, even safer places.

2- He also shows the impact of war and religion upon mankind. Michael Caine played a soldier who was able to commit the most violent acts, a warrior absolutely comfortable with an atmosphere of violence. But that man became more human from being with simple folk. Omar Sharif played an intellectual lost in a dark period whose beliefs are shaken by the cruelty of that war.

3- Both characters are different and similar in the same time. They are two men totally desoriented, living in a mad world, having lost everything (women and children) but find some comfort to their pain. Vogel is running away all the time but finds peace in that valley and when he becomes a mediator. The Captain (whose name we ignore) stays impassive into his violent run-up but becomes human in this haven of peace that is the Valley. Besides, while he is seriously injured, he wants to come back in the valley to die and say to Vogel that the winter he spent in the valley was fantastic. Before his last breath, he gives up this image of ferocity. He becomes again a man with regrets, admitting to have left his lover to loose everything in a foolish war.