By Tor Thorsen
Director Shekhar Kapur comments on the historical parallels between The Four Feathers and the war on terrorism.
Does this sound familiar? The world's mightiest superpower sends the cream of its military crop to battle ruthless Muslim fanatics in a remote, desolate land. No, it's not America hunting Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2002.
It was the British sending troops to fight the Madhi in Sudan in 1875, an event that is the crux of The Four Feathers, director Shekhar Kapur's much-anticipated follow-up to Elizabeth.
Granted, the British expedition to Sudan was more imperialist and less justified than the Afghan conflict, but Feathers does offer a critique of military adventurism that's hard to find in any other mainstream media today. It looks into the mindset of Harry Faversham (Heath Ledger), a young British officer who resigns his commission on the verge of being shipped out to a far-off war zone. Spurned by his fiancιe (Kate Hudson) and branded a coward by his friends (including Wes Bentley), he sets off to North Africa, alone, to redeem himself.
In any event, this Victorian-era adventure's timing is eerie. Even though Feathers' principal photography wrapped before September 11, 2001, its subject couldn't be more contemporary regarding our armed forces' situation today. In his journeys, young Faversham sees the horrors of battle that many have glossed over post-Gulf War, and learns the value of courage that many others have forgotten post-Somalia. But will modern-day American audiences be willing to glean subtle lessons from a Victorian-era period adventure? Reel sat down with a genial, gracious, and very tired Kapur in his hotel suite to find out. 
Q: On the surface, it seems like the 19th-century British world portrayed in The Four Feathers has little in common with 21st-century America why did you want to make this film now?
Shekhar Kapur: Because history is always a reflection of the current state of affairs. I like history because if we don't learn from history, we keep repeating it. It's very interesting because looking at history gives us a much sharper focus on our lives now, because we're caught unaware. You know when somebody talks to you about a historical incident, and you say, "Hang on! That's my story!"? But if somebody tells you your story outright, you're going to reject it. So it's a totally left-field way of coming at your state right now.
Q: Do you see any parallels between Victorian-era England and modern-day America?
SK: Funny enough, I shot this [Feathers] before September 11. But even before then I saw a great parallel between the coming battle between Islam and Christianity, because the two big systems of faith are not understanding each other. This has been playing out for many, many years.
Q: This was made before September 11? The timing is uncanny. I mean, in Feathers, you've got a major military force going to a desolate, far-off land to hunt down an extremist Muslim cleric and his band of fanatical followers it sounds just like America going to Afghanistan to hunt down Osama bin Laden.
SK: Yes, it's uncanny.
Q: However, Feathers tackles a subject that's not really being debated much in America it questions the motivations behind a great Western power's foreign intervention in a distant, Third World country. Of course, America had more justification to go into Afghanistan in 2001 than Britain did in the Sudan in 1875. Nonetheless, do you worry that Feathers' subtle critique of military adventurism won't be heard in the current nationalistic climate?
SK: I don't think so
I think, because it's something a character does in another country and whereas most people don't believe that America is a colonizing country, you can still look at it as the Victorian colonizers and say, "Hey guys, you're bastards, you shouldn't have been there, you shouldn't be doing these things!" That way, you can think maybe Faversham was right not to go, but will you still think that America is right to go? [Acts falsely puzzled, then smiles mischievously]
Q: Do you think America is the same kind of hegemonic power that Britain was?
SK: No, no. I don't think the Americans have ever been colonists. I think they've been cultural colonists, because American culture has pervaded the whole world. But that's also probably because it's a very young and very energetic and very youthful culture. And because it was a new culture, it adapted anywhere. The culture of the rest of the world wasn't ready to adapt to the changing demographics, the needs of the young people wanting to rebel. That's how American culture became world culture. But I have never seen the American nation as a colonizer. I don't think the Americans are colonists. If they were colonists, they would understand the world better! [Laughs]
Q: What makes you say that?
SK: Because what happened on September 11 is that Americans caught up with the worldview. They started asking, "Hang on, shouldn't we understand why they did this?" So we are going out to get them, but at the same time we're asking, "Why do they hate us so much?" That's because Americans have been living in this island of plenty for so many years, that they've been aware of what's going on [internationally] but it's never really affected them that much. Until September 11, anyway.
Q: One thing I like about Four Feathers is that it ponders whether one can be loyal and patriotic without being jingoistic. I mean Faversham rebels against being sent off to a far-off war for no reason, yet he puts himself in danger to try to save his friends and his old regiment. Do you think jingoism and patriotism are mutually exclusive?
SK: Patriotism is an integral part of jingoism when you go off to war, especially a colonial war. Because how else would you justify it except with a whole lot of jingoism? And that's what British society was.
Q: Yeah, with a whole generation raised on those Junior Boy's Own comics that extolled the virtues of going off to war.
SK: That's very true. And in the film, the first scene was in the rugby scene. Many history books have said that the empire was won on the fields of Eton and Harrow [two of England's elite boarding schools]. Well, it's true. On the playing field, these boys were taught to win, they were taught to fight. All possibilities of any expression of grief were taken away from them. The older people just sat there, rearing a generation of young boys who would go off to battle and die, if necessary. But you know what? That's what the Islamic fundamentalists are doing right now exactly what the British did. They're rearing their young people to go out and to colonize.
Q: This is the third time A.E.W. Mason's novel The Four Feathers has been adapted into a film. What do you think sets this movie apart from the other two adaptations?
SK: Well, first there's the anti-colonist element. The original Four Feathers was a colonial book in the sense that it was about patriotism and going to war, but never said, "Hey, hang on, we're going to war to colonize somebody else!" I never questioned it. Neither did any of the films. Everybody felt it was their moral duty to go out and civilize the heathen. The other thing that I found, other than all these other things is the themes of nobility and honor it's a damn good story. But I also saw that the other films were about an act of cowardice that a man has to redeem himself from. In my mind, [Faversham's] act was a great act of courage in that time, to actually say, "This is crazy" took courage, huge courage. It's courage in both places not just courage externally, because everybody's afraid. Nobody's not afraid to die, but you couldn't say it [back then] because you were British. So when he went and said, "I'm afraid, I'm not going," that in itself was a huge act of courage. But the other act of courage is how you go beyond how you feel right now, and really discover who you are to say, "I don't know who I am, I am going to go into myself and face all my demons." That's something we should all be doing.
Originally published on Reel.com. Reproduced here with permission. Images courtesy of Reel.com.
