Zulu Dawn

All-star tale of the ill-fated British colony of Natal in Southern Africa seeks to recreate the magic of Zulu but overstretches itself and feels a little flat. Part of the problem is that the original Zulu was made in 1963, probably the absolute latest you could get away with such a pro-imperialist military adventure (if they got away with it at all). By the time 1979 came around the civil rights movement had come and gone and the world was looking down on South Africa for it's Apartheid policy, so a film that seeks to tragedise the defeat of the British Empire at the hands of the Zulu people seems a little in poor taste.

Zulu Dawn looks at the lead up to the Battle of Isandlwana. The insular British paradise of Natal is built on notions of Victorian civilisation... the British feel threatened by the tendency of the nearby Zulu King to administer capital Zulu law amongst his own people. This show of absolute might intimidates them so the British interpret it as a savage form of tyranny that justifies their own use of force against the Zulus. It's a clash of customs, with the British seeking to quash Zululand under the pretense of civilising them. Worst of all, they're quite cocky about it too - they make assumptions that a bunch of natives with spears will be no match for their superior discipline and technology.

When we talk in pop culture terms of 'hordes of fearsome savages' (more so in the 20th century than contemporary times), we;re talking about the Zulus in particular. At the fateful Battle of Isandlwana, the British weren't just outmatched by the Zulus in numbers they were also outsmarted by Zulu strategy due to how much they underestimated their enemy. This film takes a slightly revisionist stance on British imperialism by being quick to point out the folly they brought upon themselves but the fact that the film bills itself as "the astonishing true story of England's worst defeat" tells a different story. It's a loaded tagline - isn't this equally the true story of the Zulu nation's biggest victory? Should the film really be about defeat? It seems to hedge its bets by ending on a quote that pays tribute to the Zulus and by portraying them as morally 'right', but the overall sense we get is one of compromise - an imperialist product politically spin-doctored to appeal to an anti-imperialist audience.


Zulu Dawn had a bigger budget than Zulu but it lacks the tension and pluck of the earlier film. The diverse and distinguished cast are fun to spot at first but as is usually the case in these sort of British 'event' films (EG. A Bridge Too Far, The Battle of Britain, Nicholas and Alexandra) the actors take a back seat to historical detail. Peter O'Toole is far too detached and makes for a uniformly unsympathetic lead (as opposed to his fascinating and complex essaying of a similar character in Lawrence of Arabia), though Burt Lancaster is fun as the battle-saddened irish one-armed war horse Col. Anthony Durnford.

DIRECTOR: Douglas Hickox
WRITER/SOURCE: Script by Cy Endfield and Anthony Story, based on the book by Cy Endfield.
KEY ACTORS: Peter O'Toole, Burt Lancaster, Simon Ward, Denholm Elliot, Peter Vaughn, Bob Hoskins, Michael Jayston, John Mills

RELATED TEXTS:
- This film is a prequel to Zulu.
- Zulu Dawn was directly based on the book by Cy Endfield, who had also previously written and directed Zulu.
- Shaka Zulu, a mini-series made in the 1980s, looks at the same part of history from a Zulu perspective.
- Also see Lawrence of Arabia, The Drum, Khartoum, Utu and Queimada! for more tales on 19th century British/European foreign policy gone awry.
- There is also a fan-edit of Zulu Dawn that replaces some of the sound effects and music and seeks to fix up some pacing issues. I havent' seen it so I can't really compare.