Murphy's War

A film set on the coast of Venezuela in the last days of the Second World War. A British merchant ship is torpedoed. The submarine surfaces and machine-guns the crew in the water. Murphy survives. He is the only one and he is taken to a mission station. There is a doctor there. Nurse Hayden looks after the wounded and tries to tell Murphy that the war is over. There is a Frenchman too. Louis works for the oil company and says there is a crashed aircraft in the forest. Murphy wants one thing. He is going to sink that submarine. From there the film is a story of preparation. The aircraft is brought out piece by piece, the engine is repaired, bomb arrangements are tried, and a plan is built on the river. What the narrative is interested in is not war but obstinacy: a ceasefire is declared in Europe and Murphy does not stop; the film does not present him as a hero either. The river is inside the narrative. The width of the Orinoco, the shallows and the forest slow every scene. It was shot in Venezuela around the Orinoco; the producer described it as the hardest job of his career and his partnership with the director ended after the shoot. Siân Phillips, who plays the nurse opposite Murphy, was Peter O'Toole's wife at the time. Peter O'Toole, Siân Phillips, Philippe Noiret and Horst Janson are in the cast. Peter Yates directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes slowly built one-man war films. Who it is not for: anyone expecting action; most of the film is preparation.