‘The Flight of The Phoenix’ or — Should I marry Hardy Kruger?

So, recently my landlord regrettably informed me they have to sell the flat I’m renting so I’ve been having to look for new digs. Now nothing else sends me into a tailspin more than moving. My mental faculties crumble and Mr Rationality goes on holiday. It’s a scene man. So as a way of relaxing from “flat-hunting freak out” I thought I’d watch ‘The Flight of The Phoenix’, a film about men freaking out attempting to leave somewhere.

‘The Flight of The Phoenix’ is about a plane with a faulty radio carrying a bunch of guys consisting of oil workers, some military and other related relatively blue-collar professions of America’s presence in Libya that, during a great title sequence which freezes on the actors as their names come up, crashes and leaves them stranded in the desert with no hope of rescue. What are their options? Give up, kick back or maybe thrash out their anger issues and wait for the fleeting hope of rescue with a gallows laugh, or march into the scorching desert in the hope of finding help or… or is there another option?

Now from what little I could remember I always thought this film was about them rebuilding and restarting the plane. Turns out that’s not quite technically the case as for a lot of the movie I was sitting there thinking “What the hell are they doing?” And it’s all intentional as I was never really clear what the technical plan was, but when I got it and had that moment of revelation it was awesome. So THAT’S the plan! And it is a plan hatched through sheer rationality by aircraft designer Hardy Kruger. Whilst the others panic, give up or lapse into despair, Kruger resists the lethal indulgence of emotionally sentimentalising their situation and gets busy dealing with the problem at hand. Existential despair conquered through vorsprung durch technik.

It gave me hope! If Hardy Kruger can make a destroyed plane take off again in the desert then I’m pretty sure even I could find a new flat. Yeah, I know it’s still fifty-fifty and when you take in my abilities to deal with practical situations, both are equally unrealistically quixotic. But it can be done if you take the emotion out and act rationally. I think.

Anyway, as the days and work go on and exhaustion and dehydration set in, rationality begins to come undone and the race now seems to be to finish the job before the men can no longer physically or mentally function. The men are just barely hanging on, hanging onto the faith in Kruger’s plan…

And then comes one of the best reveals ever in a movie as Kruger, happily and with utmost nonchalance, informs James Stewart what his job actually is. Sure, he is an aircraft designer but he never specified exactly what kind. And that’s when the entire film went from a hugely enjoyable slice of entertainment to something truly wonderful as I laughed my ass off so much I had to pause the movie. And Kruger’s performance just makes it sublime. It’s the perfect combination of enormity and frivolity as James Stewart realises just how slender a sliver of a dream this Phoenix is depending on. (And at the risk of sounding pretentious it really reminded me of the Bell sequence from Tarkovsky’s ‘Andrei Rublev’ as a quixotic dream pursued with innocence and faith shows the value of belief. And both films building to a nail-biting “will this work?!” moment.)

It all builds to a wonderful climax with the tension pushed to its limits. The firing of the engine is a perfect example of edge of your seat cinema. Will they make it? Watch it and find out.

‘The Flight of The Phoenix’ is a wonderful film. It has so much great stuff going on in it and combine that with Kruger’s stunning (and hilarious) revelation, some wonderful performances and an uplifting message about hope and perseverance, I ended up loving it.

So yeah, I need more of that Hardy Kruger rational, practical thought in my life because bugger knows I don’t possess it. So next time I meet a woman I like I’m not going to ask what music or literature she likes or any other impractical shit. The only important question I’m going to ask is — “How similar are you to Hardy Kruger in The Flight of The Phoenix?”

And that’s why I need to marry Hardy Kruger. Until then, don’t despair. Build your plane.