A Few Words On Sydney Pollack’s Castle Keep.

Sydney Pollack’s Castle Keep is a frenzied and farcical take on the war movie. A battalion of American soldiers, led by Burt Lancaster in a role which verges on the Shakespearean, hole up in a 10th Century castle during World War II. It plays a little like Don Siegel’s The Beguiled blown up and expanded, with delirium soon setting in and the fantastical overtaking; one man bakes bread while bombs fall around him, a vision of paradise falling into a vision of hell. It makes for compelling, fascinating viewing.

The title sounds could be from some hokey gothic horror flick, a fact alluded to by one character in the film’s opening salvo. The picture is presented as a recital of a novel written at the location by one of the soldiers during the war, where the inhumanity of war weaves around more fantastical elements. The film pauses for art theory, the kind of which might be more at home in some French New Wave movie, while the philosophy of war too comes up. It feels like a precursor to Quentin Tarantino’s own distracted war masterpiece, Inglourious Basterds, while fellow Burt Lancaster vehicle The Train makes for something of an apt companion piece to Castle Keep in the realm of the aesthete-minded anti-war movie.

Castle Keep is available now from Indicator, in a world premiere Blu-ray presentation.