Dark of the Sun (Jack Cardiff, 1968)

Curry (Rod Taylor) and Ruffo (Jim Brown) are mercenaries hired by the Congolese government.

Their latest job involves taking a train deep into the interior to rescue a small village of Europeans and locals - and a massive consignment of diamonds - before rebel forces reach them.

Based on a novel by Jack Higgins, who in turn was inspired by the Congo Crisis of the Sixties, Dark of the Sun is a grim action drama.

It boasts some great set pieces, but the film wants to have its cake and eat it - muscular action adventure soaked in the violence and cynicism of a real conflict. 

Most of the characters are a bunch of cynics motivated by money, and the villains show no compunction about killing anyone who gets in their way.

Even the casting seems to be an indicator - not only do you have Jim Brown, hot off of the radical men-on-a-mission epic The Dirty Dozen, but in a neat reversal there is Kenneth More, the sturdy anchor of fifties war movies, as a drunken surgeon who has to be bribed with liquor in order to join the operation.

Martin Scorsese counts it as one of his guilty pleasures, describing it as ‘cruel’.

Cruel is the operative word.

This movie is violent - it is not as explicit or gore-y as later war films, but there is a blunt, matter-of-factness to the film’s brutality which is more disturbing. The film came out in 1968 and you can feel the fraying of the censorship regimes of the time.

There are several scenes showing the cruelty of the mercenaries and the rebels - the film’s eventual villain Henlein (Peter Carsten) is introduced wearing a swastika from his Wehrmacht days, and shortly after murders two small children because he believes they are spies.

There is also the train escape sequence, where the end carriage is decoupled by an explosion and rolls back down the hill into the hands of the rebels.

The massacre of the passengers is mostly implied but we are shown bodies strewn about the carriage. When Curry and Ruffo sneak back into the village, the rebels are shown carousing, torturing and assaulting the surviving civilians.

The film’s chief failure is a limitation of perspective - while Brown’s Ruffo - a local man who has returned home - offers a degree of context, the movie’s focus is on Curry and the emotional toll the war takes on him.

 

And Ruffo’s death is ultimately about Curry.

To its credit, the film is not completely limited - after Curry murders the Nazi, he is greeted by Kataki (Bloke Modisane), a Congolese soldier who is the one other Black character with a speaking part.

He is disturbed by Curry and rejects him - he offers a monologue on how Curry has turned into a monster.

Shamed, Curry court-martials himself and hands over command.

It is a muted, downbeat conclusion that fits the tone, but it rings a bit hollow. The film is suitably cynical about the West’s true intentions in Africa, but it is limited in how it expresses that cinematically.

Aside from Ruffo and Kataki - who is introduced late in the piece - the actual inhabitants of this country are props (refugees) or obstacles (the rebels). It is a pity that racism limits the movie because it is striving for something more profound, it does not quite achieve its goals.

If all of these elements make the film sound unappetizing, it is understandable. 

While its social leanings are shaky, as an action film, Dark of the Sun is on a firmer footing. It is almost great.

 

The fight with a chainsaw is unique, and the sneak attack on the village features plenty of stunt work and squibs.

The best sequence in the film is the build-up to the Simbas’ attack, as Curry and the others are forced to wait while the clock on the safe holding the diamonds ticks towards zero (it will not open until the timer is finished).

The final fight - staged against a river and waterfall - is striking for how it steps away from classic continuity to a more disjunctive, expressionistic style. Hero and villain wrestle each other through distinctly different backdrops, jump-cutting from scenario to scenario as their struggle becomes more elemental and frenzied.

When Curry finally kills Heinlen, its catharsis is curdled by its violence - the Nazi is pathetic, whimpering as Curry stabs him repeatedly with Ruffo’s knife. 

Problematic and probably too dark for its escapist trappings, Dark of the Sun feels closer to a drive-in movie of the same period, mixing familiar genre elements with a dollop of social commentary and a seasoning of excess.