The cinema in Anglophone countries has generally ignored the Greek War of Independence, even though British forces played an important part in that war, so when I saw "Cliffs of Freedom" advertised in the TV schedules I assumed that it would be in Greek. To my surprise it turned out to be in English. It is the story of Anna Christina, a beautiful young woman who joins the Greek fight for independence after her family are murdered by the country's Turkish occupiers. After she plays an important part in a Greek victory over the Turks, she becomes a symbol of the freedom movement.
Set against the background of the Greek uprising is the story of a growing romance between Christina and Colonel Tariq, an officer in the Turkish army. Yes, I know that that seems unlikely, given the fate of her family, but Marianne Metropoulos, the author of the novel on which the film is based, presumably couldn't resist making it a Romeo-and-Juliet story. Tariq therefore has to become a closet liberal, secretly sympathetic to the Greek nationalist cause and horrified by the brutality of his fellow-countrymen, especially his former friend Captain Sunal, the man responsible for the massacre of Christina's family. His liberalism may owe something to the fact that he was educated by Thanasi, a wise old Greek philosopher. Sunal is himself half-Greek, but the circumstances of his birth- he was born after his Turkish mother was raped by a Greek- explain his fanatical Turkish patriotism and his bitter hatred of the Greeks.
Tania Raymonde makes an attractive heroine, and there are good contributions from Christopher Plummer as Thanasi, Billy Zane as the corrupt official Christos who collaborates with the Turks and Raza Jaffrey as Sunal. Plummer was an actor who never seemed to retire; he was nearly ninety when he made this film, yet still managed to make three more feature films before he died earlier this year.
Unfortunately, it was the Christina/Tariq romance which made it difficult for me to take the story seriously. I found Jan Uddin's Tariq much less sympathetic than the film-makers intended me to, and couldn't understand why, if he was so pro-Greek, he did not resign his commission, or at least apply for a transfer to some other part of the sprawling Ottoman Empire. A commander who nominally fights for a cause which, in his heart, he hopes to see defeated betrays not only his country but also the men he commands, who trust him to lead them to victory. And yet for all his half-heartedness about the Turkish cause, Tariq is also unable to do much to assist the Greek one; although Sunal is under his command he is unable to prevent, or even to punish, the slaughter of Christina's family.
The action scenes were unconvincing, due presumably to a small budget. The impression was given that the Battle of Valtetsi, the first major Greek victory of the war, was a minor skirmish; in fact it was a pitched battle with several thousand men on either side. Another thing I found difficult to accept was the film's ending which (without giving away too much of the story) seemed more like some patriotic fantasy than like something which could actually have happened in real life. This is history as seen through the rose-tinted spectacles of a romantic novelist. 5/10.
