The Purple Plain

A really fine film and quite remarkable especially for it's time; shot on location (Ceylon standing in for Burma) in color and with an actual Burmese woman for the female romantic lead. As a war film the pacing and lack of any real 'battle scenes' might disappoint a few people. But the film is at its core is a character study of a RAF pilot (Peck) who has 'gone round the bend' suffering from what we'd call PTSD today and how his battle with it consumes him as much as the war with the Japanese.

The other major character - other that the wonderful Win Min Than as the 'love interest' - is the location itself. 'Location as Charter' is something that David Lean latter became famous for but here in this film the immense expanse of jungle and plain becomes a beautiful but deadly antagonist The 'actual enemy', the Japanese Army, is tellingly, never seen.

As this is a British film all the performances (except for -shockingly- the one Scotswoman in the film) are nicely understated. At one point Peck's character admits that he has been trying to get himself killed in battle ever since the death of his wife to which he drolly adds ' you think that would be pretty easy in a war....but all they kept doing was giving me medals....' WWII airplane geeks ( guilty as charged) will appreciate the shots of the De Haviland Mosquitoes in operation.