stubbornly decides to fortify the ancient treasurehouse and put up resistance to the enemy rather than passing it by, risking the castle's destruction along with a millennium's worth of acquired art.It's impossible to imagine this movie being made even five years before it was, but by 1969 the Vietnam War had done a number on a lot of people's thinking and provided some different perspectives. A brilliant job is done by director Sydney Pollack along with writers David Rayfiel and Daniel Taradash of adapting a novel by William Eastlake into this funny, horrifying and strangely beautiful film.

as saying that of Sam Fuller's "Big Red One". Like Fuller's film, this is simply war as it was fought - garnished, for dramatic and comic effect, with more than a touch of the undeniably surreal. But as Fuller made plain in his wholly realistic film, war creates just the sort of environment where the surreal happens.BTW, what made this a cult film in the first place is not any 'anti-war' message the message is actually more 'anti-European' if you follow the dialog closely , but rather its remarkable comedic sense of the absurd, made most famous by the affair with the Volkswagen, but actually more impressive with Falk's baker who moves in with the Belgian town's baker's wife, because, well, that's what bakers do, they live with baker's wives .All this adds up to a stunning, even shocking film, that is still highly entertaining. I suspect those that find it confusing haven't lived much life yet, or don't want to. This film is not dated in the least; it will survive all the CGI crap that Hollywood vomits up, as long as there are people who want to think and to feel while watching a film.

Volkswagen. But their lifestyles are shattered when finally the Germans advanced through the forest and upon the castle.You want a very offbeat and ambitious war drama; look no further then Sidney Pollacks' dreamlike majestic oddity "Castle Keep". However it tends to be one of those cult films you'll love or be totally put off by its artsy approach. I'm the former. I was totally spellbound by its quirky, bleak and theatrical sense of style interwoven within its lyrically verbose script and moody, self-conscious characters. Adapted from William Eastlake's novel, this is pretty much a calm conversational piece that likes to philosophically reflect on itself with a haunting and decisive charge, before it changes pace and somewhat direction to actually lead up to a loud, chaotic, brutal and taut action climax in the dying stages of the film.Pollacks' smooth n' breezy execution leads the way to a slow plodding pace, where it's a clash of personalities and a lot little trivia set in motion. War is pointless and simply made up of absurdity, and that's how Daniel Taradash and David Rayfiel's thoughtfully satiric screenplay lets the story unfold, because honestly it treads water and doesn't sway far from its base work. Seeping off it are random, unexpected sub-plots like fairy-tale strokes with Private Benjamin's crisp narration which it's his story were watching seem to have a metaphysical current. The rich humour within is uniquely pulled-off, by holding an uncanny, absurd and odd feel. Beautifully crafted and ultra-stylish with many bold and surreal flourishes. One of those few includes the sequence in the rose garden and the wonderfully amusing set-up of the Volkswagen. It was like looking at a painting, just admiring the art in front of you. Then move onto the next frame for another poetic image. But the life is sapped out of it, with more so a deadpan quality making its way into Pollacks' slick direction.Henri Decae's fluidly illustrative cinematography was picture-perfect with atmospheric lighting, and Michel Legrand's harmoniously spiralling and intrusively baroque music score only adds to its disorienting make-up and cooks up a tuneful awe. Streaming through it was a bold, psychedelic edge due to the times. The beautifully lush backdrop of the wilderness, and grand appearance of the extravagant castle are vibrantly captured to provide another hypnotic dimension to the well-looking production. The performances are astounding. Burt Lancaster's stoically dominating portrayal, with a smart slight tongue is excellently delivered and Peter Falk's no-nonsense, grounded to reality performance is superb as the baker at heart Sergeant Rossi. Don't you just love the smell of fresh bread. Patrick O'Neal is credibly solid as the toey, art-loving Captain Beckham, and Jean-Pierre Aumont as the sly Count of Maldorais. Astrid Heeren is seductively silky as the count's wife/niece Therese. The rest of the support Scott Wilson, Tony Bill, James Patterson, Al Freeman Jr. and Michael Conrad were exceptionally good. Also Bruce Dern is a delight to watch as the fruity, preaching American deserter who has taken up on god's side, as he tries to convince others to do so.Uneven, but still a one-of-a-kind experience. Almost just like a dream.

standards, very brave, and as it seems timeless.In an interview Mr. Pollack once said that he thinks Castle Keep was way ahead of its time. The audience wasn't ready to cope with such a look at war. I wonder if it is ready now? Castle Keep recommended to all non-formula film lovers around the world.9/10

the Director. He was reportedly bemused by his enthusiasm! I think he'd made a masterpiece?Personally I would suggest that the 'subtlety' of it's observation of it's subject matter in the era of `The Green Beret' will make it a viewing `must' for followers of the genre for decades to come!

briefing of the situation in the Ardens, before the mission as well.

order to see what strangeness would happen next. I couldn't help but think this reminded me of parts of Apocalysoe Now and Platoon. It also has something to say about how micro societies are affected by war perhaps? as seen from the view of a castle which has been held by the same family for 17 Generations and believes itself to be above the trivialities of others' wars.

to advance any further.Fittingly for a film released in 1969, amidst the social turmoils of then-contemporary United States, Falconer's men are a gang of Vietnam-era slackers, shirts untucked, jaded, cynical and tired of killing. Falconer, infectiously played by Burt Lancaster, is the opposite. Square-jawed and mean as hell, Falconer exists for war."Keep's" second half revolves around a series of bizarre philosophical ruminations. Falconer says he wants to preserve life, land, people and things, but everything he does brings about utter destruction. In the end, killing "the enemy", for Falconer, necessitates destroying even the things he's sworn to protect. Better the world on fire than belonging to the "enemy". Art aficionado Captain Beckman Patrick O'Neal argues with Falconer, pleading with him to "preserve the beauty" of the castle and its many artifacts, but Falconer ignores him. Destruction, for Falconer, is its own brand of beauty.Late in the film, it is revealed that Falconer is sleeping with the wife Astrid Heeren of the Count Jean-Pierre Aumont to whom the castle belongs. The Count allows this, as he is impotent and wishes Falconer to provide him with an heir. In this way, Falconer's brand of 20st century violence is explicitly linked to the violence of feudal Europe. Indeed Falconer, a foot-soldier of "enlightened", "democratic nations", simply preserves the barbaric seeds of the monarchists before him. WW2 was itself but an extension of 19th century Imperialism, even a bogeyman like Hitler merely replicating what European and Western colonialists had, were and still are doing in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. More importantly, Falconer's cosying up to aristocracy echoes the past 200 years of history, in which every supposed "enlightened" superpower has sided with, funded, armed or put in power monarchs, dictators or terrorist cells, from Vietnam to Russia, Saudi Arabia to Iraq; better devils than peace.Falconer's regressive ties with the past are brought up throughout the film. "We've been here before," soldiers repeatedly state, and the idea of "eternal recurrence" is a theme which runs throughout their escapades. Elsewhere there are suggestions that our band of heroes are already dead, that their castle exits in some kind of limbo or purgatory , and that they're merely repeating battles that have already been fought and lost. "All of us had been killed twice, sometimes three times before," one Private Benjamin outright states, "maybe that's why we were at the castle".Other surreal moments occur. Sgt Rossi Peter Falk states that he was a baker before he enlisted. His homecoming fantasies are realised when he seduces the widow of a local bakery. Corporal Clearboy, a mechanic in the past, likewise falls in love with a Volkswagen Beetle – an illicit affair, as it's a German machine. These love affairs mirror that of Private Amberjack, a soldier who studied music as a kid. Amberjack finds a flute which allows him to befriend a German soldier. Then there's Captain Beckman, a famous art historian who just happens to find himself in a castle containing precious works of fine art. As the film progresses, the bakery, artwork, German, flute and Volkswagen will all be destroyed. The only one who gets what he loves, seems to be Falconer."Castle Keep" echoes the counterculture-inflected war films of the 1960s and 1970s "Catch-22", "Kelly's Heroes", "Go Tell the Spartans", "MASH", "Dirty Dozen" etc . For Pollock, war is stupid, absurd, futile and benefits only psychopaths. But whilst Pollock embraces the cynicism of his contemporaries, aesthetically his film is something else. Opening with talk of fairy tales, and sporting its own "once upon a time" narrator, Pollock constructs something dreamy, surreal and filled with odd, incongruous moments. His soldiers seem caught out of time, as though they've stepped right out of a Sam Fuller movie and into a medieval fantasy. Shot in Yugoslavia, the film features fine photography by Henri Decae.7.9/10 – Flawed, but underrated. From the mid 1950s to the 1980s, Lancaster specialised in selecting interesting material. The majority of his pictures during this period are atypical of their genre or era.

literally a work of art in itself. Aided and abetted by Lancaster's second-in-command a cynical and disillusioned Patrick O'Neal the GIs are as out of place in this medieval landscape as a collection of city slickers west of the Pecos. That fact doesn't stop the colonel from immediately taking a fancy to the lady of the house Astrid Heeren all to the utter chagrin of her much older husband, the Count of Maldorais played by Jean-Pierre Aumont . The rank-and-file soldiers, including Peter Falk, Bruce Dern, Tony Bill, Al Freeman Jr., Scott Wilson and Michael Conrad, eventually move into the town and take up occupations as if they're back in the good old USA. If all this sounds a bit strange and out-of-place for a "war" movie, it is. Not to be outdone, however, the German army is on the advance and the castle and its accompanying town are directly in its path. Total destruction is on the way, and here lies the moral of this tale. In the ensuing and climactic battle, the castle and everything that it stands for mainly humanity and the arts is obliterated with few survivors. The town is crushed along with it and all its inhabitants killed. But because of the way the story is presented i.e. with enough surrealism to rival Ingmar Bergman on his best day , viewers are never quite sure if the GIs have themselves been nothing but ghosts all along and that the whole exercise is merely symbolic of the destructive nature of war. "Castle Keep," filmed during the height of the Vietnam War, can certainly be classified as an "anti-war" movie, although its immediate subject matter and execution just doesn't fit with any of the other films of the genre. Of course, movies that are presented as World War II dramas are usually loaded with heroes fighting evil enemies whether Germans or Japanese . Consequently, audiences were not enamored with the film's depiction and it flopped at the box office. Predictably, most critics of the day found "Castle Keep" to be too pretentious and over-the-top. Burt Lancaster's deliberate "one-note" performance probably didn't help it either. That's too bad because in retrospect the film has plenty to say and it was also an early indication of a major talent on the rise: Sydney Pollack. As for the others in the cast, Peter Falk and Al Freeman Jr. are standouts and Patrick O'Neal adds some much-needed gravitas to the proceedings. In the end, "Castle Keep" is another near-great film that could stand a critical reevaluation.