All At Sea Season: Master and Commander: Far Side of the World (Dir Peter Weir, 2h 15m, 2003)

There's a strange irony to 2003 bringing us two of the best nautical films of all time. We've already discussed at length the summer's Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, a-at basest description-theme park attraction turned into a ripping yarn complete with ghost pirates and swashbuckling. It was expected to fail. It didn't, made over half a billion, and launched four sequels of varying quality (a fifth, expected to reboot the series, is in production). Later that year, however, hot in pursuit, came another nautical adventure. That film is Master and Commander: Far Side of the World, a loose adaption of the long-running novel series by English author, Patrick O'Brian detailing the Napoleonic War exploits of Captain Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe), of the HMS Surprise, and ship Physician Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany). Far Side of the World barely broke even, and whilst becoming a cult favourite, has never received the (ready-made) sequels it so richly deserves.

For, undeniably, Master and Commander is the best sea-faring film of the century so far, a meticulously made, beautifully intricate piece of cinema that captures life at sea as few other pieces of cinema have captured, and bolts this to a breakneck chase as Aubrey and his crew chase down the devastatingly powerful French privateer Acheron across the oceans of the Southern Hemisphere, in a-at points suicidal-pursuit that sees the crew, Jack, and his friendship with Stephen pushed to breaking point. That Master and Commander became a nautical classic is unquestionable, that it became a cult classic was inevitable. Like the Surprise, though, Master and Commander may, in fact, be underrated, a film that fires massively above its weight, and may never be equalled by any subsequent cinematic voyage in the age of sail.

The Master and Commander (Aubrey-Maturin, to give the correct collective title) novels are, like the film loosely based upon them, meticulously researched exploits in the Napoleonic Wars, in which Aubrey and Maturin (also an amateur naturalist and a spy for the Crown) are involved in several real (and many fictional) battles with Napoleon's France, with only the final two novels in O'Brian's series coming after the end of the War and Napoleon's exile to St Helena. In the UK, they remain popular, if overshadowed by the Hornblower novels (and ITV series), skewed to a younger audience but otherwise inhabiting the same time period, and even involving some of the same historical events; where they differ is in their depiction and degree of violence, although both novels enjoy a degree of daring do with their captains. 

Like its 2003 sister-ship, Master and Commander wastes no time in getting down to business, but the brevity of Weir's film's introduction is as admirable as it is the first of many proofs of the story's narrative being driven by its action; in just one inter-title, and four lines, the scene is set. It may have become a memetic shorthand for the film amongst a millennial audience, many of whom either came across the film as it languished as cult classic, or during the COVID-19 lock-down, where, together with the sea shanty, it became an unexpected hit, and a perfect parallel to the isolation of the early months of 2020 and 2021, but Master and Commander's opening title-card is a perfect encapsulation of the time period, the stakes, and the role of the Royal Navy in defeating Napoleon (even if the vessel originated from America, a necessary change in a period where American cinemas remained jingoistic):

We are introduced via another inter-title to the Surprise and via a third to its captain's mission; to stop the French privateer, Acheron from reaching the Pacific and thus bringing the Napoleonic War into another theatre by destruction or by capture. Before we have met a single one of the 197 souls of the HMS Surprise, the scene is set, and, more impressively, the film's scale and veracity is on show. From here, the film masterfully depicts life on ship, (and much of its immaculately done research into costuming and conditions on board, which lends the film a physicality from beginning to end) as it slowly begins to ratchet up the tension, one of the midshipmen (the ultimately tragic figure of Hollom (Lee Ingleby) seeing a shape in a nearby fog bank. Beat to quarters is called, and as the ship leaps into action, so we are introduced to both the ship's captain, the (in)famous "Lucky" Jack Aubrey, and the ship's doctor, Stephen Maturin, as well as key members of the ship's crew that will later serve important roles, from the young Midshipman, Blakeney, to Nagle, the Carpenter's mate.

No sooner has Jack arrived on deck, the phantom ship having now seemingly disappeared from view, and with the other sailor on watch unable to corroborate its appearance, than, through his spyglass, the flash of cannon is seen from the ominous bulk of the Acheron, and the Surprise comes under attack, in a visceral, and chaotic barrage that proves to be the opening salvo in a number of battles between the two ships, as cannonballs crash through wood and flesh alike, and the gulf in power between our heroes and their quarry becomes brutally apparent. Aubrey and especially Maturin are left with the aftermath, including the death of several of the crew, and the injury of many others, including Blakeney, who has to have an arm amputated in a grisly and wince-inducing sequence and one of the able seamen who is left with life-threatening head injuries, who is given painstaking surgery by Maturin, with the crew marvelling at the quality of their surgeon compared to the butchery of other naval doctors in the first of many moment that mark him out as a man of the approaching Scientific Revolution of the early 19th Century..

The Surprise and her crew narrowly avoid another ambush from the Acheron, only rescued by Jack's ingenuity, and a cunning, and genuinely nail-biting scheme to have the pursuing French vessel follow a false series of lights attached to a decoy ship. Rather than return to England, however, Aubrey is determined to push on with his mission, the ship being refitted at sea as they travel, and it here, as they rebuild, and pursue their target, that the film begins to explore both the social strata on the ship, and the long-time friendship between Jack and Stephen. This latter element is, in essence, the backbone of the film; Jack is the bullish Captain, riding on his luck and wits, with Crowe adding a likeable sense of the dashing hero in his prime to the figure of the captain, even as he must make difficult, and at points life-changing decisions for the crew. The film, though, peppers Jack's heroism with a warmth for his men, joining in with their and in particular the young Blakeney, a quick wit, and a surprisingly nuanced sense of humanity, in occasional moments where his skill is tested to the limit, admitting that he has overstepped the mark, despite pressing on with the mission regardless.

Stephen in comparison is the pragmatic man of science, the modern thinker incarnate, his fascination with the world around him, including the Galapagos and its untamed and unexplored landscape, flora and fauna that become his focus outside of the ship, even as his attempts to explore it are foiled. Moreover, we see his keen medical eye and scientific approach in action as he treats his fellow sailors, and after an accident, himself, with the same painstaking skill. Against Jack, he also forms the voice of reason, using his close friendship with Jack to critique his treatment of the men, the social strata aboard the ship, and their-at points- suicidal attempts to track down the elusive Acheron. And yet, it is their friendship, united by their love of music, their duets (Crowe and Bettany both learning to play their respective instruments), these great unspoken moments of companionship, in which these two very different men collaborate perfectly, wordlessly together, as they will later do to bring rational science and daring do to bear against their adversary.

But it is the men that they both command and treat that arguably provide the key drama of the film. It is in their lives that Weir seems most interested, from the senior officers that act as Jack's friend-group, his council, hanging on his every word at dinners, as he recounts stories of meeting his hero Nelson, to the Midshipmen that he instructs. We get to know several of the senior members of the ship's crew, in detail, their friendships with Jack, and Stephen, from grim manservant Killick, to Pullings, the ship's First Lieutenant, who is slowly given more responsibility as he grows across the film. In a film absolutely stuffed to the gunnels with detail, with the minutiae of ship-life existence, though, it is in the lives of the able seamen that the film finds its greatest, and most tragic moments, these tiny moments of success and tragedy given equal importance as the great sweep of the narrative.

For it is the energy of the chase, and the tension that it brings, juxtaposed against the lives that it will change forever, from Jack and Stephen downwards, that lends Master and Commander a rare quality; few films capture a life at sea, in battle or day-to-day, with the degree of detail, or indeed pathos, as this film does. That this film manages to make its battles spectacular, its cannon-fire and the chaos caused by it, and the naval battles that form its key dramatic moments, and yet never lose sight of the lives ended, or forever marred by these explosions of violence and bedlam mark it out as a masterpiece of a film.

In another reality, Master and Commander doesn't languish as cult favourite until the pandemic brought it back to its rightful place as one of the great action movies of the 2000s. Nevertheless, here it is, triumphant, outmatched but never outgunned, resplendent at the start of the 21st Century as one of its best adventures. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is not merely a spectacular ripping yarn of Napoleonic naval warfare as Russell Crowe's captain and his crew chases down French privateers, but a veritable jewel of 2000s cinema in its frenetic chase, its realism, and central duo.

Rating: Must See (Personal Recommendation)

Next week, we go beneath the waves and into a claustrophobic and grimly beautiful masterpiece, with classic German anti-war film, Das Boot.

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