User Reviews

FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE presents two men escaping from military capture somewhere out in the desert (filmed in Spain) seeking refuge in another, hospitable country. They're endlessly pursued by a helicopter with an unseen pilot, who seems more interested in toying with then than capturing them. It's an exciting, thought-provoking piece of work. Director Joseph Losey has finally made the great ambiguous movie he was shooting for with the like of BOOM! and SECRET CEREMONY. The film is startling in its use of the vast scenery the two men find themselves against. Losey's direction has never been so tightly controlled, with sharp, jarring editing and a creepy, sparsely used score by Richard Rodney Bennett. A huge asset is the casting of Robert Shaw (who also scripted) and Malcolm McDowell as the escapees. They have great chemistry...McDowell's naiveté and neediness working well against Shaw's veteran soldier's gruffness. Shaw has a great speech where he recall's the courtship of his wife during "the war." A thrilling, rarely seen, movie!

I quite like this film but I think other reviewers may have missed the point. There's no need for us to know where this is set as it could in fact, be anywhere and it need not even be in this reality.

We're looking at the volatile interaction of three main characters two of whom seem to be two sides of the same person - Mac a probable psychopath with utterly twisted morals, the seemingly weak but rational and sympathetic Ansell and the catalytic helicopter.

The star of this show is undoubtedly the black helicopter endlessly and seemingly mindlessly track or perhaps even herd the protagonists into an area where they can be captured or killed.

The chopper is like a cat, playing with a mouse (life) without actually killing its victim. The gunman on the chopper is seen smirking as the helicopter threatens Ansell on the mountainside. The helicopter could in fact be death or something else like the balancing agent between rational and irrational thoughts.

I don't think this film gets the exposure it deserves. It's definitely worth a look.

Two English guys, one young, one older, on the run in a dusky landscape, pursued and intermittently taunted by a VERY low-flying helicopter. (Good stunt pilots!) We don't know where they've escaped from but it must've been recently for their hands are still bound behind their backs and they don't seem to know each other very well.

The older man is at first more forceful, giving the impression that it is he who has been the prime mover of their getaway, but we soon see that he is not all that smart and in an early scene he (off-screen) kills an old goatherd, hoping to get a knife, but the body yields nothing. This gives an immediate bad feeling about the fate of these two guys.

It is in fact quite annoying to watch how long they stumble through the landscape without seriously trying to sever the cords. After all, they are bound with rope and there are plenty of sharp rocks around.

Later, in a village, they manage to enter a house and find a razor. After finally cutting their bonds they steal a rifle and supplies and stuff, all in the presence of a silent, staring woman who seems to be mourning a dead man. But Mac can't resist swiping a loaf of bread from in front of the corpse which sets the woman off screaming and they have to run, as the village comes to noisy life about their ears.

Time after time they manage to elude capture, even when surrounded and hunted by hundreds of soldiers! Trying to pick up the men's history from their talk is impossible and we are never told what - if anything - they have done to have caused their captivity.

Robert Shaw is fairly convincing as the slightly unhinged Mac. We believe that he could be a criminal of some kind.

But Malcolm McDowell, as Ansell, though physically convincing, says his lines as if he's acting in his school play. A scene toward the end where he is supposed to be a bit delirious is particularly cringe-inducing.

Now, I know many consider McDowell to be a talented actor who made wrong choices and ended up in dodgy roles, but the fact is that (like Keanu Reeves) he is one of those actors who speak as if they're saying lines that they've memorised (which of course, they have!) Sure, this can work in the right part. Nobody could have played Alex in 'A Clockwork Orange' better than McDowell, but Alex is basically a comic book character, so his rendition fitted perfectly.

As others have pointed out, the film doesn't make you feel all that much sympathy for the fugitives, although a bit more for the younger one because, in contrast to the older one, he doesn't seem to want to kill and only does it when forced to.

Striving for freedom, the men head for the mountains and here (still pursued by soldiers and helicopter) they reach what we presume to be a border for there is a group of soldiers waiting who do not fire on them as they approach. Ansell is the first to reach them. On their guard, they visibly relax when he throws down his gun. He urges Mac to join him but Mac is curiously reluctant, and hearing the approach of the helicopter goes back down the slope to confront it and make a pointless sort of 'last stand' with his machine gun. Failing to shoot down the chopper, he is himself killed but we don't feel any pity for him.

A high camera shot at the very end shows Ansell turning and walking up the hill towards an outpost, shepherded by the soldiers, but we have no idea what fate awaits him. Will he be freed or imprisoned or will he be surrendered to the country from which he has escaped? We don't know. The camera pulls away from the figures and the last view is only landscape.

'Figures in a Landscape' is an action film that puts its main characters through a gruelling succession of hardships but breaks the cardinal law of action by failing to make us identify with them and root for them.

This is something that was fully understood by Hitchcock, who knew how to get the viewer to root for the main characters. Think of 'The 39 Steps' in which the hero is also on the run through the landscape. You thrill with Hannay in every episode and WANT him to escape and succeed. And then compare with 'Kill Bill' where, for me, it was impossible to identify and sympathise with the main girl because she was herself a cold-blooded killer.

If the film is supposed to be 'existentialist' then it fails there too because the characterisation and dialogue is too poor.

All in all, worth watching once at least for the great landscape photography and the helicopter stunts.

If you like scenes of majestic natural settings, then this is the film for you. The Sierra Nevadas in Granada, Spain makes for a gorgeous cineramic view that must have been stunning on a big screen and even on a big TV in widescreen is certainly resplendent. Unless you've read the book, you are never aware that the two escaped prisoners played by Robert Shaw and Malcolm McDowell were British soldiers in an unknown country, but here, you just see them as handcuffed men managing somehow managing to get out of their cuffs, gain some weapons and end up in a less mountainous region where they are chased by a black helicopter and eventually a group of soldiers resulting in some fierce gun battles.

During The quiet moments between the two, they reveal little about themselves in their infrequent conversations and some of these sequences are completely silent, only on occasion interrupted by a musical background. it's interesting to see the helicopter being filmed from above by obviously another helicopter, and at one point, that helicopter seems to be shooting at the other one. a lot of ground catches on fire during the film so it is obvious that much of the lush greenery you see was destroyed or greatly damaged.

Shaw and McDowall pretty much need to just react to everything going on around them, so they are basically figures in a war game rather than characters you can empathize with. Exhaulted director Joseph Losey's presence indicates that this was more of an art experiment than one destined for big box office so perhaps you can catch the metaphors. As for this writer, I enjoyed what mountainous scenery they show as well as the action, but somehow the point of it all escaped me.

Dear Joseph Losey,

Figures in a Landscape was a great survivalist action drama set in a hostile mountainous landscape. The film begins with a great tracking shot of two men running along a beach with the fading sun and the high tide in the background. A helicopter follows them in the distance. A great way to start your film. I was hooked immediately. The fact that we do not know what the characters are escaping from and who is tracking them down makes this film very interesting and unique. Though the relentless chase from the sky by the inhuman helicopter clearly underlines who we are supposed to sympathize with. I liked the great sweeping camera moments and the point of view shots from the helicopter (the camera is placed just behind the pilots). The hilarious exchanges between the two escapees (the often indecipherable Robert Shaw and weakly Malcolm McDowell) are as interesting as the action scenes and the location. It is a cruelly underrated and unknown film, Joseph.

Best Regards, Pimpin.

(8/10)

In a brief encounter with Malcolm McDowell, upon the mention of this particular 1970 film he rolled his eyes in amazement (that such an obscure cinematic curio would be remembered?) and spoke bluntly of his working stint with Robert Shaw – how it was a grueling four month shoot since the very unpredictable actor had a penchant for the bottle… Then McDowell finished with: "But I loved him." Well this sort of love/hate relationship exists between Shaw's coldblooded, experienced MacConnachie and McDowell's naïve yet wily young Ansell… two escaped convicts on the run in an unnamed country. The first thirty minutes have both characters with hands tied behind their backs as they trudge up and down craggy mountainsides like desperate billygoats while a helicopter (described by MacConnachie as "the black skeleton") soars above: playing a hectic game of cat and mice.

Whether hiding behind rocks, entering stealthy into villages, tramping through soldier-saturated paddies or shooting up military compounds, the two "figures" always return to their match against the antagonist copter – more of a meddling crow than bird of prey.

The Arial shots are as gorgeous as the picturesque landscape; the edgy violin score is reminiscent of future suspense films THE FRENCH CONNECTION or THE EXORCIST; and the performances by both (now iconic) cult favorites are topnotch: Shaw with a cunning edge while McDowell slowly loses his sanity.

The actors really shine during sporadic pockets of downtime: The veteran either goading the youngster into becoming more vicious or sharing sullen memories of his dead wife. All timed neatly with the intense action sequences: built around a taut climate of primal perseverance by two men who've become human animals to survive against a metallic one.

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