So aggravating that I stopped watching...
...for a few minutes, was the scene where Wyatt is leading a group of Tibetan children in a refrain of 'Lullaby and Goodnight.' A number of antagonisms about the film had built in me until that moment, when suddenly the class reminded me of the cultural imperialism practiced on native cultures like the Native Americans, the Hawaiians, the Maori, the Aborigines, and many others. I was infuriated, and needed a moment.
I'd already been annoyed by the "ninety white people" that Conway was sent to save, and how he and his party had put their foot in Chinese faces, closing the doors against them more than once. Robert Conway the would-be future Foreign Secretary was really just an old fashioned, racist British Imperialist. I can't imagine what the High Lama and Sondra saw in the man, apparently choosing him for a single utterance in his writings, completely incongruous with his life as a whole. (I much prefer the diplomat Richard Conway from LH '73. Peter Finch's portrayal of the character convinced me that he was the right man for Shangri-La!) But since the High Lama was already engaged in cultural imperialism with the inhabitants of the Valley of the Blue Moon, perhaps Robert Conway was not unsuited after all!
Another thing which struck me as most ill-advised in the context of 1937, was Robert's conversation aboard the plane with his brother George, where he says that, if made Foreign Secretary, he would disarm England. That one, too, made me pause the DVD, considering what we know happened immediately after 1937. Better for England and for the world that Robert Conway departed for Shangri-La!
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