Cinema
Lion of the Desert
Moustapha Akkad · 1981
Synopsis
In Libya at the end of the twenties, Fascist Italy wants to be done with the resistance in Cyrenaica. Mussolini sends General Graziani, who has the frontier closed off with barbed wire and the populations shut up in camps, while Omar al-Mukhtar, an old Quran teacher turned war leader, harasses with his Bedouin horsemen a mechanised army that outmatches him in men and arms.
Context
This film was directed by a Syrian-American filmmaker, on a budget of thirty-five million dollars supplied by Tripoli, an enormous sum for an independent production. Shot in Libya from March to October 1979 with thousands of local extras, it tells of Omar al-Mokhtar's resistance up to his hanging in 1931, before twenty thousand prisoners forcibly assembled, and gives the role to Anthony Quinn, surrounded by Oliver Reed as Graziani and Rod Steiger as Mussolini. It is the most expensive film ever made on Arab history, and its receipts did not reach one twentieth of its cost.
Who it is for
A long film, in English, with Anthony Quinn in the title role. There are many battle scenes.
Prizes and reception
Banned in Italy in 1982 on the grounds that it insulted the honour of the Italian army, it was shown there only in 2009, on television, during an official visit by Gaddafi.