Bamboo: Essays and Criticism

The Falklands War (3)

Those Tory MPs dismayed by Archbishop Runcie’s lack of gung-ho spirit over our Great Victory in the Falklands will be able to console themselves with reruns of the first major documentary to have emerged from the conflict: BBC1’s eight-part Task Force South. Here was a chance, one thought, to get things straight, to produce an account of the war under conditions where accusations of aiding and abetting the enemy and lowering national morale need no longer apply. And, what’s more, under circumstances that should be a gift to your average documentary maker, namely an eager public who sensed there was more to be told and, perhaps most valuable, a public who, if not well informed, was at least cognizant of all the major facts, geography, names of key personalities, etc.

So why was Task Force South—or at least the two episodes we saw last week — so wretchedly bland, almost insultingly simple in its tone and approach? It was as if a decision had been taken not to make the thing too complicated, as if it were aimed at an intermediate class of foreign language students — a teaching aid in an “O” level course on contemporary British history. There was a lot of skilful editing on show and for much of the time the pictures were allowed to tell their own story, but the narration — supplied by Richard Baker and Brian Hanrahan — and the editorial approach seemed studiously inoffensive and pussyfooting. There was a notable absence of comment over the Carrington resignation and the merest nod at Al Haig’s furious shuttling. Both those topics, I’ll concede, are particularly gamey cans of worms, and I dare say that it could be argued that even lifting the lid for a second or two could eat into time that could be more profitably used elsewhere: but some indication of the complexities and controversies surrounding them was definitely required. Thus far at least, it doesn’t seem to be forthcoming.

The first two programmes dealt with the initial days of the crisis and the dispatch of the fleet and here, it seemed to me, was another manifest lapse. The fact that there was a deal of jubilant unreflecting patriotism in the air at the time was incontrovertible and was clearly established by the pictures. But the narration failed to comment on the illusory nature of this elation or display any of the sobering but necessary ironies with which hindsight has now provided us. The most remarkable phenomenon of the early days of the crisis was exactly this dangerous self-delusion about the nature of war that appeared to have almost the entire country in its chilling grip. The prime function of any programme dealing with those heady days in April should be first to point out and highlight the cruel absurdities of the “Stick it up your junta” spirit and then do its utmost to eradicate any residual traces. There is no sign of that happening at the moment in Task Force South.

1982