Ridley Scott’s accomplished first feature, The Duellists, was said to take inspiration from Stanley Kubrick’s similarly lush and meticulous period piece Barry Lyndon, which was produced two years before and also features a prominent duel. But the absurdist core of the film owes something to another Kubrick classic, 1957’s Paths Of Glory, a stark anti-war drama that exposes, to tragic effect, the destructive codes of honor that imprison men in service. While Paths Of Glory is about the abuses of the powerful, who make random examples out of soldiers who refuse a suicidal order in World War I, their persecution is a farce that’s enforced by military hierarchy and dictates that cannot be penetrated by justice or common sense. The Duellists may not be as grave, but the decades-long battle between two men in Napoleon’s army has the same wry regard of an inexplicable situation. These men have no good reason to fight, but a misplaced sense of honor compels them.
