Breaker Morant is an Australian feature film directed by Bruce Beresford which totally rejects the authority of the British Empire. It is set during the Boer War which was fought between the countries of the British Empire and the Boer population of South Africa in the early 1900's. Bruce Beresford directs the audience to respond with a sense of outrage at the injustice of the court martial, the inanity of blindly following orders and the condescending, supercilious behaviour of the British. He conveyed these anti-imperial attitudes through the narrative element of structure and technical and musical film language.

Musical film language is used frequently throughout the film. This is an effective technique because music evokes a variety of emotional responses. For example, in the opening scenes, patriotic British military music is played with accompanying shots of native Africans laundering clothes. This has the effect of positioning the audience...