‘Mountains of the Moon’ (R)

An epic worth discovering, "Mountains of the Moon" offers an intriguing, albeit overlong, look at the troubled friendship of explorers Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke. Set largely in East Africa in the 1850s, it is an intimate safari into the souls of these heroic Victorians, who sought and inevitably fought over the exact source of the Nile. Directed by Bob Rafelson, a vagabond himself, this saga has the feel of a traveler's dusty journal, full of hope and terror, exhilaration and despair.

A cousin to "Lawrence of Arabia," the film ponders the pros and cons of the British national character, pitting the whims of the priggish Briton, Speke, against the wiles of his enigmatic Irish colleague. The friendship of the repressed empire-builder and the rugged poet-scholar kindles and thrives on the dangerous, dry savannas but wilts in the lush treachery of the British Isles. Menaced by savage lions and other jungle kings, they are forever saving one another's life as they push through pain, ennui, disease and thirst to the "mountains of the moon," the location of the Nile's headwaters.

Victorians were mesmerized by this quest and, chauvinists that they were, preferred to credit an aristocratic Englishman for the discovery rather than a rumpled Irishman. Returning home before Burton, Speke is easily manipulated into stealing the credit for their mutual efforts, thereby denying his steadfast and much-loved companion. Burton disputes Speke's claim but never turns against him as the controversy rages.

Patrick Bergin, a tall, dark and smoldering type, plays the swashbuckling Burton with a wide-screen sensuality. Comfortably sexy, he delights as much in the discovery of a new dance as a new people or a new love in his life. Iain Glen has a less appealing role as the shallow, goal-oriented betrayer. He brings sexual ambiguity and boneheaded single-mindedness to what proves an extraordinarily masochistic exploit.

The film takes a decidedly balanced, uncolonial look at the variety, dignity and ferocity of African society. The Indian Ocean ports teem with people of all colors capable of the greatest good and the most onerous sin. The interior boasts the fabulous kingdom of the brutal ruler Ngola (Bheki Tonto Ngema) with its palatial daub and papyrus architecture. "None may enter without splendid dress," says the king's minister to the travel-stained explorers. In their feather and monkey-fur fashions, the nobles of Ngola's court are every bit as resplendent as those of the Sun King's.

"Mountains of the Moon" manages to bring history to life in a manly fashion that is not only touching but irreverent. There are moments worthy of both Rudyard Kipling and Monty Python, moments of sublime comedy born of obstinacy and cultural misunderstanding.

Rafelson, hailed as a bright young talent in the '70s with films like "The King of Marvin Gardens" and "Five Easy Pieces," finds his compass again in this epic of courage and cowardice. He directs from a slightly muzzy screenplay that he wrote with William Harrison, author of the biography "Burton and Speke." Though the story meanders like the Nile and bogs down in the silt of British domestic life, there are joys in a river trip.