Gallipoli (1981)

GALLIPOLLI is an Australian coming-of-age drama with one of the darkest outcomes I can remember seeing in a film. Part CHARIOTS OF FIRE, part harrowing war flick, it follows the fortunes of a couple of gauche young men as they enlist in the ANZAC forces and head over to Turkey to fight, with the expected outcome. For the most part this is a slow and beautifully shot human drama, featuring a youthful Mel Gibson acting well alongside the unknown Mark Lee. The performances are naturalistic and there's a lot of Aussie humour to make things flow along endlessly. Inevitably it becomes an anti-war film towards the end of the running time, ending on one of the most poignant climaxes you'll ever see.

How much of Mel Gibson's success as a director does he owe to Peter Weir? He must have had a wonderful experience working with him on this movie. Perfect depiction of innocents at war - the young soldiers who didn't know how cruel the world (and their officers) could be. Has a better depiction of the Australian character ever been put on a screen? Screenplay by David Williamson is spot-on. (He is the "long streak of pelican s**t" who has to be "sorted out" while playing football near the Sphinx!) (viewed 10/16)

*SPOILERS AHEAD*I was drawn in, liked the characters as well as their actor's performances (although I have to admit I didn't recognize Mel Gibson at first). It is not a bad movie by any means, but I have a few problems with it.Historical inaccuracies. This is something that most (anti-)war movies have to balance with artistic vision. This movie was made by an Australian director and it feels like it. (From what I've heard, he regretted a few artistic decisions later on.)The movie portrays the situation as if British officers used ANZAC troops as cannon fodder in the Gallipoli mission. This is factually wrong, as there were also numerous French and British casualties. Most soldiers in WWI were cannon fodder. But then again, the movie is told from the perspective of the Australians and it might feel like they fought in a war that was mostly Britain's thing. Talking of perspective: There is a line in the movie that says the Germans started the Great War and that they wanted to conquer the world, including Australia. Again, this is nonsense, but it makes sense in movie context, because, that's probably all the political understanding young men from Western Australia would have had at the time. (It also can be a seen as a meta commentary that the average audience member even today might lack knowledge to tell that this is distorted history.)I like that one of our two main characters is enthusiastic about joining the war and one holds the "doesn't concern me, it's England's war" mentality until he is kind of swayed into going. There's a lot of this feelings in the movie: nationalistic pride and a sense of adventure (which also Euopean young men would have had) and a sense of pointlessness about this war.) The fact that the younger (and arguably more likable) one of them, is the one who dies in the end, because Mel Gibson's character failed against time, makes everything even more bitter.I was positively surprised by the freeze frame ending. It gave a bit of a gut punch and a lasting bitter taste, which is fitting for the anti-war matter. But in total, the drama fell a bit short and there is a lack of epicness. The rest of the movie was also less surprising. You can't blame the movie for being cliché, because it predates many well-known war-movies that perfected the formula (Saving Private Ryan). On the other hand, it takes up some techniques that Kubrick mastered in Paths of Glory 24 years before this movie. Grand battle scenery and an eery feel of claustrophobia and doom are kind of absent here, however.The structure: A great portion of the film is set in Australia and it takes our heroes a long way from home (running tracks in Western Australia) to being stationed in Kairo (playing rugby under pyramids and sleeping with local prositutes) to finally fighting in Turkey, where everything comes to a quick end. This symbolizes how long the feeling of adventure lasted in contrast to how abrupt a young men's life came to an end in this cruel war. (There is also a great symbolism about growing up coming from the Jungle Book reading scene in the beginning, where Mogli has reached manhood and had to leave the wolves.) The pacing is an interesting choice, but it asks for a patient audience.Oh and: The one specific 80ies synth score hasn't really aged well.

There aren't too many films out there that are able to show the forging of a bond between two people and their journey into a hellish ordeal like 1981's "Gallipoli" does. Directed by Australian new wave director Peter Weir, it begins in the land Down Under in the early twentieth century and tells the tale of two unlikely companions, champion sprinter Archy Hamilton (Mark Lee) and railroad worker Frank Dunne (Mel Gibson), as they travel across the Australian landscape to sign up for the army so they can fight in the Great War being waged in Europe, the war that would come to be known in history as World War I. Neither one really knows what the war is about (Archy is more determined to sign up while Frank seems to be along for the ride) but that doesn't stop them from traveling thousands of miles to sign up for the front. Along the way, we the audience come to know and care about them. Archy is someone who is determined to do something with his life and has become caught up in events he doesn't fully understand while Frank is wisely more skeptical but still unable to resist the peer pressure of the time. Eventually they do find their way to the army, becoming separated but meeting again while stationed in Egypt. From there, they are sent on the doomed campaign to take the Gallipoli peninsula held by the Turks and we the audience bear witness to the full tragedy and folly of war that was the eptimany of World War I."Gallipoli" is a film that will stay in your memory for a number of reasons. First and foremost is the level of acting shown by everyone but especially by Mark Lee and Mel Gibson. Lee plays Archy as someone who is both bright but terribly naïve about the realities of the events he is so determined to get involved in while Gibson (in his earlier and better days before everything went off a cliff for him) plays Frank as someone who probably shares the audience viewpoint of why are we fighting this war but still finds himself stuck fighting in what he was skeptical about in the first place. The direction of Peter Weir is clear and crisp and goes a long way to create the story. But above all, what makes "Gallipoli" as haunting as it is is the story it tells and the history behind it. World War I was one of the lousiest wars ever fought in human history, not only because of its high death toll, but also the reason why it was fought to begin with: The stupidity and arrogance of Europe's old guard imperial leaders. When you get around to it folks, that's what it was all about and if you know your history, World War I only sowed the seeds for an even bloodier and more horrific war a little over twenty years later, World War II. By showing a small part of that wider war, a group of innocent kids fighting in the trenches on a doomed campaign, "Gallipoli" hits you hard and it leads up to a final shot that will haunt you forever. It's a film that the human race could really learn from today. After all, at the time of this writing, this year of 2014 will mark the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War and it just so happens that at the same time the United States is witnessing the chaos and bloodshed being perpetrated in the country of Iraq, a country where we spent ten years fighting in and sacrificing some 5,000 of our soldiers, only so we could see everything crash and burn in the end! I guess we haven't come very far, have we folks? With all that said, I can't say "Gallipoli" is an easy film to watch but it is one that should be watched, if only to make sure that we never lose sight of the fact that is almost always the innocent who suffer the most in wars and therefore should only commit to such events when there is no other option. So watch and learn the lessons of "Gallipoli" for the sake of future generations. Also starring Bill Kerr, Robert Grubb, Heath Harris, and many more.