Gallipoli (1981)
(Google Play Streaming, December 2019) It’s important for a variety of perspectives and people to be reflected in cinema, and that also goes for war films—considering the inherent propaganda in depicting armed conflict and the difficulty of understanding such massive undertakings as a battle, it’s essential to diversify. I don’t think, for instance, that Hollywood would have ever tackled World War I in the same way Australian filmmaker Peter Weir does in Gallipoli, for instance. The film focuses on two friends who find themselves acting as couriers during the battle of Gallipoli. A surprising portion deals with pre-war adventures for the protagonists, giving a credible peek into life in rural Australia in the 1910s—another topic unlikely to be portrayed in Hollywood. But the point of the film is the crucible that war becomes for those young men, and the large-scale (pre-digital) depiction of the fighting at Gallipoli. In the vein of most 1970s war film, it has an unapologetically anti-war tone, with loss of innocence (not to mention loss of life) being a major component, along with a critique of British command. A young Mel Gibson is quite good in one of the lead roles, offering a more modern counterpart to lead Mark Lee’s more idealistic character. I’m not a big fan of some jarring moments in the soundtrack incorporating synth-based music alongside a more orchestral score, but that’s a common-enough complaint for movies of the time. Fortunately, it doesn’t affect much of Gallipoli, which remains not only an interesting war film but also a top pick in the Australian movie pantheon even decades later.