Gallipoli

I taught HS history and used very few commercial movies in teaching...the exceptions included GALLIPOLI and PATHS OF GLORY and the newer remake of ALL QUIET. I've never watched a film that builds plot, mood and theme any better than Gallipoli. While there are many light-hearted and humorous forays which add to character development, the ongoing drum-beat of the film is war, war, war--attack, attack, attack. I can't imagine any better musical score or musical editing:the juxtaposition of elegant Strauss waltzes the night before debarkation with the funereal Adagio as the troops cross the water is genius. I'm surprised that we haven't seen more of Marc Lee-the idealistic Archie. He does a wonderful job along with a VERY young Mel Gibson. When I showed the movie to my classes I was careful to watch THE STUDENTS as the final scenes arrived rather than the film. Now THAT was telling! I absolutely commend this film to all! (ADDED)BTW...Brits---try not to take the criticism of the military operation as criticism of YOU...I think the entire film was meant to be an indictment of war as an instrument of national policy. Your very own John Keegan observed that once wars begin, they have a way of creating their own momentum and justification. It's for this reason that Herodotus said that "all wars are popular in their inception". The film, as I viewed it, was about the futility of war, the fixation of military commanders to fix the "previous war" and the price we pay for stupidity. The lesson should not be lost on the US in Iraq either.

"Gallipoli" is a great little war film that is rarely mentioned, but one that can certainly stand up to the likes of "Saving Private Ryan" and movies of the big budget blockbuster kind. It tells the story of Archy (Mark Lee), a young Australian runner, and Frank Dunne (Mel Gibson), another runner. Both of them have great potential as runners, and they meet at a race where Archy beats Frank. Archy is running off to join World War I, and when it is revealed at the enlistment office that he is underage, Frank takes him to Perth to sign up there. Frank has no intention of joining the war, because he doesn't want to die for a cause that isn't really an Australian one. (An early Mel Gibson movie that takes an anti-British stance) Eventually he decides to join, and the rest of the story follows the two men in their various encounters throughout the war.

The story is well told, focusing on the development of the two main characters rather than battle sequences. The two contrast each other. Frank is worldly, and cynical, not ready to die for a foolish cause, while Archy is naive and idealistic. It is an excellent study the way the two personalities react to the war.

"Gallipoli" will rarely be mentioned in the same breath as most of the most famous war movies, but it is certainly one of the best at revealing the humanity that exists at the front lines. It is a well made film, and an extremely moving story.

Peter Weir has long been one of my favorite directors, and he has had a career consumed by subtle, quiet, lingering films. He can make the most banal concept seem thrilling and suspenseful; a perfect example is the Harrison Ford film "Witness." It could have easily become a stupid, insulting, exploitative "thriller." The ending is, in retrospect, quite ridiculous. But Weir has a strange ability to make anything seem realistic.

"Gallipoli" is one of his older films, from 1981, and it stars a huge cast of names - most famous today, of course, Mel Gibson...whose name is now splattered across the front of the DVD case.

The story is a true one and follows a group of young Australian men who join the ANZACs in World War I. They are sent to Gallipoli, and amidst personal and emotional turmoil they must learn to band together and fight the Turkish Army.

The movie is long, as another reviewer on the site points out. But all of Weir's films are. What I didn't like about his most recent - "Master & Commander" - is that it used special effects (exteriors of ships, etc.) and action sequences (raging storms) to compensate for the slow bits... and came across (to me anyway) as quite dull and down-trodden.

"Gallipoli" is a great film - slow, subtle, low-key. It's a bit like an Australian version of "All Quiet on the Western Front." I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys slower films and can appreciate character-driven dramas. Don't go near it if your attention span was dimming during "xXx2."

I watched "Gallipoli" on a whim one night when it aired on TCM as part of a tribute to Australian cinema, and found it to be a moving film about the ultimate horror and waste of World War I.

Mark Lee and Mel Gibson play two young sprinters who meet as competitors, become friends, and then enlist together in the war. Not taking much seriously, they both think serving will be a bit of a lark, and indeed it begins that way, with a lot of carousing, drinking, whoring and some goofball antics during combat training. But then they arrive at their destination, and the reality of what war actually looks and sounds like begins to sink in.

This movie does a great job of showing that transition from young man bluster and naive belief in the good of a cause to scared everyman, being sent out to certain death for reasons he can no longer comprehend. The film is paced very well, and the trench warfare scenes at the film's end are so expertly juxtaposed with the buddy movie that precedes them, that the effect on the audience is that of a punch to the groin. The very end is devastating and haunting in a way few movies anymore would have the guts to be.

Peter Weir directed this before he became known for more popular and Oscar-baity films like "Witness" and "Dead Poets Society."

Grade: A

Filmed in a period of cinematographic transition, between, on the first hand, the old Hollywood productions like The Longest Day (Ken Annakin and 4 others, 1962), A Bridge Too Far (Richard Attenborough, 1977) or The Great Escape (John Sturges, 1963) sometimes completely disconnected from the reality and the atrocities perpetrated on the battlefield by both sides and, on the other hand, darker and immeasurably more realistic productions from the late 70s, such as Come and See (Elem Klimov, 1985), The Deer Hunter (Michael Cimino, 1978), Das Boot (Wolfgang Petersen, 1981) and Le vieux fusil (Robert Enrico, 1975).

Indeed, if the first part of this movie is of a distressing insouciance, the two main protagonists striving to leave Australia to join the peninsula of Gallipoli, Turkey, like two children expecting their next summer camp, the second part is cold and raw, unbridled and cruel. In this respect, the film is appropriately lulled by the album Oxygène (Jean-Michel Jarre, 1976) for the sequences full of hope and carefree, camaraderie and friendship and the adagio of Albinoni (Remo Giazotto, 1945) for the poignant sequences of courage and sacrifice.

A moving film with a neat realization and an excellent cast.