Film Review: Gallipoli (1981): GALLIPOLI film review

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Joshua Smith's review of Gallipoli is perhaps the best I've read since the film's release 18 years ago. This is indeed a devastating film, and one which caused me to follow a young Peter Weir's directorial career from that point.

Gallipoli is a masterwork, synthesizing plot and character. In fact, I remember weeping in the dark theatre during closing credits. I am not a crier at movies, but no film before or since has struck me so hard. I realize it's because of Weir's brilliant nurturing of his characters, without the sense that he is manipulating me as he leads me to the tragic final frame.

I've read that actors are eager to work with Weir for the purest reason: He makes them better. Harrison Ford (Witness, The Mosquito Coast) has said this, and certainly Jim Carrey has. That quality of Weir is evident through even the minor characters in Gallipoli. There is Uncle Jack, in his almost ferocious, overdriven love for Archy, and his anguish as he releases the boy into manhood; similarly, Major Barton becomes a surrogate uncle to both Archy and Frank, and he is a beautiful study of sensitivity as he anguishes in sending his ANZAC boys to their certain deaths, when driven to do so by British command.

Interestingly, as I sat in that Houston theatre in 1982, I had only a vague notion of Mel Gibson's name and emerging notoriety. I had not seen the already released Mad Max pictures, and Gibson was not at all the star he was to become in the U.S. Consequently, I spent the entire picture wondering whether Gibson was playing the role of Frank or Archy. I mention this because I thought Mark Lee brought the correct wide-eyed innocence to the role of Archy and I was impressed. I was disappointed to learn later that Lee was considered a kind of abject failure in Australian cinema and won few if any roles of substance after Gallipoli.

This film is a treasure in our family library. My 11-year old son counts it as his own favorite, and we enjoy discussing Gallipoli's universal themes--the nature of friendship, the meaning of loyalty, and the useless tragedy of war.

-- posted by twinlion