Gallipoli, film review: 'heartbreaking'

Peter Weir's Gallipoli, which stars a young Mel Gibson, is a haunting tale of two young athletes who fight for Anzac during the First World War but there are historical inaccuracies about the role of the British soldiers

Mel Gibson in Gallipoli (1981) Photo: Moviestore Collection

By Martin Chilton

Gallipoli (1981) was directed by Peter Weir; written by David Williamson, based on a story by Weir. It starred Mel Gibson, Mark Lee and Bill Kerr. Running time: 110 minutes.

Director Peter Weir had just finished the haunting Picnic at Hanging Rock when he started thinking about making a film about the First World War. "I went to London for the opening of Picnic and thought I should take a look at Gallipoli along the way," Weir recalled. "I went to Istanbul, hired a car and drove to the battlefield, an extraordinary experience. I saw no one in two days of climbing up and down slopes and wandering through the trenches, finding all sorts of scraps left by the armies: buttons and bits of old leather, belts, bones of donkeys, even an unbroken Eno's Fruit Salts bottle. I felt somehow I was really touching history, that's really what it was, and it totally altered my perception of Gallipoli. I decided then and there that I'd make the film."

And what a film he made: one of the most elegiac anti-war films ever made.

The centenary of the Gallipoli campaign is being April until August 2015, honouring the dead and wounded from a joint offensive by Allied forces intended to capture Istanbul (then called Constantinople) and secure a sea route to Russia. It was also the first major engagement for Anzac, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Gallipoli was a disaster. On the first day alone 682 Australians were killed or injured. Thousands more followed, from all sides in a battle known in Turkey as the Battle of Çanakkale.

^{Mark Lee and Mel Gibson in Gallipoli ALAMY}

Few films will ever impact the Australian and Kiwi psyche with as much force as Weir’s. When a relative of mine saw it on its 1981 release in Perth, Australia, it was hard to hear the dialogue, so loud was the sobbing from most of the audience.

Gallipoli stars Mark Lee (Archy) and Mel Gibson (Frank) as the handsome young runners who sign up to fight. Weir had cast Gibson after being impressed by his performance in Mad Max. Together, Archy and Frank journey from rural Australia to Perth, travelling across blindingly white desert. It's a strange and memorable start, to see two young men walking off to a European war, tramping through such a vast empty space and arguing about whether it's right or wrong to go.

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In the midst of the desert they meet a camel driver, who says he can't see what a war being fought in Turkey, against Germany, has got to do with Australia.

"We don't stop them there, they could end up here," Archy tells him. The camel driver surveys the bleak landscape, captured beautifully by cinematographer Russell Boyd, and mutters: "And they're welcome to it."

After a short humour-filled stop in Cairo, the soldiers go to Turkey. There is a striking sequence of the men swimming underwater at Gallipoli beach with shells exploding all round them. The costumes are impeccable and the battle scenes are done with great panache. Weir was proud of the fact that the 700 extras were taught the history of the scenes they were filming.

It's hard not to feel tears welling at the heartbreaking climax which depicts the Battle of the Nek, a doomed push against the Turkish trenches by the 8th and 10th Light Horse.

The main flaw of the film, however, is in this denouement, where it deviates most sharply from historical accuracy. There is an anti-British bias, especially in the portrayal of the chain of command at the Nek. Colonel Robinson (John Morris), who orders the attack, appears to have an English accent. In fact, very little British command was exercised at the Nek and historians have attributed much of the poor decision-making to 3rd Australian Light Horse Brigade commander Brigadier General Frederic Hughes. And two companies of a British regiment, the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, suffered very heavy losses trying to support the Australian attack at the Nek once it was realised that the offensive was in trouble.

Despite that, Gallipoli remains a moving film about war, friendship and the tragic loss of innocence.

^{Gallipoli won best film at the Australian Film Institute Awards ALAMY}