Gallipoli (1981)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Peter Weir

Writers:

Peter Weir (story)
David Williamson (screenplay)

Release Date:

28 August 1981 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | History | War

Tagline:

Peter Weir's film of...Gallipoli

Plot:

Two Australian sprinters face the brutal realities of war when they are sent to fight in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey during World War I.

Plot Keywords:

Gallipoli | Anzac | Australia | Running | Turkey

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 9 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Mark Lee	...	Archy Hamilton
Bill Kerr	...	Jack
Harold Hopkins	...	Les McCann
Charles Lathalu Yunipingli	...	Zac (as Charles Yunupingu)
Heath Harris	...	Stockman
Ron Graham	...	Wallace Hamilton
Gerda Nicolson	...	Rose Hamilton
Mel Gibson	...	Frank Dunne
Robert Grubb	...	Billy
Tim McKenzie	...	Barney
David Argue	...	Snowy
Brian Anderson	...	Railway Foreman
Reg Evans	...	Athletics Official 1
Jack Giddy	...	Athletics Official 2
Dane Peterson	...	Announcer

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

Australia

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Singapore:PG | Argentina:13 | South Korea:15 | Portugal:M/12 | Australia:PG | Finland:K-12 | Norway:15 | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | USA:PG | West Germany:12

Filming Locations:

Adelaide Railway Station, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Company:

Australian Film Commission, The

Trivia:

Producers advertised for 400 skilled male horse riders for the movie, yet only 200 turned up for shooting. The remaining 200 horse riders in the movie were women, dressed to look as men.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: In the pub scene when they are about to leave for Gallipoli there are flags on the wall of the Allies - France, Britain, and Australia. There is also a flag of the United States. The battle of Gallipoli occurred in 1915, but the United States did not enter the war until April 6, 1917. It was neutral in 1915, and traded with both the Allied and Central Powers.

Quotes:

Frank Dunne: The thing I can't stand about you mate is you're always so bloody cheerful.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

Soundtrack:

TALES FROM THE VIENNA WOODS

Funny and tragic

There are anti-war movies that work by rubbing your nose in the gore and brainless waste of war, and then there are those that are more subtle and cunning, and approach your sensibilities from behind. Gallipoli, certainly one of the best Australian films of the modern era, is one of the latter. It shows war as a game right up until the last 20 minutes, it derives comic dialogue from it, and in some scenes openly ridicules the concept of soldiering (a platoon is swimming naked in the ocean, for example, and one man is hit by falling shrapnel, causing resounding cheers - this not only means he will be going home but he has also won a sizeable kitty of coins.) It's essentially a movie of two overlapping halves: the first tries to encapsulate and describe exactly who the Australians of 1915 were, how they thought, felt and behaved; the second plonks them into the unnatural setting of a foreign war run by the British, who seem quite alien in this film.

It is a long film, and it does move slowly, particularly when Weir is establishing Archie and Frank's friendship. But, as mentioned, the strength of this movie is that it goes to lengths to describe the Australian mindset of the time. Archie is keen to join up to escape the boredom and isolation of the farm, but is naive and unenlightened about why the war is being fought; when he meets a nomadic camel-driver in the middle of the blistering desert and tells him that the Germans must be stopped or they'll end up "here", the nomad looks around and mutters "..and they're welcome to it." Frank, however, is more worldly and realistic about war; it takes a longer chain of events to convince him to join up, and even then he does so reluctantly.

These Australians then find themselves in Egypt, playing football alongside the pyramids, frequenting brothels and clashing with both local merchants and British officers. Cultural comparisons are made, then they find themselves at Gallipoli, one of the biggest military gambles of World War I and also one of its worst errors. There is a biting sense of 'war as sport' from hereonin, as the Australians engage in games with the Turkish, without taking it overly seriously (or trying to look like they are). With the push into Turkey in stalemate, the British - always shown as the driving force - resort to charging the men from trenches into elevated positions protected by machine-gunners. From this comes the emotional, but hardly unexpected climax.

Gallipoli is Australia's All Quiet on the Western Front, but instead of using personal conscience and experience as its crutch and its catalyst, it reverts to that oft-used Australian concept of 'mateship'. War brings together mates, then it callously separates them. You would struggle to find a movie that better illustrates this cruetly.