SERIES: Gallipoli (2015)

 

 

                    For the one hundredth anniversary of the Gallipoli Campaign, Australians were treated to a miniseries about some blokes that participated in the disaster.  The seven hour-long episodes covered the campaign from landing to withdrawal.  It was based on the nonfiction book by Les Carlyon.  The cast went through some military training to prepare for their roles.

 

                    The main character is 17 year-old Tolly Johnson (Kodi Smit-McPhee).  He enlists after his brother Bevan (Harry Greenwood) goes off to fight for his king.  They make friends with members of their 4^th Battalion, including the intellectual pacifist Dave (Sam Parsonson) and the class clown Cliff (Tom Budge).  The series skips the usual enlistment and training sequences and almost immediately puts the men on the beach on April 25, 1915.  They charge up the bluff, but when they reach minimal Turkish resistance, they fall back before they take the high ground.  Spoiler alert for non-Aussies, this failure is going to adversely impact the campaign.  To say the least.  The Australians dig trenches and a stalemate reminiscent of the Western Front ensues.  The second episode jumps a month, by which time their sector is called “Shrapnel Gully”.  The men are dealing with flies, snipers, and the deaths of comrades.  Not all of the main characters are going to make it.  Surprise!  The soldier’s lives are intercut with command decisions by Gen. Hamilton – an ass leading lions.  Although Tolly and his mates are fictional, many of the officers are based on real people.  There is a third arc involving members of the press, focusing on Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett (James Callis) who becomes a major thorn in Hamilton’s side.  This builds to episode five entitled ironically “The Breakout”.  This covers Hamilton’s complex multi-attacks to break the stand-off.  Tolly’s unit is assigned a diversionary attack on a section of Turkish trenches called Lone Pine.  The unhorsed Light Horsemen are assigned The Nek.  (If you look closely, you’ll see Archy Hamilton and Frank Dunne.  Just kidding.)  The last few episodes deal with the aftermath of the fiasco for Hamilton and the survivors of Tolly’s gang.

 

                    I did not have high hopes for this series.  I am not a big fan of the movie “Gallipoli” or the miniseries “Anzacs” and don’t find the campaign particularly interesting.  Not being an Aussie, I don’t have a dog in that hunt.  However, this series is surprisingly good.  The acting is fine by a cast that had only two faces I recognized -  Smit-McPhee from “Slow West” and Callis from “Battlestar Galactica”.  Smit-McPhee does a good job as the teenager thrust into war.  The character arc is a bit unrealistic.  His first taste of combat has him stabbing, instead of shooting, a Turk.  Later he has a brief foray as a sniper for no apparent reason than to introduce the famous sniper Billy Sing and to give us some cool sniping scenes.  Tolly reminded me of Paul Baumer as he gets hardened, promoted, and disfriended.  The only references to the home front are periodic flashbacks to Tolly’s love triangle with his older brother Bevan’s fiancé.  I don’t have to tell war movie fans that the girl will not have two guys to choose from when the campaign is over. 

 

                    The movie has three focuses.  One, the soldier life and banter, which is realistically portrayed in some nicely rendered trenches.  The men have that familiar Aussie humor.  The comradeship is apparent.  Second, the flawed decision-making by Hamilton which accurately reflects the insanity of the strategy and tactics.  Third, the press coverage which runs the gamut from jingoistic fawning to “here’s what’s really happening” as represented by Bartlett, who belonged in Vietnam.  These intertwine nicely and we get a balanced look at the campaign, unlike “Gallipoli” and “Anzacs” which were small unit movies.  There is not a lot of combat, but what there is is pretty graphic.  There is a lot of bayonet stabbing in the series and some vicious hand-to-hand.  The deaths are unpredictable and sudden.  And heart-tugging.

 

                    I did not expect it to be much of a history lesson, but it is.  I am not an expert on the campaign and I have read that some Aussies were upset with inaccuracies, but based on what I read for this review, it gets the basics right.  The historical characters appear to be accurately depicted and it was nice to see Bartlett getting his historical due.  His role in the demise of Hamilton is well-depicted.  Including Billy Sing was a bit of a stunt, but now I know who he was, so that was cool.  The whole sniper sequence is a low point as Tolly inaccurately roams around without a problem.  It does a good job on the famous burial truce (which reminds of the Christmas truce as in “Joyeux Noel”) and although a bit heavy handed in its depiction of the bonhommerie of the opposing soldiers, at least it gives the Turks fair treatment.  There is even a significant role for Kemal Ataturk.  The series leaves no doubt which side was better led.

 

                    I was shocked to read that the series bombed in Australia.  Some critics claimed it glorified war and pushed the Anzac myth.  I do not know where those critics were coming from.  The series is clearly anti-war and anti-military.  It does not sugar-coat what the soldiers went through.  I recommend it to non-Aussies.  I don’t want to get into arguments with Australians about how little I know about Gallipoli.  After watching several Russian war series on Amazon Prime, it was a big step up.

 

GRADE =  B