CRACKER? The Water Diviner (2014)

                “The Water Diviner” is an Australian/American production that was a vanity project for Russell Crowe.  He made his directorial debut with the film.  It was loosely based on the eponymous book by Andrew Anastasios and Dr. Meaghan Wilson-Anastasios.  The movie was “inspired by true events” which means that the Anastasios’ grew a mighty oak out of a story about an old Australian man who came to Turkey to search for his son’s grave.  Their research did not find any facts about the mystery man, but they still wrote a novel based on it.  And then someone decided to make a movie inspired by the fictional book.

                The movie opens during the Gallipoli Campaign in 1915.  A Turkish attack across no man’s land gives us combatus interruptus when they reach the ANZAC trenches because the Australians have withdrawn.  Meanwhile back in Australia four years later, Joshua Conner (Crowe) is finding water and digging a well.  Conner is a water diviner (or dowser).  (Water divining is a pseudoscience that usually involves the use of a Y or L shaped stick or rod to locate underground water.) It has been four years since his three sons were killed in the war at Gallipoli.  His wife has gone insane and blames him for losing their kids.  “You can find water, but you can’t find your own children.  You lost them.”  If you were hoping this would be a laugh riot…  The movie uses flashbacks to fill in the boys’ arc.  They left for the war like every other Australian volunteer – enthusiastically.  They ended up in the Dardanelles where no one kept their enthusiasm very long. 

                Conner promises his wife he will bring the boys’ home so it’s off to Turkey.  There he meets a street urchin and his comely mom Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko).  A rather predictable romance ensues.  She helps him get to the area where his sons died.  The ANZACs are in the process of disinterring bodies and don’t want some meddlesome father poking his nose in.  Clicheish military bureaucracy blocks humanism every time in cinema.  However, Conner meets a sympathetic Turkish Major Hasan (Yilmaz Erdogan) who wants to help (so the Turkish reputation in Australia can be ameliorated).  He could be a bit guilt-ridden because he might have been responsible for the boys’ deaths.  (Literally, in one case.)  We find out about those deaths via flashback.  Apparently the Australian army had a policy of getting brothers killed together.  Or were they all killed?  Hasan thinks one of them might have been taken captive and could still be alive.  That would be great for Australio-Turkish relations and for the audience’s desire to leave the theater with a glow.  Hasan is willing to help Conner if Conner is willing to tag along for the defeating of a Greek invasion.  Hey audience, would a train ambush wake you up?  As far as finding the son who felt no need to inform his poor mom that he is still alive, Conner will have to use his paternal instincts.  Not to worry, he has an inner divining rod.

 

                “The Water Diviner” is a mediocre movie.  I can imagine Crowe saying “I did not realize directing was so difficult” and “man, that leading man is a dick to work with”.  Actually, his debut is competent.  He throws in some showy overhead shots.  The nonlinear structure works well.  He gets a good performance out of himself, but the rest of the cast is middling.  The romance between Crowe and Kurylenko is a fizzle.  They have little chemistry.  The romance is also lamely predictable.  Not only is it obvious from the moment they meet that they are destined, but the screenplay throws in the trope of the outsider rescuing the damsel from her culture’s unenlightened treatment of women.  In fact, the script is not just in full foreshadowing mode for the romance.  Although it starts depressing, it quickly shifts to marching towards a happy ending.  There are some twists along the way, but they are manipulative.  Unrealistic things have to happen to get to happily ever after.  It is more of an after-war movie than a war movie.  The action is limited in scope, but leaves you wanting more.  Certainly the movie could have used more.  Most of the movie is like Conner – passionless.

                 The movie is not strong historically.  Anyone who does not research the facts could conclude that it is fairly close to a true story.  Although the narrative is predictable and the characters are stereotyped, the story is not totally unbelievable.  Other than the part where Edward does not bother to contact his grieving parents.  And the part where Conner locates him through his fatherly instinct.   The movie is centered on the Gallipoli Campaign and it assumes we know the history of the campaign.  This is problematic with American audiences.  Unless you have seen “Gallipoli”, you probably have little knowledge that the boys were pawns in a disastrous British gambit to invade the Ottoman Empire to knock it out of the Central Powers.  The landing quickly got bogged down and the Turkish defenses proved unbreakable.  The ANZAC forces suffered heavily before the campaign was mercifully abandoned.  This event became the leading exemplar in Australia of the futility of warfare and the ill use of its young men in the Great War.  The film has a revisionist theme.  It intends to show the Turkish perspective.  As Crowe mentioned in an interview, the Turks were defending their country.  He goes out of his way to make the Turks sympathetic.  Hasan is a character that probably could not have existed in an Australian movie in the 20^th Century.  Mission accomplished as the movie was popular in Turkey.  It did not do well overall at the box office, however.  It was not helped by the controversy involving what was considered a too positive take on the Turks.  Critics brought up the Armenian and Assyrian Genocides of 1915.  There may have been Hasans, but he was not representative.

                Australia has a reputation for bringing war movie lovers some good fare.  “The Water Diviner” is not one of its better offerings.  Since war movies are rare these days, it is something of a disappointment.  It certainly does not live up to Mel Gibson’s “Gallipoli”.  But then, Gibson did not direct that movie.  Crowe should get credit for making a movie on a subject that he had a passion for, but the story is just not very strong.  As a war movie, it does not deliver the action.  As a romance, it is ho hum.  And as a mystery, it’s mediocre. 

GRADE  =  C   

"Gallipoli" (1981)

 

     “Gallipoli” is a war movie by Peter Weir. It was part of the wave of Australian classics of the 1980s that included “Breaker Morant” and “The Lighthorsemen”. Weir was inspired by the story of the ANZAC (Australian - New Zealand Army Corps) contribution to the British effort in the Gallipoli campaign of WWI. Early on the project evolved from a study of the entire campaign to a more personal study set in a brief period of the campaign. It stars Mel Gibson (coming off of “Mad Max”) and a debuting Mark Lee.


     The movie begins in western Australia (lovely vistas) in May, 1915. Archy (Lee) is a promising sprinter, but longs to enlist in the Light Horse. He represents the stereotypical naïve patriot. “If we don’t stop them [in Turkey], they could end up here” (the Australian “Domino Theory”?). His family is against him going to war because he has a bright future being alive. They relent, of course but not before his uncle/mentor reads the scene in “The Jungle Book” where Mowgli decides to leave the jungle saying “Now I will go to men.”

     Archy befriends Frank (Gibson) who represents the stereotypical reluctant, cynical warrior. “It’s not our bloody war! It’s an English war. It’s got nothing to do with us”. He bonds with fellow runner Archy and through their friendship and the application of the wonders of peer pressure, he enlists too. They go into different units, but are reunited in Egypt for the training/whoring scenes obligatory for a war movie. There is some local color featuring a bazaar and a brothel. The lads are seeing the world.


     Then it’s off to the Gallipoli beachhead and a wonderfully staged nighttime landing. The Australians are trapped along a narrow stretch with the Turks holding the high ground where they are dug in with artillery and machine guns. Fortunately ladies, the Bruces insist on bathing in the ocean with shrapnel roiling the water. This is fortunate because Mel Gibson exposes his bare butt. The life in the trenches is realistically depicted. The soldiers eat hard tack and there are flies! Critters in a war movie, imagine that.

     The big battle is coming and it is to be a diversion for a British landing at Suvla Bay designed to break the deadlock. Those dastardly Brits are going to use the colonials in a suicide attack to suit their own purposes! If the landing succeeds, it’s on to Constantinople to knock Turkey out of the war which will lead to the defeat of Germany. Just like the Somme! Oh, and not to worry Aussies, the preliminary bombardment will make the attack a cake walk. Just like the Somme!

     The bombardment is cinematically short, but realistically violent. The first attack is futile against the Turkish machine guns as is the second. Major Barton (representing the stereotypical sensitive officer like Col. Dax in “Paths of Glory”) wants to get the attack called off, but the telephone wire has been cut. He needs a really, really fast runner to rush the request to Colonel Robinson. Lucky for him Frank is a very fast runner. He runs to new ageish music which sounds like “Chariots of Fire”, but clashes with the rest of the mostly classical sound track. Col. Robinson (a stereotypical British twit reminiscent of Gen. Mireau in “Paths”) refuses to cancel the attack so Frank is sent to the general. The general decides to cancel the attack, but meanwhile the line is repaired and even Frank cannot outrun a telephone call from the colonel that orders the attack.

     The soldiers, including Archy, are unaware of the race against idiocy. They prepare for death by leaving mementoes in the trench. Archy leaves a track medal (lost potential) and a watch (lost future). The movie ends with Archie reenacting Robert Capa’s iconic Spanish Civil War photo entitled “The Falling Soldier”.

     “Gallipoli” is well done and was influential on war movies of the eighties. It is fairly accurate, but piles on the British to elicit nods from its core audience which still resents Britain’s misuse of the ANZAC. In actuality, Col. Robinson was a Col. Antill who was Australian, as was the general who planned the attack. Also, the Battle of the Nek was a diversion for a New Zealand attack, not the British landing at Suvla Bay. It is obvious Weir changed the facts to enhance the anti-British theme. He had to apologize later.

     The acting is okay, if a bit over the top. Gibson is a young Mel Gibson, nuff said. Lee is a little e bland, but so is his character. It’s themes of the loss of innocence and the futility of war are commendable. It is definitely anti-war. It is a buddy picture with some hints of a bromance between Archy and Frank which I feel it’s safe to say escaped Gibson’s notice when he read the script. I do think some critics have overemphasized the homosexual angle. Although the unrealistic way the cynical Frank runs off to a war because of his friendship with Archy gives ammunition to their argument.

     Not a bad movie, but not as good as "Breaker Morant" and not worthy of the 100 Best.

GRADE  =  B-