Water Diviner (2014)
I remember that the Gallipoli campaign was one which carried a high mortality but somehow almost all involved in it came out heroes, or at least they were made to think. The Australians and New Zealanders began their nationalistic pride here as a nation and still commemorate their landing through ANZAC day and glorify their dead in their monuments. The Sikhs are proud to have died valiantly defending the Queen and their colonial masters. The Turks held their heads high to have successfully kept the Allied Forces at bay. It was also the ground in which a certain soldier who later modernised Turkey - Kamal Ataturk. As Sun Tze said many years earlier, "In war, they are no winners, only losers."
Even Winston Churchill whose strategy fell flat here, leading to meaningless deaths here, blossomed to lead the nation to fight another world war to come out smelling of roses and be immortalised as a true statesman.
Recently, the star of this movie, Russell Crowe gave an incisive interview to an Australian TV. He reiterated that Gallipoli is not an event to be proud of but a graveyard to many Turks and Australians who had no quarrel between each other. After all, the Empire attacked a sovereign nation. Of course, the veterans are not going to take that lying down.
The film is 2014 directorial debut for Russell Crowe who also assumes the role of a farmer father who goes in search of his 3 soldier sons who went missing in action in Gallipoli in 1915. The farmer soon discovers that his loss is not unique and they are others in his same predicament, on the enemy side. He soon discover another culture and friends along the way. War does no good to anybody.
I remember that the Gallipoli campaign was one which carried a high mortality but somehow almost all involved in it came out heroes, or at least they were made to think. The Australians and New Zealanders began their nationalistic pride here as a nation and still commemorate their landing through ANZAC day and glorify their dead in their monuments. The Sikhs are proud to have died valiantly defending the Queen and their colonial masters. The Turks held their heads high to have successfully kept the Allied Forces at bay. It was also the ground in which a certain soldier who later modernised Turkey - Kamal Ataturk. As Sun Tze said many years earlier, "In war, they are no winners, only losers."Even Winston Churchill whose strategy fell flat here, leading to meaningless deaths here, blossomed to lead the nation to fight another world war to come out smelling of roses and be immortalised as a true statesman.
Recently, the star of this movie, Russell Crowe gave an incisive interview to an Australian TV. He reiterated that Gallipoli is not an event to be proud of but a graveyard to many Turks and Australians who had no quarrel between each other. After all, the Empire attacked a sovereign nation. Of course, the veterans are not going to take that lying down.
The film is 2014 directorial debut for Russell Crowe who also assumes the role of a farmer father who goes in search of his 3 soldier sons who went missing in action in Gallipoli in 1915. The farmer soon discovers that his loss is not unique and they are others in his same predicament, on the enemy side. He soon discover another culture and friends along the way. War does no good to anybody.
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21st Indian Battery Guard. Photograph taken in 1915
by Sergeant Charles Alexander Masters while on active
service with the Australian Imperial Force in Gallipoli.
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