Gallipoli (DVD, 2005, Collector's Edition)

Directed by a very good Australian director, Peter Weir, this movie takes on
one of the country"s most tragic moments in history, the WWI confrontation
with the Germans and their allied Turks at the battle at Gallipoli. As the
movie leads up to the battle, we get to know the young men destined to be
casualties of war. Mel Gibson plays one of these men (the film he made after
he finished MAD MAX). A courageous but foolish attack finishes a very good
movie and shows the folly exhibited by Allied Commanders in WWI when they would throw waves of men at entrenched defenders with machine guns and massive artillery support. A good movie for history buffs or WWI students, and includes a very real enactment of a charge across "no mans land" - and the
casulaties that were the result of this type of fight.

I chose to buy this movie after seeing it on television and deciding that it was one of the best war movies I've ever seen. This movie zooms in on the war experience of two guys during World War One. I love how the movie captures the excitement and joy of all the soldiers as they move towards the front and then the despair following their introduction to the realities of war. This movie is as much about friendship as it is about war, and I think that is what really makes it worth seeing. Another interesting facet of this movie is how it shows the feelings and attitudes of Australians towards the Great War and the feelings of the Aussie soldiers towards their Turkish enemy. For much of us here in the U.S., we only know about the American perspective of the war and our main enemy of Germany during that war. To see Turks and Aussies battling it out also reminds me of why this was a world war. Overall, it is a great film with great acting, especially Mel Gibson, and worth seeing.

Its interesting that greatness is often considered expendable by the completely inane. In any event that was the manner of the British commanders disposition towards the great men of Australia caught up in the war against the Turks. John McDermott (formerly of Scotland and low living in Canada) has sung the great song "and the band played waltzing matilda" which speaks to this war and its devastation on a good bancha men that should never have bothered to make the sacrifice as it was not worth the price for us collectively considering alternatives at hand. This is a must have movie in every library, however although I never reveal an ending I have to tell you not to bother if you cant handle tragedy and grief befalling those of our own best souls.