This is a phenomenally handsomely shot and designed picture, where director Peter Weir, cinematographer Russel Boyd and his team (including none less than John Seale) manage to make so many scenes pop like these shiny memories encapsulated into an epic that is really about how human beings failed in a massive way through no fault of the young grunts who were eager to do right for their country. It's anti-war by design as well, which makes the forty five minutes of the film where characters are becoming closer by just screwing about with the locals in an Egyptian city equally involving and frustrating.
Of course there shouldn't be much more to these young guys, that's the point, and there is personality to go around... except that this, far more than even the first Mad Max, is Gibson's star making turn and he is so confident and yet relaxed and amused and bemused and full of all that piss and vinegar hiding total fear, that it kind of overshadows others including his co-lead Mark Lee, a perfectly sevicable actor who has the poor luck of having Gibson by his side. And it's not that Lee should pop more than his costar, but he is very good at one thing on screen which is seeming very high spirited and naive. That can work in spurts but only for so long, and indeed his character is gone for a long stretch until the two blokes run into each other in a training exercise scene.
What stands out to me when it's all over are those passages where not a lot or little is said and the visual grammar carries the day, like when the two young men are going through that desert and can't even have a fight because it's too hot out, or that one scene where the uncle is reading Kipling to the kids. There is bountiful ambition to behold, and in that last section a whole lot of "oh no, this stupid Face it All and You Will GO" s*** that also made a similar film about the horror of not simply being shot but being ordered to be shot in the face of total despair and ruin in WW1, Paths of Glory, so unforgettable Weir finds the tragic meat that we haven't been seeing till now.
I think... it's tough because I don't want to be like a few other critics I've read who say that the film isn't angry enough - not everything has to be Platoon or Full Metal Jacket - on the other hand, the PG rating and the intentions to make it fairly, well, tastefully depicted to a point means that the horror these people experience is kept at a slight distance. In order to critique something you have to show it, and there is only so much to show here as far as devastation (though the faces, those closeups, are tremendous in that sense of tight-lipped insanity and despair). Gallipoli is a good movie that I only wish went further.
Of course there shouldn't be much more to these young guys, that's the point, and there is personality to go around... except that this, far more than even the first Mad Max, is Gibson's star making turn and he is so confident and yet relaxed and amused and bemused and full of all that piss and vinegar hiding total fear, that it kind of overshadows others including his co-lead Mark Lee, a perfectly sevicable actor who has the poor luck of having Gibson by his side. And it's not that Lee should pop more than his costar, but he is very good at one thing on screen which is seeming very high spirited and naive. That can work in spurts but only for so long, and indeed his character is gone for a long stretch until the two blokes run into each other in a training exercise scene.
What stands out to me when it's all over are those passages where not a lot or little is said and the visual grammar carries the day, like when the two young men are going through that desert and can't even have a fight because it's too hot out, or that one scene where the uncle is reading Kipling to the kids. There is bountiful ambition to behold, and in that last section a whole lot of "oh no, this stupid Face it All and You Will GO" s*** that also made a similar film about the horror of not simply being shot but being ordered to be shot in the face of total despair and ruin in WW1, Paths of Glory, so unforgettable Weir finds the tragic meat that we haven't been seeing till now.
I think... it's tough because I don't want to be like a few other critics I've read who say that the film isn't angry enough - not everything has to be Platoon or Full Metal Jacket - on the other hand, the PG rating and the intentions to make it fairly, well, tastefully depicted to a point means that the horror these people experience is kept at a slight distance. In order to critique something you have to show it, and there is only so much to show here as far as devastation (though the faces, those closeups, are tremendous in that sense of tight-lipped insanity and despair). Gallipoli is a good movie that I only wish went further.