Reviews

Archie and Frank are friends. They are athletic young Australian men looking for adventure, and – the year being 1915 – they find themselves drawn towards the army, and participation in the World War which is currently raging in the northern hemisphere. As part of the ANZAC expeditionary force (Australian & New Zealand Army Corps), the two friends are thrown onto the beaches of Gallipoli. There, they experience war's terrible futility at first hand.

The Dardanelles Campaign (or the Battle of Gallipoli) is now a byword for military incompetence. It lasted ten months (April 1915 to January 1916) and was, for the Allies, an unmitigated failure. Churchill dreamed up the campaign and bears the greater part of the responsibility for it.

With the Western Front stalled in a costly stalemate, Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty was looking for a quick fix to open supply routes to the West's key ally, Russia. The attack on the narrow channel which connects the Black Sea with the Mediterranean promised additional benefits: Allied success would knock Turkey out of the war and may well lure Greece and Bulgaria into the conflict.

However, the plan was misconceived and very poorly executed. The numerical strength and the fighting capacity of the Turkish defenders were woefully underestimated, and the terrain inadequately surveyed. What was meant, originally, to be a purely naval action somehow morphed into a vast land offensive. The Turks were given ample warning of what was coming, and were able to make elaborate preparations. Allied combat units found themselves deployed onto narrow beaches and having to assault sheer cliff faces, all the time under machine-gun fire from the carefully-entrenched Turks.

With the breezy, optimistic approach so typical of Churchill (and all too often derived from careless perusal of small-scale maps), it was decided that the ANZACs should do most of the Gallipoli fighting. After all, Turkey was on the extreme fringes of Europe, not far from Australia (if you're looking at a small enough map, that is). Gallipoli was "their" war.

It has been said that Gallipoli marked the birth of Australian and New Zealander national consciousness. The appalling losses suffered by the ANZACs – in someone else's fight, it should be stressed – awakened a sense of antipodean identity. Australia and New Zealand began to perceive their interests as diverging from those of the "mother" empire, whose center lay in London.

Today, we see Australia and New Zealand as fiercely independent sovereign states with their own unique cultures and outlooks. Both have populations of diverse ethnicity, with Vietnamese, Greek and Italian immigration having helped shape their communities. It has certainly not always been so.

A typical Aussie of a hundred years ago thought of himself as British, and of England as "home", even though it was located on the far side of the planet. When the British Empire needed help, most Australians saw it as their plain and obvious duty to rally to the Union Flag. In the century which has elapsed since Gallipoli, Antipodeans have repeatedly been disappointed to learn that their values are not shared by the British.

Honest, hearty, vigorous, cheerful and loyal to his friends – this is the Australian's image of himself. The Englishman does not prize these qualities (according to the stereotype, at least): he is cynical, selfish, physically puny … and an utter, dyed-in-the-wool snob. When Frank prevents one of his ANZAC friends from saluting two sarcastic English officers, his gesture represents the parting of the ways. Henceforth, Britain and Australia will sever bonds of trust and respect.

"Gallipoli" is, in a nutshell, a film about decent Aussies being called upon to bleed and die on a foolishly-selected battlefield, in pursuance of someone else's aims, in circumstances of obvious futility. Early on in the film, champion sprinter Archie damages his feet when he takes on a silly bet, three days before an important race. Symbolically, he is Australia, squandering his God-given prowess for no discernible benefit, when he should be thinking of making his own way in the world. When the ANZAC soldiers sing "Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot?", the clear and powerful message is, "yes!"

The interesting musical score made a big impact back in 1981. Three themes recur throughout – Albinoni's "Adagio in G Minor", with its overwhelming sadness, accompanies the ANZAC lads as they prepare to launch their hopeless attack: an aria from "The Pearl Fishers" conveys the sensitivity of Major Barton, the officer caught between two loyalties: and in complete contrast, Jean-Michel Jarre's "Oxygene" provides cutting-edge (for 1981) incidental music, helping to suffuse the film with a sense of youth and hopefulness, qualities so important to Australians.

We spend the first thirty minutes in Western Australia. This part of the film is sumptuously and lyrically shot, with healthy young men laughing, herding cattle and playing sport in the magnificent outdoors. The soil is red ocher and the mountains tower over the land in this innocent paradise, the Garden of Eden from which Australia's youth will be snatched, to throw away their lives in England's cause. The Egyptian desert where the ANZACs train is also beautifully filmed, with the conical Aussie tents providing a nice counterpoint to the Pyramids – the New World called in to redress the Old World's evils. Kubrick's innovative "trench trick" of running a dolly camera along the earthworks ("Paths Of Glory", 1957) is replicated here, very effectively conveying the claustrophobia of trench fighting.

The film's enduring image is rightly famous. Knowing that, any moment now, they are going to be asked to march into machine-gun fire, ANZACs quietly pin their letters and wedding rings to the sandbags of their trench. The scene is excruciatingly sad, and stands – as, indeed, does the entire film – as a fitting monument to young men whose courage and strength were wasted, and whose bones now lie so far from the rich ocher of their native soil.

If you are between the ages of 9 and 19, and you are a dedicated (and hugely talented) ballet dancer, then the Youth America Grand Prix is a dance competition you'll know all about. And dream about. It doesn't matter where you're from (some of the "stars" of this documentary come from Africa and Latin America): given colossal natural ability, extremely hard work and the right guidance, you, too, can try for the glittering prize. Bess Kargman's excellent film follows seven kids as they prepare for, and participate in, this intense contest.

What a joy to get to review something that isn't brain-dead! Ballet is very difficult to do, very beautiful to watch, and requires intelligence and artistic flair (rather like a good documentary, really), and Bess Kargman has made a ballet film which is not only picking up awards faster than Halle Berry gathers motoring citations, but "First Position" has achieved the nigh-impossible for a work of non-fiction, and is going on general theatrical release. It will hit the screens on Friday, May 4.

The premise is a simple and compelling one. Youngsters from all over the world strive to qualify for the Grand Prix finals, held in New York City. When the very best gather for the dance-off, the pressure is just about unbearable. Each contestant will have five minutes on stage. If you're sick, or overcome by nerves, or if you stumble during your routine … too bad. All those years you worked for this, all those things you sacrificed in order to get here, are riding on the next three hundred seconds. Five thousand dancers enter each year, with this number being whittled down to a couple of hundred for the New York finals. From this small group, the winners will emerge. Kargman knows how to build suspense – but the who-won-it is only one element in this excellent film. We get to see the physical pain these kids go through (check out the "foot-stretcher" used by little Aran, which looks like a medieval torture implement), we hear from their parents and dance teachers … but, most of all, there is the beautiful ballet itself.

Like any documentary worth its salt, "First Position" asks as many questions as it answers. Thought-provoking contributions abound, like that from the teacher who states openly, "Kids who are pursuing ballet as a career give up their childhood." Can such a sacrifice be justified? Who gets to make the choice? Which is worse – to push small children through the grueling practice schedules, or not to push them – thereby passing up the chance for success? Is it fair to expose youngsters to the appalling pressure of the final round? This is a film which stays with the viewer long after the final credits have rolled.

One of the things you need to be good at, when you shoot a documentary, is judging what not to do or say. In this, Kargman has triumphed. She is never obtrusive, and she lets the images (and the kids) tell the story. Critic Dave Robson, reviewing the film for the Toronto International Film Festival (where, incidentally, it won considerable acclaim) puts it like this: "Though she casts a wide net, Kargman is careful to include only the most essential commentary. She frequently complements her cast's words with beautiful shots of dancing and juxtaposes them with more candid and vulnerable moments. It is perhaps trite to say that a film about an aesthetic discipline looks beautiful, but "First Position" does. It certainly helps that dancers are well lit, but more to the point, Kargman keeps her cinematography simple. To be too clever would distract from the dancing." In case anyone reading this is under the misapprehension that it's just a bunch of well-heeled preppy youngsters indulging in a glorified hobby, it is worth mentioning Michaela Deprince. This young finalist hails from Sierra Leone, where she witnessed her parents getting murdered. "It's a miracle I'm even here," she says – and she bears the scars to prove it. Indeed, overall, this is a singularly resilient bunch of kids. After all they have been through, it is surprising – not to mention heart-warming – to see how balanced, articulate and likable they all are. Take, for example, the tiny 12-year-old Miko Fogarty, who frequently has to field comments from others, to the effect that she has missed out on her childhood. She doesn't happen to agree.

This is Bess Kargman's breakthrough movie, and much credit she deserves. She directed the project and also took a major hand in the editing. Her director of photography, Nick Higgins, has done a lot of documentary work in his career – but surely nothing as visually captivating as this.

By the way, for those of you who, like me, have a penchant for movie titles which contain more than one level of meaning, "First Position" refers of course to winning the Grand Prix, and therefore being guaranteed a prestigious professional contract … but it is also a ballet term, denoting the preliminary posture – standing with heels together, toes splayed outwards. The things you learn on IMDb, huh?