Passchendaele   Starring: Paul Gross, Caroline Dhavernas, Gil Bellows and Joe Dinicol High Fliers RRP: £12.99 HFR0070 Certificate: 15 Available 25 January 2010

Having survived one tour of duty in the trenches of France, Michael Dunne, has every expectation that his part in the First World War is over. Returning home he is reassigned as a recruiter for the army. He meets and falls in love with Sarah Mann, whose brother is determined to join up, even though his asthma precludes him from fighting. When David Mann successfully joins up Michael is compelled to follow him back to the front, because of his feelings for Sarah. In the madness, which is the battle of Passchendaele, can even Michael save David...?

Passchendaele (2008 - 1 hr, 49 min, 47 sec) is a war/love story co-written, directed and starring Paul Gross (Due South 1997-1998). The film won six awards and was nominated for a further three.

The film is supposedly based on Gross’s grandfather, Michael Dunne’s, experience, of fighting at the battle of Passéndale, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, who was haunted all his life after taking a young German's life. This is even reproduced at the beginning of the film, when Michael bayonets a young soldier through his head - though it is dubious whether he actually needed to do so.

Although I had enjoyed Gross’s acting in Due South, there was some reservation that this may have been some form of vanity project. In fact the film is an accomplished piece both from Gross as a writer and as a director. The film deals with the run up to the battle, which was an important one for the Canadian troops. In fact Canadians fought in both wars, so I’m at a loss why there are not more Canadian films about their experiences. One of the strong points of the scenes which involve the battle is the brutality which both sides employ. They move from mechanised warfare, with guns, right down to trying to kill each other, with whatever they can find, when they get involved in hand to hand combat.

This is a strange sort of jingoism, or call it national pride, from such an unassuming country. I’m not sure that there are many out there who would associate Canadians with flag waving, perhaps like the English they too are a little afraid of nationalism. The problem with that stance is that the sacrifices of the past are often glossed (no pun intended) over, so to see a Canadian making a big, passionate war film, celebrating their contribution to the war is a bit of an odd experience. In the end the film is tonally patriotic without being nationalistic.

The film is less about the war, though it provides the backdrop, and more about Michael's (Gross) personal experiences, from falling in love with Sarah (Caroline Dhavernas) to returning to the war to look after her idealistic brother David (Joe Dinicol), a fact reinforced by the battle scenes only bookending the central drama. In this it has more in common with Saving Private Ryan (1998) and For Whom the Bells Toll (1943) by wrapping the world events around the experience of a single man and the impact the war had on him.

This makes for a powerful premise, as when we do get to the brutality of the war we have come to care what happens to the characters. There is, of course, a problem here in that the actual battle does not take up that much of the film's time, so some audiences may feel cheated, especially if they were expecting more of the war and less of Michael. Personally I liked the balance away from Hollywood war theatrics.

The acting is universally good, in fact it took me some time to realise who Gross was as he inhabits his character so well. As a director he has a good sense of style and detail and was able to get convincing portrayals from his supporting cast of Caroline Dhavernas, Joe Dinicol, Meredith Bailey, Jim Mezon, Michael Greyeyes, Adam Harrington, Gil Bellows, James Kot and Jesse Frechette. On the down side, the script has a few weaknesses; it would have been nice to understand David’s motivation for wanting to fight above a sense of jingoism and the over sentimental ending seemed out of place. These, though, are minor quibbles in what is otherwise a fine film.

The DVD which was sent for review did not includes the documentary The Making of Passchendaele so I cannot comment. The colours on the film are strong, but unless I'm mistaken the aspect ratio is wrong, but this might just have been the review disc.

6

Charles Packer