Archy, in particular, is driven by the desire to prove that he is indeed a man. Knowing that his life would be complete only after he´s accepted into the military force, Archy sets his mind on doing just that. This theme forms a motif throughout the picture that is seen clearly when Frank attempts to give Archy a fake beard. His uncle, too, helps shape Archy´s destiny in regards to his decision to enlist, since he himself joined the army and experienced adventure in foreign lands while officially under-age. The motif is continued in the uncle´s reading of Kipling´s The Jungle Book in which he describes Mowgli´s transformation into a man.
Frank, a good runner as well, is, on the other hand, a man from a city. He is worldly in comparison with Archy´s naivety and also the smarter of the two. He believes the war is a British conflict that has nothing to do with Australia. “It is not our bloody war“ he says, “It´s an English war – it´s got nothing to do with us.“ (Much of the social animosity that exists between Australia and Britain is expressed through his character). His father also tells him not to fight for the English, who murdered his grandfather “five miles from Dublin.“ Another reason why he does not want to join up is because he knows he could get killed.
However, after his friends all decide to enlist along with his new friend Archy, he finally succumbs to the peer-pressure and enlists himself. Moreover, there is a strong feminine influence. On route to Perth, Archy and Frank stop at a house and get interested in the same girl, each trying as hard as possible to impress her, but Archy is the only one to have much affect on her, because he is going to join the military. Both this girl and her family have a toast to him for his bravery, which is clearly the event that influences Frank to join up as well.
However, he enlists reluctantly and is more realistic about what lays ahead of him. He explains to his father that he decides to join up to get somewhere in life: “Look Dad, I´m gonna keep my head down, learn a trick of two and come back an officer. Well, I don´t want to be pushed around for the rest of my life.“
Frank knows that to enlist in the Light Horse would be the best start of his future career. He is well aware of its elitism – Only “gentlemen“ and farmers´ sons could ride. Thus despite being born and raised in the city and having never been on a horse before, Frank tries to bluff his way into the Light Horse. However, he is recruited for Infantry. He gets into the Light Horse only after Archy convinces Barton to let him into. When Frank shows off his new uniform to his infantry mates, they are not amused. Snowy, his voice dripping with contempt, says to him, “Infantry not good enough for you… mate?“ In the end, however, neither matters. All are cannon fodder to the Turkish guns, which know no class distinctions. As the urgency of situation escalates, even men at extreme opposite ends of Australian society close the gap between them. The concept of mateship, the mysterious force that bonds Australians together in times of need is ever-present in the film.
The contrast Between Frank and Archy alludes to another of Gallipoli´s powerful themes — competition. The traditional concept of the Australian sporting spirit is realized in Gallipoli on numerous occasions. Sport, an integral part of an Australian, is effectively linked to war by Weir, indicating that soldiers are merely playing a man´s game — but this time, there will be no winners. It is brought to our attention most obviously through the running motif. There are many races in the film and the contrast between them adds to the atmosphere of futility. Running symbolizes many things, first of them is the rivalry between men, that is in Archy´s race with a stockman on a horse for a bet and the race for a medal, where Archy and Frank try to test themselves against best in the world. Second, the race to the pyramids is a race for friendship, a tie between Frank and Archy. Third, Frank´s race with instructions is a race against time versus race against death. And the final race is a race towards machine gun bullets and towards death. It is worth mentioning that at the end Archy heaves himself at the Turkish guns in the same way as he heaved himself towards the ribbon in the race for a medal. He also uses the same psyching up formula, which his uncle used while training him in a ritual-like fashion:
What are these?
Steel springs.
What are they going to do?
Hurl me down the track.
How fast can you run?
As fast as a leopard.
How fast will you run?
As fast as a leopard.
Then let´s see you do it!
This time, however, he is alone, He has no family, no friends to cheer for him, only memories. At the beginning he wins, at the end he looses.
There are other symbols used to contrast the sport game with the war. Among them the watch and the whistle. The symbol of the watch makes us aware of time running out: to win or to die. The watch, which was given to Archy by his uncle, symbolizes running and speed. In Gallipoli the reason that the attack fails is because of unsynchronized watches. The whistle signals the start of the sprinters´ races and the start of the waves going over the trenches. The contrast makes us see how anti-life war is, whereas the first whistle signals a race to victory, the other is to death. Weir, as well, suggests some relationship between sport and warfare in the training exercise in Egyptian desert between Infantry and Light Horsemen. It is just a game - playing at war, pretending to be dead.
Actually, the whole process of recruiting for the war is seen as a game. A recruiter for the Light Horse at the Kimberley Gift race even calls war “the greatest game of them all.“ Perhaps the most memorable image of this is the wheeling in of a giant wooden horse in order to lure people into enlisting in the Light Horse brigade. Like the Trojan horse from Greek mythology, this “gift“ is seen as a sign of adventure, wealth (of spirit) and the grand nature of war. Behind its confident facade, however, it is a trap. Just as the city of Troy was destroyed after its citizens embraced the Trojan horse, its reappearance in Western Australia can be seen as powerful foreshadow of the tragic fate that will meet these men. In Australia, the war seemed to be glorious, right and the manly thing to do. In Gallipoli, it was just a waste of life, not glorious or right. To make the contrast between Australia and the hard reality of war in Gallipoli even stronger, Weir chooses the Outback as a starting point for his film.
The Outback, isolated from the world´s issues, symbolizes the “true” Australia based on a male-dominated society. The isolation is especially obvious in the scene where Archy and Frank are crossing a desert in an effort to reach Perth. The key scene of Archy and Frank´s meeting with an old man with a camel in the desert emphasizes this distinctly. The old man does not know about the war and has never been to Perth. When Archy explains why Australians are involved in the war, the old man cannot understand. Weir´s sense of humor puts it this way: “Still, can´t see what it´s got to do with us (doubts the man) ... If we don´t stop them they could end up here (Archy) ... And they are welcome to it (answers the camel driver looking around at the vast desolate countryside).” However, I would like to stress that even though the landscape is portrayed as empty and immense, it is not at all seen as hostile or alien. Preference for the local, Australian, over the nostalgia for British-imperial is marked.
In contrasting the isolated elements of Australia with the reality of war in Gallipoli, Weir utilizes a number of cinematic techniques. Most notably, the majority of the Australian scenes are shot with a tighter lens than those in Gallipoli, indicating that once the men found their way to war, they became little more than numbers — human ammunition. Weir also draws visual comparisons between the sparse, lifeless deserts of Australia and those of Egypt and, in doing so, suggests that these men´s struggle is thoughtless and insignificant in the greater scheme of things. At Gallipoli, we are also provided with a series of scenes about life in trenches: flies on biscuits, a hand of a dead man, the sound of guns and explosions and many others.
While creating and emphasizing the innocence of Australia, Weir expands upon the negative image of the British. In Gallipoli, ultimately, the British are blamed for the massacre of Australians. The Anzac´s sacrifice is contrasted in the film with the selfishness of the British, who are “just sitting on the beach drinking cups of tea.“ Moreover, Weir posits the outside world in its entirety as aggressive (embodied in war), dishonest (embodied by British officers), corrupted (in the Cairo scene) and marked by death (the scene at Gallipoli). One of the most potent messages delivered about war is the sheer distance between the people making decisions when to advance and when to retreat, and the ones who are actually out there in trenches fighting more for their lives than for their country. Following the orders of a General who is more interested in following a pre-arranged and massively flawed timeline than in the lives of the young men in the field whole rows of men advance out of trenches directly into the line of fire from machine guns. The lucky ones die on the spot, the unlucky ones drag themselves back into the trenches to bleed to death. Even after being informed of what is happening to the men, the heartless General demands that they continue to advance, even with the full awareness that this will result in their deaths.
His opposite is Major Barton. He is a fatherly Australian officer , who cares for his people and is on friendly terms with them. Their final tragedy is also his tragedy. He is very different from all British officers, who are presented as remnants of the declining empire, caricaturized as cynics and their treatment of Anzac troops as unfair.
Weir patiently constructed Gallipoli in such a fashion as to enable his audience to become emotionally attached to Archy and Frank. Their spirited youthfulness, enthusiasm, joy of living, competitive nature and the mateship that they share is used to great effect in highlighting the betrayal of the war and the corruption and depravation of the rest of the world. In doing so, in the chilling frozen framed conclusion, Weir has shown how quickly and pointlessly young lives can be destroyed.
The image of World War I and the battle of Gallipoli are presented, of course, from a justifiable Australian point of view. We are dealing with a country where language is no longer a distinguishing attribute for national identity. In post-colonial nations, this situation causes a peculiar aim for defining the differences between an ex-colonizer and ex-colonized. In Gallipoli populistic images, reinforcing existing stereotypes (competitiveness, mateship and sporting spirit) are used in order to articulate the Australian national identity in contrast with the British one and explore how Australia differs from Britain within the context of a shared heritage.
Works Cited:
- Gallipoli
-
Ward, Russel. Concise History of Australia. University of Queensland Press, 1992.
