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CROWE'S WATER DIVINER IS OUT OF HIS DEPTH
The Spectator
Jan 10 2015
A film that purports to show the 'other' side of the ANZAC story does
anything but
by Anthony McAdam
To much fanfare, Russell Crowe's first film as a director, The Water
Diviner, was released on Boxing Day. It appears at a key moment -
the focus of the film, Gallipoli, is about to become the centrepiece
in an elaborate nation-wide commemoration to mark the centenary of
the landing in 1915.
If intentions are taken seriously, the film is a huge disappointment.
Its release came packaged to suggest that it presents a more honest
and more understanding appreciation of our then enemy, the Turks.
Besides being the director, Crowe is the star and driving force in
the film's conception, and hence fully responsible for the result. His
intention: 'It is time to teach our children the other side [i.e. the
Turkish side] of the Gallipoli story'.
Many of the media reviews have been just as presumptuous and
wrong-headed. The Age, for instance, tells us 'This is perhaps the
first Australian war movie to deal honestly with the Turks and that
is one of its achievements'.
Well, not really. This highly sentimentalised and rather pointless
attempt to depict the human dimension of the Gallipoli campaign, as
experienced by an Aussie father (Crowe) searching for the bodies of
his three sons, fails both as plausible drama and as an honest attempt
to confront the actual behaviour of the enemy (the Ottoman empire),
not to mention the moral justification for the terrible sacrifice of
Allied lives.
On that last point, distinguished British historian Jeremy Black
recently wrote: 'The current fashion for commemorating the dead
by honouring their struggle does not in fact honour them unless we
explain why they were fighting and facing the personal, moral and
religious challenges of risking and inflicting death. Why did men
volunteer in 1914? Why did they advance across the 'killing ground'?
To mark the struggle without recalling its point and value is both
to lack a moral compass and, indeed, not really to seek one'.
And for those who believe, as Crowe seems to, that Britain and
Australia entered the war for ignoble reasons, or no reason at all,
it is worth 'remembering' that Britain was responding to a clear act
of German aggression against a neutral country, Belgium, with which
it was honour bound by treaty to defend, a decision overwhelmingly
supported at the time by the Australian government and the Australian
people. Turkey threw in its lot with the Germans and made itself
the enemy.
Not only does the film fail to show the slightest inkling of interest
as to why the allies fought and, for that matter, why the hero's sons
died, but Crowe bathes the whole story in a painfully mawkish and
barely credible tale of a heart-broken water diviner (Crowe himself)
who miraculously emerges as a body diviner rambling around the rocky
cliffs of Gallipoli 'bonding' with the very soldiers responsible
for his sons' deaths, with of course the now obligatory Aussie sneer
directed towards a British officer made out to be a right pompous git
(shades of Weir's Gallipoli?).
Leaving aside aesthetic considerations, the fact is the film's lack
of any historical context is breathtaking. There are many, but there
is one really glaring omission.
It so happens that the well-documented genocide of the Armenians at
the hands of the Turks was initiated on the day immediately before
the Gallipoli landing, an overlap that traditionally receives hardly
a mention from Australian historians, and no reference whatsoever in
this film.
What happened to the Armenians? Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, author of
The First World War in the Middle East (2014) paints the basic picture:
The Armenian genocide started in earnest on 24 April 1915 with the
arrest and deportation of thousands of Armenian political leaders
and intellectuals. This act triggered widespread massacres that
subsequently killed an estimated 1 million Armenians. The combination
of the outright killings and the forced marches through the Syrian
Desert constituted one of the earliest examples of a 'crime against
humanity'...
The mass murder of this ancient Christian community made no exception
for women and children and was conducted with a barbarity that
shocked even officers of the Ottoman's German allies, some of whom
witnessed the gruesome scenes first hand, as did missionaries and
other outsiders.
The legacy of what happened a hundred years ago in Turkey this April
is now taking on all the characteristics of a diplomatic perfect
storm. Obviously, the Australian centenary commemorations at Gallipoli
will be more elaborate than anything previous, the worldwide protests
by the Armenian Diaspora will be more vociferous than ever, and the
Turkish government's fierce opposition to even the mention of the
word genocide will be as aggressive as ever.
This combination of factors is now coming to a head with Turkey
virtually ruling itself out of any hope of having its stalled
application to join the EU accepted, its position on the Armenian
issue being a major factor. If all this were not enough, more evidence
is emerging that highlights Turkey's current machiavellian position
vis-a-vis the Islamic State's forces on its borders, a savage army
currently trying to murder what's left of Iraq's and Syria's Christian
communities, and other demonised faith communities.
Where does Australia sit in this gathering storm with its myriad
strategic and moral conundrums? Not well. While Opposition Leader
Tony Abbott did not hesitate to condemn the Armenian genocide, last
June Foreign Minister Julie Bishop issued a statement that called
the Armenian killings 'a tragedy' but added, quite unnecessarily,
'we do not recognise the events as genocide' for which, according to
(former Speccie Diarist) Geoffrey Robertson QC, 'she was duly lauded
in Turkey as a genocide denier'.
The moral issue at stake is neatly captured in the subtitle of
Robertson's recently published book on the genocide: 'Who now remembers
the annihilation of the Armenians?' It was Hitler's comment to his
generals on the eve of the invasion of Poland urging them to show no
mercy as there would be no retribution. It's all part of 'the other
side of the Gallipoli story' that Russell Crowe somehow didn't get
around to even hinting at.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/australia-features/9411142/crowes-water-diviner-is-out-of-his-depth/
The Spectator
Jan 10 2015
A film that purports to show the 'other' side of the ANZAC story does
anything but
by Anthony McAdam
To much fanfare, Russell Crowe's first film as a director, The Water
Diviner, was released on Boxing Day. It appears at a key moment -
the focus of the film, Gallipoli, is about to become the centrepiece
in an elaborate nation-wide commemoration to mark the centenary of
the landing in 1915.
If intentions are taken seriously, the film is a huge disappointment.
Its release came packaged to suggest that it presents a more honest
and more understanding appreciation of our then enemy, the Turks.
Besides being the director, Crowe is the star and driving force in
the film's conception, and hence fully responsible for the result. His
intention: 'It is time to teach our children the other side [i.e. the
Turkish side] of the Gallipoli story'.
Many of the media reviews have been just as presumptuous and
wrong-headed. The Age, for instance, tells us 'This is perhaps the
first Australian war movie to deal honestly with the Turks and that
is one of its achievements'.
Well, not really. This highly sentimentalised and rather pointless
attempt to depict the human dimension of the Gallipoli campaign, as
experienced by an Aussie father (Crowe) searching for the bodies of
his three sons, fails both as plausible drama and as an honest attempt
to confront the actual behaviour of the enemy (the Ottoman empire),
not to mention the moral justification for the terrible sacrifice of
Allied lives.
On that last point, distinguished British historian Jeremy Black
recently wrote: 'The current fashion for commemorating the dead
by honouring their struggle does not in fact honour them unless we
explain why they were fighting and facing the personal, moral and
religious challenges of risking and inflicting death. Why did men
volunteer in 1914? Why did they advance across the 'killing ground'?
To mark the struggle without recalling its point and value is both
to lack a moral compass and, indeed, not really to seek one'.
And for those who believe, as Crowe seems to, that Britain and
Australia entered the war for ignoble reasons, or no reason at all,
it is worth 'remembering' that Britain was responding to a clear act
of German aggression against a neutral country, Belgium, with which
it was honour bound by treaty to defend, a decision overwhelmingly
supported at the time by the Australian government and the Australian
people. Turkey threw in its lot with the Germans and made itself
the enemy.
Not only does the film fail to show the slightest inkling of interest
as to why the allies fought and, for that matter, why the hero's sons
died, but Crowe bathes the whole story in a painfully mawkish and
barely credible tale of a heart-broken water diviner (Crowe himself)
who miraculously emerges as a body diviner rambling around the rocky
cliffs of Gallipoli 'bonding' with the very soldiers responsible
for his sons' deaths, with of course the now obligatory Aussie sneer
directed towards a British officer made out to be a right pompous git
(shades of Weir's Gallipoli?).
Leaving aside aesthetic considerations, the fact is the film's lack
of any historical context is breathtaking. There are many, but there
is one really glaring omission.
It so happens that the well-documented genocide of the Armenians at
the hands of the Turks was initiated on the day immediately before
the Gallipoli landing, an overlap that traditionally receives hardly
a mention from Australian historians, and no reference whatsoever in
this film.
What happened to the Armenians? Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, author of
The First World War in the Middle East (2014) paints the basic picture:
The Armenian genocide started in earnest on 24 April 1915 with the
arrest and deportation of thousands of Armenian political leaders
and intellectuals. This act triggered widespread massacres that
subsequently killed an estimated 1 million Armenians. The combination
of the outright killings and the forced marches through the Syrian
Desert constituted one of the earliest examples of a 'crime against
humanity'...
The mass murder of this ancient Christian community made no exception
for women and children and was conducted with a barbarity that
shocked even officers of the Ottoman's German allies, some of whom
witnessed the gruesome scenes first hand, as did missionaries and
other outsiders.
The legacy of what happened a hundred years ago in Turkey this April
is now taking on all the characteristics of a diplomatic perfect
storm. Obviously, the Australian centenary commemorations at Gallipoli
will be more elaborate than anything previous, the worldwide protests
by the Armenian Diaspora will be more vociferous than ever, and the
Turkish government's fierce opposition to even the mention of the
word genocide will be as aggressive as ever.
This combination of factors is now coming to a head with Turkey
virtually ruling itself out of any hope of having its stalled
application to join the EU accepted, its position on the Armenian
issue being a major factor. If all this were not enough, more evidence
is emerging that highlights Turkey's current machiavellian position
vis-a-vis the Islamic State's forces on its borders, a savage army
currently trying to murder what's left of Iraq's and Syria's Christian
communities, and other demonised faith communities.
Where does Australia sit in this gathering storm with its myriad
strategic and moral conundrums? Not well. While Opposition Leader
Tony Abbott did not hesitate to condemn the Armenian genocide, last
June Foreign Minister Julie Bishop issued a statement that called
the Armenian killings 'a tragedy' but added, quite unnecessarily,
'we do not recognise the events as genocide' for which, according to
(former Speccie Diarist) Geoffrey Robertson QC, 'she was duly lauded
in Turkey as a genocide denier'.
The moral issue at stake is neatly captured in the subtitle of
Robertson's recently published book on the genocide: 'Who now remembers
the annihilation of the Armenians?' It was Hitler's comment to his
generals on the eve of the invasion of Poland urging them to show no
mercy as there would be no retribution. It's all part of 'the other
side of the Gallipoli story' that Russell Crowe somehow didn't get
around to even hinting at.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/australia-features/9411142/crowes-water-diviner-is-out-of-his-depth/