Passchendaele   Starring: Paul Gross, Caroline Dhavernas, Gil Bellows and Joe Dinicol Director: Paul Gross High Fliers Films Certificate: 15 Running time: 110 mins Opens 04 September 2009

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 written and directed by 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 experience, 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.

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). In this it has more in common with Saving Private Ryan (1998) by wrapping the world events around the experience of a single man. 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. 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. These, though, are minor quibbles in what is otherwise a fine film.

8

Charles Packer