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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Gallipoli (1981)

Gallipoli (1981)

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Released 11-Apr-2005

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category War Main Menu Introduction
Main Menu Audio & Animation
Theatrical Trailer
Biographies-Cast & Crew
Filmographies-Cast & Crew
DVD Credits
Interviews-Crew-Peter Weir (Director)
Interviews-Cast-Mel Gibson (Actor)
Featurette-Documentary: "Boys Of The Dardanelles"
Notes-The Keith Murdoch Letter
Gallery-Photo
Notes-In Depth Gallipoli Material
DVD-ROM Extras
Rating Rated PG
Year Of Production 1981
Running Time 106:56
RSDL / Flipper RSDL (62:06)
Dual Disc Set
Cast & Crew
Start Up Ads Then Menu
Region Coding 4 Directed By Peter Weir
Studio
Distributor

Twentieth Century Fox
Starring Mark Lee
Bill Kerr
Harold Hopkins
Charles Lathalu Yunipingli
Heath Harris
Ron Graham
Gerda Nicolson
Mel Gibson
Robert Grubb
Tim McKenzie
David Argue
Brian Anderson
Reg Evans
Case ?
RPI $29.95 Music Brian May


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 2.30:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English for the Hearing Impaired Smoking Yes
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    Released in 1981, Gallipoli together with Mad Max made two years before, was the film that set Mel Gibson on the path to superstardom and positioned director Peter Weir firmly at the top of the Australian filmmaking tree. It is a film about war, but contains battle scenes only in the last 25 minutes or so and these in no way dominate the story. It is more of a tribute to the spirit of the ANZACs and is the tale about the lost of innocence of the two young men involved. Through this lost innocence it also provides a metaphor for the loss for the entire country, virtually forced to join Britain in the Great War in Europe in 1915. In conveying the well-known story about Australia and New Zealand's coming-of-age on the sands of ANZAC Cove, Weir decided to base the story on something as simple as possible - mateship. As a result there are no grandiose epic battle scenes or storming of the beach with thousands of troops. Based on the writings of renowned WWI historian C.E Bean and letters, diaries and poems of those with firsthand experience, it is the story of two mates from different sides of the social divide. While they may share little in common back home, they are brought together and share much as they find themselves on a lonely beach with several thousand allied forces under fire from entrenched Turkish forces.

    The film starts in the outback of Western Australia (though almost the entire film, including the Gallipoli scenes, was filmed in South Australia), with young sprinter Archy Hamilton (Mark Lee) training with his uncle Jack (Bill Kerr). Archy is just 18, but wants to enlist in the Light Horse and do his bit for the country in the war against Germany in Europe. Archy is a fine runner and has a future in the sport, but the desire to serve is strong and when he meets up with rival runner Frank Dunne (Mel Gibson) at a country meet, the two decide to travel to Perth together where the older Frank will help Archy enlist. Frank initially has no interest in the war or dying for someone else, but as his friendship with Archy grows it becomes obvious he will enlist, though his lack of riding skills means the infantry will likely be his only option.

    The story moves to Egypt as the fresh-faced recruits go about their training and enjoy the delights of the east. Then the call comes to ship out to Gallipoli where a major offensive is planned against the Turks in a final push to gain control of the Dardanelles. The hopelessness of the strategies employed by the Allies at Gallipoli are highlighted in all of their glory here, but thankfully that is the only thing that is glorified. War is shown as pointless and devastating, with nobody winning. The silent determination shown by the diggers as they remove their personal belongings and write letters home, just minutes before storming over the trenches to their certain deaths is as poignant as it gets in film.

    This is a fine Australian film that is as fresh and as relevant today as it was when first released. Made on a tiny budget and filmed almost entirely in South Australia (the Egypt scenes were the only ones filmed on location), Peter Weir has captured the essence of the Aussie digger and the bond of mateship that drove them to perfection. Forget the need to have fiery explosions and choreographed skirmishes. This film does not need them. Dialogue and characterisations provided by the great Australian playwright David Williamson and some solid performances from all the actors make for a highly entertaining and, more importantly, a thought-provoking film.

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Transfer Quality

Video

    It would have been nice to see a fully remastered and restored video transfer afforded this film, given its importance in the history of Australian cinema, but sadly that is not the case. Unlike the marvellous looking transfer found on The Man From Snowy River released in the middle of 2004, the video effort here looks every bit like that found in a 24-year-old film.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.30:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. This is very close to the theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1.

    One of the most obvious problems is that sharpness levels are highly variable with several scenes featuring quite blurred edges. It is also quite a dark transfer. No detail is lost in shadows, but the overall brightness of the image is compromised for much of the film. As a result the colours are not what could be called bright or vivid and do lack a little consistency at times. Thankfully skin tones are natural enough and although blacks sometimes look a little grey, no detail is lost.

    While there are no apparent compression artefacts and that annoying aliasing is absent, the same cannot be said about film artefacts. They are plentiful throughout the entire runtime, and while most are small enough to ignore, others are quite large including a substantial vertical black line running the full height of the frame at 91:15-91:18.
   
    There are English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles available and I found them excellent, though not 100 per cent accurate.

    Disc one is presented as a single sided dual layered picture disc with RSDL formatting. The layer change occurs at 62:06.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    A little surprisingly there is just one audio soundtrack on this disc, this being a remastered English Dolby Digital 5.1 effort encoded at a bitrate of 448 Kb/s.

    While it is nowhere in the league of the remastered effort of The Man From Snowy River, this is still a relatively clean and dynamic track. Surround activity is limited to a few of the latter battle scenes, while dialogue is mostly clear and there are no noticeable audio sync problems.

    The score is credited to Brian May, who provided the original additional music, but the most famous musical element of this film is obviously the use of Jean Michel Jarre's high energy synthesised Oxygene. This instantly recognisable track does smack of the early 1980s, but somehow it does not date the film at all. It is remarkable how the on-screen images of young men running and this rousing piece of music seem to complement each other so well. It's almost akin to the use of the Chariots of Fire theme in the way it stirs the emotions. The music uses the full range of the left and right channels and has been reproduced very well here.

    As mentioned there is only minimal surround use. This is a little surprising given the scenes in the film where they could be used fully. They only spark into life three or four times during the film, most obviously during the climax scenes at the Gallipoli peninsula. This is not an aggressive surround channel soundtrack by any means.



Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

    Some nice and certainly well-conceived extra material is included here, but really it is not enough to spill across to a second disc. There is no commentary from either Peter Weir or even a WWI historian and no making of documentary about the film.

Main Menu Introduction

Main Menu Audio & Animation

Theatrical Trailer

    A brief trailer (which runs for just 1:30) set to the Oxygene theme. There is no dialogue and very little of the main plot given away.

Biographies-Cast & Crew

    Bio and selected filmographies for crew Peter Weir, David Williamson and Russell Boyd and actors Mel Gibson and Mark Lee.

DVD Credits

    Lists the people and companies who helped with the creation of the DVD.

Interviews-Crew (Peter Weir)

    Recorded recently, this 15:09 interview with director Peter Weir is candid and full of interesting anecdotes as he remembers much of the production details. Well worth a listen especially when he reads from his old diary from his first visit to Gallipoli in the 1970s.

Interviews-Cast (Mel Gibson)

    Recorded last year, this 11:36 interview with a very American sounding Mel Gibson is also interesting as he reminisces about the film and how it effectively was the major kick start to his career.

Featurette - Boys From The Dardanelles

    An interesting, if slightly dated looking documentary, made in 1984 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings. Produced by the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, this features some old footage and photos, plus interviews with half a dozen or so veterans from the campaign. Runs for a decent 21:35.

Notes - The Keith Murdoch Letter

    Keith Murdoch (father of News Corporation boss Rupert Murdoch) was a young journalist at the time of the Gallipoli landings. He visited the site and was appalled by the waste of lives and the ineptitude of the British command. Presented here is a 25 page letter that he wrote to Australian Prime Minister Andrew Fisher, pleading that consideration be given to ending the senseless attack on Turkey. His efforts in highlighting the pointless attacks are credited with changing the focus of Australia's involvement in WWI. The letter is introduced by a brief message from Murdoch's widow, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, which runs for 2:44.

Gallery-Photo

    An automatically running slideshow of both colour and black and white photos from scenes in the film plus a few from behind the camera.

Notes - In-depth Gallipoli material

    A series of newspaper clippings, maps and essays about Gallipoli. Presented quite small so you may need to zoom in if your display is restricted in size.

DVD-ROM Extras

    Pop disc one in a DVD-ROM drive and gain access to some teacher's notes for class discussion plus a printable PDF version of the Keith Murdoch letter.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    A version of Gallipoli has been available in Region 1 for several years. While it does come with a 16x9 enhanced video transfer and at least three soundtracks (Dolby Digital 5.1, 2.0 surround and 2.0 mono), the extras are limited to an interview with Peter Weir (I'm not sure if it is the same as the one contained here) and the film's trailer. Assuming the transfer is the same (there is no reason to suggest otherwise), this new Region 4 disc is the version of choice.

Summary

    Gallipoli is one of the finest Australian films ever made and it is about time it has finally found a decent DVD release in its home country. While the lack of quality extras is a little disappointing and the film's video image hasn't scrubbed up as well as I would have liked, this is still an important inclusion in every film buff's collection. It is a sad indictment on the current state of the Australian film industry that stories of such national importance are not captured on celluloid anymore.

    The video is bordering on below average, while the remastered audio is marginally above average.

    The extras are numerous but are really quite light on content.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Darren Walters (It's . . . just the vibe . . . of my bio)
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Review Equipment
DVDDenon DVD-3910, using RGB output
DisplayLoewe Calida (84cm). Calibrated with Digital Video Essentials (PAL). This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Digital Video Essentials (PAL).
AmplificationHarmon/Kardon AVR7000.
SpeakersFront - B&W 602S2, Centre - B&W CC6S2, Rear - B&W 601S2, Sub - Energy E:xl S10

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