April 25th will mark the centenary of Anzac Day, which is a little
like Australia's version of our Memorial Day. The holiday was originally
created to honor the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who fought and died at
the battle of Gallpoli. Whatever else one may think of Russell Crowe; the man
takes his heritage seriously and has dedicated his directorial
debut, The Water Diviner,
to those who died in the fighting and those who must live with their sacrifice.
It's a sincere, genuine effort by Crowe, even if some of the fantastical,
romantic aspects are misplaced.
The curiously-titled film is both a realistic war drama and a
mystical fairy tale, and the styles don't always marry perfectly. Crowe
settles in nicely as grieving father, Joshua Connor, a water diviner in
Australia struggling to cope with the disappearance of his three sons in the
war. Joshua's profession matches the spiritual tone of the film as a water
diviner is a cherished figure capable of finding ground water, graves, and rare
ores through some kind of sixth sense. Flashbacks figure heavily, jumping back
in time to when Joshua was happier, his wife was vibrant rather than
grief-stricken, and his sons were imaginative young men obsessed with "The
Arabian Nights". That all changed when Joshua allowed his sons to
join the ANZAC, and it was one time when his natural instinct utterly failed
him.
Although he's forsaken God in the four years since the boys'
disappearance and presumed death, Joshua swears an oath to bring them home so
they can be buried on consecrated ground. Arriving in Gallipoli to put his
divining skills to the test, Joshua encounters no end of hurdles from the
British government and the Turkish people who mistrust outsiders. However, he
does find companionship in a precocious little boy and his recently-widowed
mother Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko), a Turkish woman running a local hotel. He also
gains support from Major Hasan (Yılmaz Erdoğan), a leader of the Turkish army
helping the ANZAC "Grave Unit" find missing soldiers.
An interesting and rewarding choice made by Crowe and the
screenwriters was to focus heavily on the Turkish experience and the effects of
winning the big battle yet losing the war. They've been left to watch
their culture and the very land under their feet ripped out from under them.
Crowe clearly has a sympathetic eye for their plight, but also a disdain for
those who sold the war to young Australian men under false pretenses. Meanwhile
all of the British soldiers are portrayed as pencil-neck girly men, and the
Greek combatants as brutish thugs. That oversimplification applies also to the
unnecessary romance between Joshua and Ayshe, which is like someone felt they
needed to give Crowe a love scene. Joshua's comical misunderstanding of Ottoman
culture, especially when it pertains to interpersonal relationships, should
have been in a romantic comedy rather than a serious wartime drama.
But those are issues with the screenplay and not Crowe's
first-rate direction. He has a clear eye for big set pieces, and the Hellish
war scenes are impressive, along with a harrowing sandstorm that threatens
Joshua's family. Working alongside cinematographer Andrew Lesnie, a frequent
collaborator with Peter Jackson, this is a handsomely-shot, simply composed
first effort by Crowe. While he's no longer the buff, chiseled figure he was in
Gladiator, Crowe is still a rugged, physical actor and gets plenty of
opportunity here to play the hero. He's better in the smaller moments, though,
as a grieving father just trying to fulfill a promise.
Crowe is going through some of the same growing pains that marked
Angelina Jolie's directorial debut a few years ago, another film of sizable
scope set in a war-torn setting. Like her, Crowe has shown he has potential as
a filmmaker, and The Water Diviner is accomplished enough to be excited about his new career path.
Rating: 3 out of 5
