One of Australian history's tragic but inspirational episodes is the backdrop for Peter Weir's Gallipoli

Although Mel Gibson's self-destructive behavior over the past decade or so may be ushering in a premature end to his days as a Hollywood star, there's no denying that the man has had considerable success as both an actor and filmmaker ever since he began his acting career in Australian television back in the late 1970s.

One of Gibson's earliest co-starring roles on his way to stardom was 1981's Gallipoli, Peter Weir's somber look at the experiences of Australian soldiers during World War I as they fight and suffer horrendous casualties in the disastrous Dardanelles campaign of 1915.

Weir, who wrote the story on which David Williamson's screenplay is based, doesn't set out to give the Gallipoli Campaign - which was devised by a young Winston Churchill as a way to knock Turkey out of the war and give the Allies unfettered access to the Black Sea - the traditional "recreation of a major battle" treatment a la The Longest Day or A Bridge Too Far.

Rather, Gallipoli is about the coming-of-age of two young men, Archy Hamilton (Mark Lee) and Frank Dunne (Gibson), who have contrasting personalities yet become fast friends at a time when Australia - which has only been independent from Britain for less than 15 years as the film begins - is experiencing its own coming of age as a nation.

Archy is the archetypical hero character of Gallipoli; think of him as Weir's down-to-earth version of Luke Skywalker (without, of course, the Force or a lightsaber).  He's in his late teens, idealistic and yearning to make his mark in the world - either as a fast sprinter or, as he gets caught up in the patriotic wave of the times, as an Australian soldier.

His uncle Jack (Bill Kerr) is not only Archy's father figure but his running coach, and that's how we first meet them - with the older man pushing the nephew to achieve his "personal best."

Jack: What are your legs? 
Archy Hamilton: Springs. Steel springs. 
Jack: What are they going to do? 
Archy Hamilton: Hurl me down the track. 
Jack: How fast can you run? 
Archy Hamilton: As fast as a leopard. 
Jack: How fast are you going to run? 
Archy Hamilton: As fast as a leopard! 
Jack: Then let's see you do it! 

Much of the film's first act is spent on setting up Archy's character as a very fast sprinter - a trait that will later be important once he becomes a soldier in the Australia-New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) contingent in the Near East.  His racing exploits are nearly legendary; in one sequence he must race - barefoot - against an opponent on horseback.  Archy wins, yes, but his feet get pretty messed up in the process. Worse, Archy has another race scheduled three days hence!

Like Luke in Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope, Archy is enthusiastic about someday going off to join the war and see the wider world beyond the confines of his home and family.  On his down time, the young Aussie pores over Australian newspapers and dutifully clips articles about the Great War and pastes them in his journal/scrapbook.

Eventually, Archy meets the Han Solo-like Frank Dunne, a cynical son of Irish immigrants who isn't as keen as his soon-to-be best friend to join the Army and fight in a war fought for the sake of England rather than for Australia's.

Archy Hamilton: What are you going to join, the Infantry? 
Frank Dunne: Not joining anything. 
Archy Hamilton: But you gotta be in it. 
Frank Dunne: Don't have to if you don't want to. 
Archy Hamilton: You gotta be. 
Frank Dunne: No I don't. It's a free country, or haven't you heard?

For all of Frank's cynicism and Fenian attitudes, he ends up accompanying Archy to the city of Perth, where they both enlist in the Australian army - Archy out of youthful idealism and wanderlust, Frank out of friendship and Big Brother Syndrome rather than patriotism and conviction.

As often happens in two-friends-go-to-war movies, Archy and Frank are not assigned to the same unit.  Archy ends up in a light horse cavalry unit, while Frank is assigned to a regular infantry unit.

Months pass.  For a good bit of Gallipoli, Weir turns our attention not on Archy but on Frank even though Mark Lee (Archy) has top billing.  We thus follow Gibson's character and his pals in the Infantry Regiment for a while, and then witness a reunion when the Light Horse Cavalry is on joint maneuvers with the "ground pounders" in their base camp in Egypt.

When the Light Horse Regiment gets orders to deploy to the Dardanelles without its horses, Archy convinces his superiors to arrange Frank's transfer so the two "mates" can serve together.  They're both experienced athletes, which enables them to be assigned as messengers from headquarters units to the front lines.

The last act of the film, of course, is essentially a somewhat fictionalized account of the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign, which is an almost-forgotten sidebar to the narrative of World War I but is commemorated by both Australia and Turkey as a key event in their national histories, albeit from two very different perspectives.

Because Weir wants the audience to focus on Archy and Frank and their "mates" in the Australian Army, we can assume that his intention is to make a very anti-war movie. 

Like William Goldman's more conventional script for A Bridge Too Far, David Williamson's screenplay has a basic theme: War Sucks. 

The fact that Gallipoli spends roughly two-thirds of its running time on the two young men as they become friends, share in the usual rites of male bonding (joking, carousing, and doing all the things guys do in buddies-go-to-war flicks) and then have to face the enemy in battle foreshadows the tragedy to come.

Even the choice of time period and battle - World War I and the Gallipoli Campaign - with their attendant horrors (infantry pinned down on a hostile shore, men cut down like tenpins while going "over the top" from friendly trenches to enemy ones) seem to be conveying to the viewers how wasteful - in lives most of all - war is.

To add to the funereal mood of the movie's third act, Weir chose as part of the score one of classical music's greatest forgeries, the Adagio in G minor for Strings and Organ,  attributed to the Baroque composer Tomaso Albinoni but actually composed by the 20th Century Italian musicologist (and Albinoni biographer) Remo Giazotto.

Though this is not my favorite film by either Peter Weir or Mel Gibson, I find Gallipoli to be rather compelling and heart-rending, if inevitably predictable.

It is, in some ways, a very universal film because it tells a story that has been told for thousands of years: history is shaped by war, and young men tend to seek glory in battle, only to find death and destruction instead.

It's also universal because film viewers can see influences - unconscious or otherwise - from other films and genres.  Archy and Frank are very much like George Lucas's Luke Skywalker and Han Solo; two men with different world-views who somehow bridge their differences and become fast friends.

That having been said, Gallipoli is also a very Australian film that takes a look at a young nation that, like Archy, wants to make its mark on the world - even if it is as an appendage of the British Empire.  It celebrates the essence of the Australian spirit - the ANZAC legacy, the whole "mate" culture and the rugged frontier élan that is analogous to the American "taming of the West" mythology.

Recommended: Yes