Passchendaele

There was great hoopla around "Passchendaele" in 2008, with the hope that it would bring in great audiences when released. However, the box office take in its native Canada was only average, and it faired worse in the international market - the only foreign market it played in theaters was with a (brief) British release, and in the United States the DVD label that picked it up was a small DVD company that specialized in releasing public domain movies.

Seeing the movie, it's easy to see why not that many people were attracted to it. The first half of the movie is pretty awful. I know the intent of this first half was to illustrate war on the home front - which you don't often see in war movies - but it fails in its intentions. The dialogue is downright awful at times, the characters are very familiar, and it's REAL slow going. Even worse is that despite the expense put into the movie, the look and feel of the movie here is like one found with a cheapo drama broadcast on the CBC television network.

The second half of the movie - moving to the Passchendaele battlefields - is a bit more successful than the first half. The battlefield and the battlefield fighting come across as gritty and authentic, and the movie finally has a theatrical feeling to it. However, the movie still suffers from bad dialogue, throwing in ridiculous symbolism as well. Worse of all, the struggle for Passchendaele doesn't last that long - all of a sudden, we're told Passchendaele has been taken. Huh?

Had writer/director/actor Paul Gross had set the movie entirely on the battlefield AND had someone smart working with him to correct the shortcomings of his screenplay, we might have had something here. But as it is, the movie ends up being a big disappointment. What's worse is that this movie's mostly bad reception means that it will probably be a long, long time before some other Canadian tries to make a "big" movie that will attract a large domestic audience - if ever.

In 1917, in the World War I, the veteran Sergeant Michael Dunne (Paul Gross) is wounded in the front and is nursed by Nurse Sarah Mann (Caroline Dhavernas). He is diagnosed neurasthenic and returns to his hometown Calgary to work in the recruitment. Michael fall in love for Sarah, but is not corresponded. When Sarah's asthmatic brother David (Joe Dinicol) forces his enlistment to be recognized by the father of his girlfriend Cassie Walker (Meredith Bailey), Sarah believes Michael is the responsible and blames him for the engagement of her brother in the army. Michael enlists using his mother last name to protect David and they are sent to the no man's land in the front of the Battle of Passchendaele.

"Passchendaele" is a good romance in times of war. The marketing is totally wrong since the romance prevails over the war genre. The cinematography is extremely beautiful, highlighting the magnificent landscapes and scenarios. The gorgeous and sweet Caroline Dhavernas recalls Lara Flynn Boyle and has a great performance. The characters could be better developed and there are some parts that do not work well, like the annoying David Mann, who does not deserve the sacrifice of Michael; the last scene with the analogy to Jesus Christ is awful and unnecessary. But in general, "Passchendaele" is an above average movie. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Batalha de Passchendaele" ("The Battle of Passchendaele")

"Passchendaele" gives us twenty plus minutes of brutal, miserable, genuinely horrific trench warfare towards the end of the film. During that time it is the sort of gritty, relentlessly (but not gratuitously) violent war film many will and have gone into the theater thinking it would be. Apart from the short five to ten minutes which opens the film there are no other scenes of battle, and the movie is better for it.

What Paul Gross has attempted here is to give Canadians their own war epic (and on a minuscule budget when compared to most Hollywood war films). The film is not interested in philosophizing and 'making a point'. It's something like a far, far better version of what Michael Bay was doing with "Pearl Harbor"; the film is an unabashed romance and period drama, with Passchendaele being not the focus, but the event at the end of the road which the audience knows is coming.

Paul Gross has achieved something with "Passchendaele". We see so many Canadian films every year, but very few if any of them are ever about Canada, about being Canadian (and the film doesn't shy away from depicting some of the darker sides of that, we see the hatred and pain many German Canadians experienced simply due to their origin reflected in Dunn's love interest). More than just that, "Passchendaele" is a love letter to Canada, and although I might be biased as a Calgarian and Albertan (where the film is set), I think that every Canadian will find a reason to be proud in this film, in spite of the fact that it's depicting a war where nobody really knew what they were fighting for. "Passchendaele" has its flaws. There's some really, really heavy-handed symbolism (which thankfully doesn't ruin the film) and cloying sentimentality. While I normally abhor cloying sentimentality, "Passchendaele" must be doing something right because I was with it every step of the way. There isn't a moment in this film where the characters don't feel real, where the story doesn't affect you, where the romance doesn't feel genuine (including a love scene which could have been laughable but ended up being one of the year's most beautiful scenes).

"Passchendaele" is Paul Gross' heart poured onto the screen. The man is perhaps best known for his light-hearted role on "Due South", but he is a phenomenal dramatic actor and his performance here is probably the best I've seen this year from a male lead. You can feel his character's pain, his joy, his suffering, his love. Gross spent 12 years on the screenplay, and while I'd love to say the final result is perfect it is not. It is still, however, a screenplay so filled with genuine emotion and such passion that it ends up being something rare and special. It's a wonderful, wonderful film, one which attempts no grand statement on what war is or should be, it simply shows us the emotions of those involved in it.

I could go on at length complimenting the wonderful cast, explaining the story, discussing the film in detail, but that would be pointless. It's a film every Canadian should see. I honestly don't know if there's anything here for non-Canadians, although I imagine the film is populist enough to entertain most people (there's even a healthy dose of well-written humor, and the movie has one line so hilarious and yet oddly seductive that I'll probably never forget it). I've said it already, but I'll say it again: writer, director, and star Paul Gross has achieved something special with "Passchendaele". It's a tribute to many things. Less importantly perhaps it is a tribute to Calgary and Alberta (only a Calgarian could have made this film), and more importantly it's a tribute to the pure, certain feeling of true love, to our war veterans, to the troops currently fighting in Afghanistan, to all Canadians, and ultimately and most importantly to Canada.

Paul Gross' Passchendaele provides a unique perspective of the Canadian effort during the First World War. Those who are expecting just battle scenes will likely be disappointed.

For those looking for character development, some romance, an interesting perspective on recruitment pressure, and yes -- AMAZING battle scenes -- then yes, this movie is for you.

As a Military History student, I had no issues with the historical accuracy of the movie. Paul Gross based the first 5 minutes on his grandfather's story, and the rest is historical fiction. In general, it is an excellent representation of the period, and certainly provides a much more realistic version of the soldiers' perspective on war in 1917 than many other war films out there.

I highly recommend this film.

Wow. Great flick!

Besides being an admitted movie addict, I'm also a retired professional soldier and a combat veteran who's served in multiple theaters of conflict.

I usually find myself quietly disappointed with war movies in general, and their vain, highly stylized, cliché-laden attempts to realistically portray infantry warfare, and high-intensity warfare's effects on soldiers. Film-makers invariably seem to fall far short in their attempts to capture the essence of what war can be (or was) like, and what exposure to it can do to the people involved, both mentally and physically.

To his great credit, I think that in Passchendaele Paul Gross seems to have actually managed to capture a reasonably authentic glimpse into both the nature of such hellish environments and the men caught up in them.

The acting was superb. The performances were so convincing that the notion that I was just sitting watching a movie didn't even occur to me until the credits began to roll by, I was so totally engrossed.

This film was easily one of the best that I've seen in quite some time.

I'll definitely be keeping my eyes open for any future films by Paul Gross. Passchendaele stands as an extremely impressive testimonial to his obvious talents.