Gallipoli

Australia was “born” in Turkey.

This is a very interesting film that addresses Australia and New Zealand's joint participation in the First World War. Both countries had recently gained independence from the United Kingdom, there was no real sense of national identity and, despite the proximity of German colonies in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, there were many Australians who did not want to go to the war alongside the British. It was the English's war, not theirs. The same thing was felt in my country, Portugal, the United Kingdom's oldest ally, but which only entered the First World War in 1916, against the wishes of the English. Portuguese politicians saw the war as a means of giving international prestige to a young and discredited republican regime, and of securing Portuguese sovereignty in Africa and India. Despite having no relationship with each other, the journey of Australians and Portuguese in the First World War had the same end: the CEP, the Portuguese military brigade, was decimated in France, in 1918, in the greatest defeat in the multi-century history of the Portuguese Army; ANZAC almost completely lost itself in the Dardanelles, in the face of the obstinate Turkish defense commanded by Mustafa Kemal, who knew well the terrain and foresaw what the Allies were going to try.

Historical considerations aside, the film does not focus on military action or what happened in the unsuccessful Battle of the Dardanelles. We are taken there by the beautiful friendship between two young Australian athletes with a lot of potential, who enlist in ANZAC (one of them even had to lie because he was too young). I don't know exactly what they expected to do, nor if they did considered the possibility of not returning home alive. I think, as often happens, they wanted to enlist because all the other boys did it so. The script doesn't explore this as it could, and perhaps one of the film's weaknesses is the lack of this emotional and mental depth in...