BEFORE DAWN, Australia, 2024. Starring Levi Miller, Travis Jeffery, Ed Oxenbould, Myles Pollard, Stephen Peacocke, Oscar Millar, Kelly Belinda Hammond. Directed by Jordon Prince-Wright. 99 minutes. Rated M (Mature themes, battle violence and coarse language)
The past is often powerfully present to us. And we can understand ourselves better in the light of the past. This is a presupposition for the continued cinema visits back to Australia’s War past. And the Anzac motto, ‘Lest we Forget’.
Young director Prince-Wright has dedicated this film to his granddad. While he is re-visiting stories often told – Gallipoli, The Lighthorsemen, Beneath Hill 60 – this is a personal telling of Australian involvement in the French battlefields of World War I – the Somme, Hindenburg Line and other key battle fronts from 1916 to 1918 – and the Armistice.
The tone of the film is set before the credits – the darkness of the trenches, dirt, the rats . . . Then to a sheep farm in Western Australia where Jim Collins (Miller) is working for his father. His mates are eager to sign up to go to war and want Jim with him. Though caught between the wishes of his mates and his parents who don’t want him to go, Jim opts to go. It is 1916.
As with so many striking war films, it is amazing to see how the battlefield is reconstructed. The trenches, the glimpses of the battlefields with the soldiers going over the top, attacking German posts, the slaughter, and the hand-to-hand combat all convincing.
Jim has to come of age in the trenches. We see him lose close friends, be blamed when friends are killed, deal with personality clashes and the authorities. Some of the officers are condescending, some altering their reports out of care for the young soldiers, and there is the proverbial sergeant who bonds with his men, being not only a leader but something of a father-figure, sharing the crises and the action with them.
Jim is a good young man, conscientious, and shows some heroism, especially going over the top to rescue an injured man and drag him to safety. And the film indicates that this is the kind of experience that the young soldiers brought back home, if they survived – a spirit of mateship in a war that they did not necessarily understand, that was confined for years in a limited area of France. The Anzac spirit.
This is an early feature film from the director. Given the aplomb with which this film was made, it will be interesting to see his future films.
Umbrella
Released 4 April