Passchendale new Canadian movie GALA premiere Thursday September 4 200

[peterhogg]

I have to agree with the criticism set out in some of the previous posts. To me the truly sad thing about the film is that it buried what promised to be a great story under a bushel of cliches, uninspiring acting, ludicrous plot twists, simplistic observations and a truly irritating musical score. Watching it I was reminded of one of those Heritage Canada minutes. For the sake of non-Canadian Forum members, these one minute spots exploring moments in Canadian history were featured on Canadian television and in cinemas. They were noteworthy only for being earnest, preachy and not particularly attentive when it came to historical fact if there was a certain political point to be made.

And I am less inclined to take what I see as a very Canadian view to accept the work as "not bad for a Canadian film" and make a virtue out of mediocrity.

And I don't agree with the argument that the tight budget for the film is an excuse for its shortcoming. I have seen British television dramas with smaller budgets produce more compelling works.

Bottom line, I think director Paul Gross fumbled the ball here. Sadly, there has yet to be a good Canadian film about the Great War and I fear that void will never be filled. That makes me sad.

On the more positive side, I received my copy of the dvd for free!

cheers (sadly)

peter

[4thGordons]

Chris:

I loved A Very Long Engagement precisely because it avoided every single pitfall that appears to plague Passchendaele. I'm tired of cartoonish, clumsy characterization and childish moralizing.

A Very Long Engagement paid us the great (nowadays) compliment of assuming we have brains. It didn't think it was necessary to set off rockets and wave banners and shout "See? See? Get it?"

In the French film the characters were complex and inconsistent--human beings, in other words. The problem with war films is that they're too often made by people who think there are only two kinds of soldiers: victims or villains.

The French film made no such stupid claims, and it's a great work of art because of it. Even with that silly bright-red German airplane that looked like a crop-duster instead of a ground-attack machine.

I agree entirely. Enjoyed it immensely.

Although a simplistic message can work too in moderation. For example although I was intially very disappointed in it at first watch, I have come to really quite like "Joyeux Noel" as a film (and yes I know elements of the story are preposterous) - but it creates some good characters which have a nice degree of ambivalence. A couple of super performances - and a decent atmosphere/feel to it. Is it history? no. Is it a decent film - well yes for me it is - oversimplified message? maybe and yet...... Not perhaps of the standard of "A Very Long Engagement" but still head and shoulders above "Passchendaele" in my book.

Chris

[Tom W.]

And I don't agree with the argument that the tight budget for the film is an excuse for its shortcoming. I have seen British television dramas with smaller budgets produce more compelling works.

In the DVD for A Very Long Engagement there is a documentary on the making of the film. The trenches could almost have fit in my back yard. That film had an unbelievably limited budget, but they used great camera work and computer graphics to get the effects they wanted.

The made-for-cable movie The Lost Battalion also had a tiny budget, and they did a fine job. There were technical inaccuracies with the German flamethrower troops, but only an obsessed fanatic like myself would know that. The film itself is very good, if a bit overwrought.

[John Gilinsky]

Thanks for the posts gentlemen. One good thing is that Canadians produce a movie with a fair sized and by Canadian standards large budget hoping to clearly emulate a Hollywood type "hit" with the general population. Too many compromises and too much earnestness clearly are some of the major underlying causes for the dissatisfaction expressed in previous posts in this thread.

A Very Long Engagement is endearing on several if not many points. I used to show the first 30 minutes or so for the trench warfare conditions. However, the whole movie is a superb dramatic piece on how war effected the entire population from an emotional, financial and psychological points. It can be easily used thus to illustrate the impact of the war on the traditional dad bread winner, mom and 3 to 5 kids or more family typical of most families of the period. Passchendale is far too centered on Paul Gross's simplistic and at times cartoonish characterization's. He would have been far better off spending more time refining his script and also letting someone else direct or directing only rather than co-producing, directing and staring in the film.

I disagree with one poster who said that Canada will probably never produce a decent or good ww1 film. CBC filmed Timothy Findley's "The Wars" which at the very minimum is a good film (made for TV I believe) a couple decades ago. We Canadians need to focus on creating a good dramatic movie that is well acted, produced and directed and be less hyper about producing that great CANADIAN war movie.

John

Toronto