BENEATH HILL 60

Australia, 2010, 122 minutes, Colour.
Brendan Cowell, Harrison Gilbertson, Steve Le Marquand, Gyton Grantley, Alex Thompson, Duncan Young, Alan Dukes, Anthony Hayes, Leon Ford, Chris Haywood, Jacqueline Mc Kenzie, Gerald Lepkowski, Isabella Heathcote, John Stanton, Aden Young.
Directed by Jeremy Hartley Sims.

World War I took place nearly a century ago. However, it is still vivid in the minds of many whose family members fought and died in the alleged war to end all wars. The cinema has a strong tradition of World War I films from the silent The Big Parade in 1925 to All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), through stories that had war episodes like The Razor’s Edge (1946) then Australian stories like 40,000 Horsemen (1940), Gallipoli (1981) and The Lighthorsemen (1988). Beneath Hill 60 is a significant contribution to this tradition, something of which director-actor, Jeremy Hartley Sims can be proud.

One of the features that makes an immediate impact is the production design, especially the detailed attention given to the re-creation of the battlefields and the barren darkness, to the stark realities of the trenches and the dugouts and, particularly, to the tunnels under the battlefields. The film immerses its audience in this first hand warfare experience.

The story is of particular interest to Australians and the contribution to this war effort made by the literal diggers of these war tunnels. Much of the screenplay by David Roach is based on the diaries of Oliver Woodward, a mining engineer who had worked in Papua New Guinea and then in Queensland and joined the war effort bringing his expertise to the excavating of tunnels in France and, then, to Messines in Belgium and the use of the tunnels under the German occupied Hill 60 for one of the biggest explosions of the war.

The film opens with his arrival in the tunnels and not finding his way, a cinematic means of putting the audience right into the darkness of the tunnel mazes. At one stage, the bombardments and casualties in the trenches makes the miners realise that they may be safer underground.

The film offers almost documentary sequences of the men in the tunnels, their work, their camaraderie, the dangers.

Oliver Woodward is played by Brendan Cowell with a sense of authority and dignity which is innate. The supporting cast includes Steve Le Marquand as a down to earth digger, John Stanton as the commanding officer and Chris Haywood as an old-school, by the book officer.

There are glimpses of German diggers, making them the equivalent of the Australians in their ordinariness, the background stories, their skills and their clashes with authorities.

And, breaking the grim tension on the front, there are flashbacks for Woodward to his life in Queensland, his friendship with a family (Jacqueline Mc Kenzie and Gerard Lepkowski and Isabella Heathcote as their daughter whom Woodward wants to court). The bright Queensland sunshine contrasts with the general darkness of the war and the fighting.

There is a finale not unlike that of Gallipoli which shows the hard human decisions that have to be made if military success is to be achieved. And the final information reminds us of so much of the futility of war – and that Hill 60 was re-taken by the Germans not long after the episode that is dramatised here.
1.
2. The tradition of World War One films, the fields of war, Europe, pro-war films, anti-war films, portraits of soldiers in war, depictions of battles?

3. Australian participation in World War One, in the European war, in the Middle East, the loss of lives?

4. This film based on a true story, the diaries of the central character?

5. The focus on war, the flashbacks, the frame of Oliver Woodward getting ready for his wedding? The finale with the photo? Post-war Australia on this basis?

6. The production design, the sets, the re-creation of France, Belgium, the trenches, the dugouts, the mines and tunnels, the great attention to detail, the documentary feel?

7. The audience experiencing being under fire, the bombardment, the guns, wounds, death? The stretcher bearers? The casualties and statistics?

8. Oliver Woodward’s memoirs? His work in Papua New Guinea, the Mount Morgan mine, visiting the family, the son having died in the war, the other children and their playing, Marjorie and her sister, their lifestyle, his receiving the envelopes with feathers, the accusations of cowardice? The reactions of the family? His enlisting, his talking to the father, wanting to have time with Marjorie and permission to court her? The mother and father going for the walk? The wedding, his dying in 1966?

9. Woody and the opening of the film, lost in the tunnels, the audience experiencing the claustrophobia, the darkness, the light from the candle, the attitudes of the men underground? His asking advice? Arriving in the trenches, rushing from the bombardment, the boy and his fears? The experience of shellshock? His arrival in the dugout, his friend, talking, comparing wives and sweethearts, photos, the boy with the photo of his mother? The British military being aloof? Antagonistic towards the miners?

10. The role of the miners, their backgrounds, their experience, their being under fire, civilians, yet in a military context?

11. The nature of the job, the detail of the tunnels, their lengths, structures, their having to whisper while digging, listening for the Germans, the Germans listening for them? The diversions? The surveillance?

12. Woody and the men, Fraser and his being down-to-earth, Morris and his being deafened by the bomb, Wally and his father, the preparation for the father’s death, the bond between the two? Tiffin, his age? The bonds between the men, the fears, the bombardments? On the surface, the football game? With the military?

13. Their work in France, the order to go to Messines? The small hill, looking at it? Its strategic value? The depths, the aim of going under the hill, the storage of the explosives, the eccentric Canadian and his being on guard? The plans, the officers, the trenches, the water levels, the engineering situation, discussion with the commanding officer and with Colonel Rutledge? Colonel Rutledge and his scepticism? The three weeks, the sense of suspense with the pipe, the water delaying? The skills? The build-up to the explosion?

14. The Germans, listening, human, the postcard, the background stories, their experience of leaders and scepticism, their insights, the shafts, their deaths?

15. The build-up to the finale, the timing, the blast, the collapse and Tiffin being trapped, Fraser and his appeal to Woody, Woody holding steadfast, the close-up of his face, the decision, the officers and the countdown? The moral choices? Tiffin and his heroic farewell, knowing that he would die?

16. The impact of the explosion, the consequences? The Germans regaining the hill?

17. What the audience was left with in terms of understanding war, a picture of war, deaths, shellshock? Australian experience, ingenuity, cheekiness? Heroism?

18. The dedication of the film for peace for the descendants of all those involved, Australians and Germans?