KOKODA

Australia, 2006, 91 minutes, Colour.
Jack Finister, Travis Mc Mahon, Luke Ford.
Directed by Alistair Grierson.

Kokoda is not a name known much beyond Papua New Guinea and Australia. Yet, it holds for Australians, an importance and significance that places it alongside Gallipoli. The Kokoda trail in the highlands of New Guinea is where the Australians fought during World War II, many of them volunteer workers, reservists rather than fully trained soldiers (who did eventually arrive) and, with the help of the locals (called gratefully for their carrying the wounded to safety, the ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels’) and stopped the Japanese advance on Port Moresby and an invasion of Australia.

Clearly, Kokoda is a story that demanded to be turned into a film. Hopes might have been for an equivalent of Peter Weir’s Gallipoli.

However, the film-makers have made a different option. They have stayed with a small group of men, confined the action to the muddy jungle and the continually falling tropical rain, to the unrelenting pressures of an unseen enemy and the continual physical discomfort of weather, lack of shelter, lack of food and perennial dysentery. In 90 minutes, the audience is taken into the experience in so much of its hardship so that they could say they had become aware of what that action meant in terms of pain and endurance.

However, this is at the cost of a clarity of plot and the clear identification and delineation of characters. We have a fair idea of what is happening but are not always certain. We see the characters but it is a bit hard to know who is who. We see the action, have the motivation explained to us but this is not always easy to feel dramatically. William McInnes? delivers a fine laudatory tribute at the end.

In fact, the film is frequently quite gruelling to watch and it would not be surprising if many, even though wanting to watch and sympathetic to the enterprise, gave up on the experience.

It means that this version of Kokoda is most worthy but too demanding.

1.The impact of the film? Immersing the audience in the experience of Kokoda? The hardships?

2.The place of Kokoda in the Australian consciousness, Papua -New Guinea, World War Two, the heroism, the stopping of the Japanese invasion?

3.The jungle settings, wet, the mountains, the tracks, the mud, the conditions? The illness and dysentery? The musical score? Atmospheric?

4.The focus on the group, the individuals within the group, the work of the group?

5.The Reservists, their volunteering, their work in Port Moresby? The lack of training? The camaraderie, the collaboration, the mateship, helping others when they were wounded, ill?

6.The Japanese, their strategy in the mountains, unseen, the patrols, killing, the bayoneting, their cruelty? The enemy?

7.The portrait of the men, the individuals, relationships? Together, the camp, the limitations, the food, lack of cigarettes, no medicine, the work of the doctor? Orders, holding the ground, the difficulties, the rain, the illness?

8.The patrols, in the jungle, listening for the enemy, the dangers, unseen, the deaths, the wounds? The stretcher-bearers?

9.The characters, the brothers and their bond, leaving people to die or not, carrying them away? The heroism?

10.The basic strategies on the Australian side, Japanese side, holding the pass, waiting for the army to come?

11.The military arrival, the difference, the effect on the Reservists?

12.The Papua -New Guineans, the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels, their help, carrying the sick in the mud along the tracks?

13.The achievement, holding back the Japanese? The officer, his speech of tribute?

14.The film as a memento of a significant part of Australian history?