The Water Diviner (M)

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1 The Water Diviner (M) Warning: contains plot spoilers Summary Joshua Connor (Russell Crowe) has lost everything. It's 1919, five years since his three sons left the family's Australian farmstead to fight at the Battle of Gallipoli. They did not return, and are presumed dead. Unable to live with her grief, Joshua's wife Eliza (Jacqueline McKenzie) commits suicide, and he makes her a graveside promise to bring back their sons' remains and bury them on home ground. He travels to Turkey, where he stays in a hotel run by the recently widowed Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko), whose son Orhan (Dylan Georgiades) takes a shine to him. When the British Consul refuses Joshua a permit to travel to Gallipoli, Ayshe advises him to bribe a fisherman and make an illegal approach by sea. Arriving at the site of the battlefield, Joshua finds ANZAC forces, led by Lieutenant Colonel Hughes (Jai Courtney), co-operating with defeated Turkish officers for the daunting task of mass burial. Thousands of men died at Gallipoli, Hughes tells Joshua - what makes him think he stands a chance of finding his

sons? But Turkish Major Hasan (Yilmaz Erdogan) is sympathetic; and Joshua, it turns out, has a mystical knack for uncovering what's hidden beneath the ground.

2 sons? But Turkish Major Hasan (Yilmaz Erdogan) is sympathetic; and Joshua, it turns out, has a mystical knack for uncovering what's hidden beneath the ground. Russell Crowe in The Water Diviner Entertainment One, Used by permission. Background Actor Russell Crowe (Gladiator, 2000; Noah, 2014) had nursed directorial ambitions for a long time. He had previously put together a project due to be released in 2003/2004, but 'It just felt wrong. It was financed in one meeting, everyone was happy with what I wanted to do, and I realised that people were only connected to it because I was a famous b******. They didn't really have any belief that I would bring a particular viewpoint as a director.' It wasn't until he came across the script for The Water Diviner that Crowe felt he had found the perfect fit. The script had been written by Andrew Knight and Andrew Anastasios, based on their research into the soldiers who had fought at Gallipoli. Knight explains that they wanted to find 'a new way to talk about Gallipoli. We didn't want to spend hours of screen time in a foxhole with people getting blown up - we were interested only in the aftermath of that terrible campaign.' Through reading Knight's grandfather's war diaries, and talking about the experiences of Anastasios's grandfather - who had been a water diviner - they began to come up

3 with the figure of Joshua Connor. 'He is a character constructed from the real lives, experiences and motivations of others.' Knight explains the script's relationship to historical fact: We did try and stay as true as we could to the dates and places, though we realised very early on that all of our characters needed bones and flesh beyond the research. There are so many competing stories, so many interesting characters and episodes out there that we ended up melding quite a few together. But it is a bit of a long bow to claim it is based on true events. Reading The Water Diviner, Crowe was immediately captivated. He has had a long-standing interest in Gallipoli, even instituting an Anzac Memorial service on the set of A Beautiful Mind (2001), and found himself powerfully drawn to the script. 'I was making notes on half the characters, I was correcting dialogue and doing all the other things that I do. But there was this other thing happening, where in some sort of fundamental way I believed that I was the only person who could tell this story in the way it needed to be told.' He was also struck by the screenplay's inclusion of a Turkish perspective on the conflict, something he was 'embarrassed' to realise he had never really considered before. 'All the times I've been to Dawn Services, all the moments of silence I've taken to remember the sacrifice that these young soldiers had made at Gallipoli, I had never for a single second, I realised, spent any time thinking about the other point of view.' He intended The Water Diviner to be an explicitly anti-war film, focused on dispelling 'myths' around the conflict - later, comments made to this effect whilst promoting the film would ignite controversy. Before filming, Crowe put his cast through a rigorous 'boot camp', which entailed horse riding, yoga, military-based training and 50km bike rides. They were also given lectures about the history behind the film. The Water Diviner was shot in South Australia and Turkey, and released in UK cinemas in April The film received mixed to positive reviews: The Guardian dismissed it as 'a sugary drama', while The Telegraph praised Crowe's 'good intentions' as director and 'soulful' lead performance.

Russell Crowe in The Water Diviner Entertainment One, 2015. Used by permission. Questions for discussion 1. Did you enjoy the film, and why, or why not?

4 Russell Crowe in The Water Diviner Entertainment One, Used by permission. Questions for discussion 1. Did you enjoy the film, and why, or why not? If you have seen Gallipoli (1981), the most famous cinematic portrayal of the Battle of Gallipoli, how did The Water Diviner compare? What other films might you compare it to? 2. What does Russell Crowe bring to the film as director? How would you describe his directorial style, and do you think it is appropriate to the story? Did any visual moments particularly stand out to you? 3. How did you react to the sections of the film portraying Joshua's search for his sons? What did you feel was contributed by the flashback scenes to the battle, and to the boys' childhoods? How did you feel about the way that Joshua's search was resolved? 4. How did you feel about Joshua's relationship with Orhan, and his romance with Ayshe? In your view, to what extent did the romantic plot distract from the main story, and to what extent did it add something important? How effectively did the film balance the contrasting emotional tones of its war-based and romance-based plotlines? 5. How much did you know about the Battle of Gallipoli and its aftermath before seeing the film? What did you learn from The Water Diviner, and what questions were you left with? If you are already familiar with the history, what popular narratives or 'myths' around

5 Gallipoli does the film try to question or subvert? 6. Joshua: I'm on my way to Gallipoli. Ayshe: You mean Çanakkale. How does the film go about showing a Turkish perspective on the conflict, and what is the significance of this? What factors shape - and perhaps bias - our understanding of history? How might we gain a more balanced perspective? 7. Would you call The Water Diviner an anti-war film, and why or why not? What explicit or implicit arguments does the film make against violent conflict? In your view, does the film offer a morally responsible portrayal of the horrors of war, and why or why not? 8. 'I don't know if I forgive any of us.' - Lieutenant Colonel Hughes How does The Water Diviner portray the moral complexity of life after a war? What moral questions are raised by Joshua's budding friendship with Major Hasan, a man who fought on the opposite side to his sons? What do you imagine might be more difficult - forgiving the enemy, or forgiving the violence committed by your own side? 9. How did you react to the more mystical, mysterious aspects of the film, such as the vision which leads Joshua to Art (Ryan Corr)? Does the film suggest that there's any spiritual value in organised religion? What kind of spiritual forces, if any, does the film seem to suggest are at work in the world? 10. 'I have dug a lot of wells that just turned out to be holes.' - Joshua What symbolic significance does water-divining have in the story? How might it be an image of what it means to have hope? Is Joshua motivated by hope or by despair when he sets out for Gallipoli - and what kind of hope has he discovered by the end of the film?

On "Cloud 9" Robert S. Griffin

On Cloud 9 Robert S. Griffin On "Cloud 9" Robert S. Griffin www.robertsgriffin.com I was captivated by a film on DVD last night. I was there, completely, with those people, that circumstance, those events. I wasn't backed off, self-conscious,