I died in Hell (they called it Passchendaele) - Siegfried Sassoon, ‘Memorial Tablet’
Paul Gross’s latest ode to Canadian identity takes on one of the grimmest and most controversial battles of the so-called War to End All Wars: the third battle of Ypres, more commonly known as Passchendaele. If you would care to nerd out with me, read on. BUT BEWARE OF SPOILERS!!!! You have been warned.
I loved Passchendaele, I really did. I was completely entranced by its depiction of the war, but also of the impact of the war on the home front. I loved Michael Dunne’s goodness, and his wee touch of shellshock. It was a well-produced, glossy overview of an especially brutal battle. And now, if you will bear with me, I’d like to go over some of the historical references I found particularly endearing lovable interesting. This movie paid an incredible amount of detail to historical references – as you can deduce, this was clearly the way to my heart.
First, the photos. When you’re studying the First World War, you soon notice that even though cameras were in use during the time frame of 1914-1919, there is not a lot of photographic evidence. Why is this? Was it because the conditions in the trenches were so horrifying that the higher ups didn’t want a lot of documentation of daily life? A lot of the pictures we have, especially in Canada, were created for propaganda purposes – the Canadians going over the top at Courcelette series commissioned by Max Aitken (aka Lord Beaverbrook) comes to mind. But there are some heartbreakingly beautiful pictures of Passchendaele out there, most of which are currently in the Australian War Museum’s archives. Gross took the time to research a few of these iconic images, and reproduced them in the context of the movie: notably the Australians moving forward at Chateau Wood and the Australians near Hooge. You’ve probably seen these images before, just not known their origin.
There is another sequence where Gross as Michael Dunne transports a soldier over his shoulders to the triage tent of the casualty clearing station. This mimics film footage of the first day of the Battle of the Somme – a filmmaker by the name of Geoffrey Malins was set up between Beaumont-Hamel and Serre, and he was able to capture some incredible images of that abortive attack. He filmed the detonation of the mine at Hawthorn Ridge (now known as Hawthorn Crater), as well as a soldier taking a wounded fellow soldier to the back of the lines for treatment. We know who the soldiers in that video are, thanks to the historical record – we also know that the wounded soldier died within a half hour of getting to the casualty clearing station. So I was all impressed that Gross had taken the trouble of looking that up, and then you know what? It’s in the footage that runs with the closing credits.
Yeah, there’s archival film footage that runs alongside the closing credits: some from the Somme, some from Passchendaele, and some of the Germans at Vimy. It was very interesting indeed.
The historical timeline in the movie is very interesting as well. The heavy push for recruitment – including one recruitment technique I had heard tell of, but was kind of ashamed to see on film. Could be worse, I suppose. There could have been white feathers, as was not infrequent during the war to shame supposedly ablebodied men into taking the khaki. This movie captured the people of Calgary during the war in a very honest and real way.
It also showed parts of our Canadian history that are often overlooked when examining the war. Anti-French comments by the recruitment officer. Anti-German vandalism on the home of two of the characters. People forget about the anti-German sentiment in Canada at the time – just look at what happened to Berlin, Ontario. There was much use of the word “hun”, which I had to explain meant “German” in WW1 speak, to the kids after the movie. And then there’s the Crucified Canadian. There is this urban legend, see, that apparently Germans in 1915 crucified a Canadian on the doors of a church or in the middle of no-man’s-land: there are different versions, but it’s always a Canadian soldier. This movie dealt with that myth, and proposed a very plausible (to my mind) explanation for the continued persistence of that story. As for the home front, well, when Maritimers think of the home front of WW1, we usually think of the Halifax Explosion. I mean, of course we do, it was an important event that had a huge impact on all of the Maritime provinces. But what happened out West? It was like it was a different war, and yet still the same. Very interesting.
Actually, it reminded me of the recruitment scenes in Peter Weir’s film Gallipoli, which places another disaster of the First World War in the context of defining a nation – in that case, the Australian nation. Speaking of the Aussies, where were they in this movie? The Canadian Corps worked practically hand in hand with the ANZACs. When the Canadian officer talks about the taking of Passchendaele ridge as a job left to the only capable soldiers, I think that does a huge disservice to the Australian and New Zealander contributions. Many times the reason the Canadians were successful was because of being able to build on the ANZAC gains.
You know what was the best part though? Michael Dunne is trying to comfort a young soldier in a shellhole, stuck in the quagmire of no-man’s land somewhere along the Passchendaele ridge. He tells the young soldier he wanted romance, and there’s no romance in this war. “There are no poets in the trenches”, he states. Ha ha ha!!!!! Oh how that made me laugh. No poets. In what was quite possibly the most literary war ever? Owen, Sassoon, Brooke, Rosenberg, McCrae… and those are just the ones off the top of my head. I have an entire shelf filled with the poetry of these nonexistent poets. I loved that line. I’m pretty sure it was ironically meant.
The same officer also says that the Germans referred to Canadians as Storm Troopers. Aside from making me imagine Arthur Currie in a Star Wars uniform, a mental image I never ever want to have again, that gave me something to think about. Storm troops. Hm. Shock troops, I’ve encountered that a lot – but that’s more of a British term. Now, if you look at the Germans in the 1930s, the Nazi party had the SA – the Sturmabteilung – or storm troops, in German. So, yeah, they may well have called us storm troops, it’s entirely possible. I enjoyed that I had to go look that up. I love having to look things up. It’s fun!
I will admit the movie had some uneven bits, particularly in the love story. There was one particularly fromagely cringetastic moment where all the teachers and many of the students laughed aloud. When he’s on historical ground, Gross does a fantastic job. He falters when it comes to the fictional bits, they’re just not as fleshed out. The movie is also quite violent – it’s hand-to-hand combat with bayonets, that’s how it was. Canadians, I should add, were also known for the move of using their entrenching shovels as a weapon. But don’t get me wrong – the good so far outweighs the bad that I would go again to see it, without hesitation. And I will be buying the DVD, and the Blu-Ray, and I may have a poster for the film in my classroom right now, under the one for Band of Brothers. What, I teach History!
In the end I think what I liked most about this movie is the Canadian context, that it doesn’t hide that it’s Canadian and about Canadians. Our war is different than the American or the British war. We have Vimy – and the battle of Vimy Ridge plays an important role in this movie, not coincidentally. But because we have Vimy, we tend to overlook the rest of those four years (and especially the last hundred days); when we do look at Passchendaele, it’s to point out that our Arthur Currie was right, it did take 16 000 men, and for what, Haig. It’s interesting that Paul Gross, with his apparent love of all things Canadian Identity related, chose to stress Passchendaele instead of Vimy, which makes me wonder if his grandfather fought at Passchendaele. It’s not a battle you usually see in popular culture outside the British tradition, unless you have a real and personal connection.
Anyway, enough nerdy ramblings, I’ve gone on long enough. In conclusion, see this movie. The end.
Ravings of a theatre addict, I suppose.
The sommelier proposed a Carmenere from Chile as accompaniment and it was also an excellent suggestion, but damn that wine had kick. Meanwhile, Scott had a rabbit dish, including roast rabbit; a vegetable medley that looked fantastic; and rabbit stuffed with lobster and mango. I wanted to try it, but I was so full! We didn’t get dessert, as you can imagine, after all that. But they served us a small after-meal snack: we each got a wee shortbread cookie, a small bite of banana cake, and a mini mint madeleine. 
