Passchendaele trailer (Paul Gross)

[Canadave]

When I saw Indiana Jones last night, the trailer for the new Paul Gross movie about Passchendaele was attached. It's also online.

I have to say that it looks really impressive at this point, especially for a Canadian production. Judging from the trailer, it could be one of the best war movies to come along in a long time.

 

[hamudm]

I saw this with No country for old men. Looks interesting.

 

[CaptainCanada]

Ah, Paul Gross, always valiantly struggling to make Canadian movies that Canadians (or anyone) will go see; a worthy cause, to be sure.

That actually does look pretty interesting; I'll keep an eye out for it.

Plus, it has Caroline Dhavernas, who's awesome.

Based on what the plot appears to be, it's kind of surprising they didn't go with Vimy Ridge over Passchendaele.

 

[Kegek]

Certainly looks interesting (and suitably sweeping in scope); but also it seems to be dangerously skirting the border between pathos and bathos at a few points in the trailer. Will wait for the reviews.

 

[BenRoethig]

Paul Gross? Isn't that Frazier from Due South?

 

[CaptainCanada]

Paul Gross? Isn't that Frazier from Due South?

The same.

 

[Goliath]

Based on what the plot appears to be, it's kind of surprising they didn't go with Vimy Ridge over Passchendaele.

I was relieved that the movie was not about Vimy Ridge: frankly, I'm sick of hearing about Vimy year after year.

The capture of Vimy Ridge was a well-executed operation, but a purely local victory--a small part of the battle of Arras, which was itself just a diversion from the main Allied offensive, to the south, by the French. It made no difference to the course of the war at all--though, to be fair, neither did the 2nd Battle of Passchendaele. And Vimy Ridge certainly wasn't "the moment Canada came of age," or whatever stale rhetoric nationalists are using to describe it nowadays.

What we really need is for Canadian, British, and Australian filmmakers to get together for a tri-national production of an epic film about the "Black Day"--the first day of the Battle of Amiens, 8 August 1918, when our forces broke right through the German lines and advanced for miles. That was a real victory, and the beginning of the end for the German armies in the West.

 

[The Lady Eve]

Thanks for the heads-up. I've always been interested in this tragic, insane war and the trailer looks epic. I never saw Due South but I do have the DVDs of the brilliant Canadian series Slings & Arrows starring Gross and a superb cast of actors.

 

[firehawk12]

He's been trying to do this forever, it seems.
My problem with Canadian movies is that... well, they always either aim for obtuse or they try to ape American film. There doesn't seem to be any place between Cronenburg/Egoyan and Gross.

I eventually watched Men with Brooms, so I'll probably hit this at some point. I'll just hate the marketing for this, which will push its "Canadianness" - like the Bon Cop Bad Cop marketing.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I'll have to watch out for that when it hits DVD; I don't imagine it will have wide release in the States.

It seems to me, as an American, that World War I left a psychic wound on Britain and Canada that it didn't leave on the United States. World War I is covered in school, briefly, but mainly for the ultimate failure of Wilson's Presidency and the end of the Progressive Era. There are no great American stories on the Western Front, which may be why World War I has no cultural touchstones for Americans; it's not part of our historical narrative.

I think that's unfortunate.

I find World War I endlessly fascinating. It's the historical tragedy of it all. It's the war that shouldn't have happened. And it's the war that once it began, it couldn't be undone. It was a Pandora's Box.

I'll look out for this film. It looks like the kind of thing I'd really enjoy.

 

[firehawk12]

Well, WW1 really is the pointless war. If anything, it distracted the European powers from Asia and gave Japan an opportunity to finish its occupation of various parts of SE Asia and build up their fleets for their eventual attack on the Americans.

The reason why Canadians "care", and even then I don't think the average Canadian knows any Canadian history, to be honest, is that WW1 defined Canada as a nation, both internally and to the world, or at least the British. Passchendaele is one of those "big battles" like the Battle of the Bulge which sort of define the mettle of a nation's military and victories in WW1 helped cement Canada's role as a contributing world power.

Internally, of course, it basically fractured Canada much more than anything else - the draft was vehemently despised in Quebec since they did not feel any obligation to a British led war. If anything, WW1 set into motion the notions of the separatist movement.

Still, I dunno. Maybe I'm just misinformed, but I just can't get worked out about WW1. It basically signalled the transition from old outdated European powers to the new powers like the United States, and it featured the development of a lot of military technology... still, there's no big mythology built around it the same way there is around WW2 or Vietnam.

 

[CaptainCanada]

World War I mythology and the stories told about it are mostly about how pointless it was/how it shattered romantic illusions.

In large part, I think the problem is that trench warfare offers rather limited opportunities for dramatization.

 

[Goliath]

World War I mythology and the stories told about it are mostly about how pointless it was/how it shattered romantic illusions.

Yes. In the popular historical imagination, the Second World War is the "good war," and the First is the "bad war."

WWI is the perfect setting for anti-war and anti-establishment stories, like All Quiet on the Western Front, Paths of Glory, Oh! What a Lovely War, and Gallipoli. And though Blackadder Goes Forth is a very funny comedy, the humour is very bitter. Even A Very Long Engagement stresses the horror of it all.

One could argue that it wasn't as pointless as it's made out to be--at least, on the Allied side--and I would agree. But its negative image is so firmly entrenched that any attempt to use it as a vehicle for celebrating "courage under fire" is just pissing into the wind.

 

[Kegek]

Well, WW1 really is the pointless war. If anything, it distracted the European powers from Asia and gave Japan an opportunity to finish its occupation of various parts of SE Asia and build up their fleets for their eventual attack on the Americans.

This was partly a result of the war, as well. Japan entered the war on the Allied side and obtained some of the German colonies in the Far East.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I complained several years ago to a video game developer that there are enough sci-fi and World War II FPS games on the market. I mean, how many damn times can I retake Omaha Beach?

If a developer wanted to carve out a new niche, the way to go would be a World War I FPS. (Or, if they were really crazy, a Revolutionary War FPS, complete with a realistic rate of fire.) The Somme in an FPS. Insane, but it could be damned intense.

The obvious problem, of course, is that American developers aren't going to develop a game based on something that was never really an American war.

So, instead, we'll retake Omaha Beach. Again.

 

[Goliath]

The Somme in an FPS. Insane, but it could be damned intense.

Commercially speaking, I think a better idea would be to make a Call of Duty-style game about the campaigns of 1918.

That would allow for the widest possible number of play situations--including mountain fighting on the Italian Front, and even cavalry charges in Palestine. It would also allow you to include the Americans, and thereby encourage American gamers to buy it. A level based on the Lost Battalion would be epic.

Call it 1918: Forgotten Victory.