I’m not sure there was ever a movie that surprised me more or moved me as much as Australian director Peter Weir’s “Gallipoli.”
Both of my grandfathers fought in World War I, but both were Americans stationed in France. There weren’t any Americans fighting the Turks at Gallipoli, and I had never even heard of the battle until I saw the movie.
The battle of Gallipoli was an obscenity in at least one respect. English commanders ordered ANZAC forces to charge Turkish positions across an open field, and the Aussies and Kiwis never had a chance. Machine gun fire knocked down nearly every soldier trying to advance. The soldiers from Down Under were cannon fodder to the commanders, and I’ve heard it said that the battle of Gallipoli was one of the biggest factors in Australia and New Zealand seeing themselves as separate from England.
The wonderful Scot-Aussie folksinger Eric Bogle wrote an incredibly poignant song about Gallipoli that has been covered again and again.
Movies that really affect me stay in my memory to the point where I remember where I saw them and with whom I saw them. In 1981, my constant film companion was the lovely Lisa McGrady. the most significant woman in my life other than the two I married and my daughter. Most of our movies that year were downstairs in a mall at Bailey’s Crossroads, Va., but some of the best films didn’t make it out to the suburbs.
We saw “Gallipoli” at the old Outer Circle theatre on Wisconsin Avenue north of Georgetown. It was one of the few movies I can remember — “Schindler’s List” was another one — that left the audience open-mouthed and quiet at the end. Wonderful isn’t the best word to describe it, but it’s the best I’ve got right now.
What I didn’t learn until many years later was the wonderful generosity toward the ANZAC dead shown by Turkish President Kemal Ataturk in the monument he erected at Gallipoli.
“Those heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives! You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.”
Imagine the amazing spirit of generosity of a man to show that much love to men who were invading his country.
It definitely meant a lot to the Aussies and the Kiwis. In Canberra, there is a Kemal Ataturk Memorial directly across from the Australian War Memorial on Anzac Parade.
It’s the only memorial to an enemy commander, and its inscription is the same as the one on the memorial Ataturk created in Turkey.
As much as I love Weir’s movie, the Ataturk epilogue adds a layer of additional poignancy to it.
It sure isn’t the same world it was a hundred years ago.