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BENEATH HILL 60
Review

BENEATH HILL 60

April 22 2010

AN UNTOLD true story of the Great War – that’s Beneath Hill 60 – and an extraordinary story it is. Even more than that, it’s been made into an extraordinary movie. Directed by Jeremy Sims, written by David Roach and starring Brendan Cowell, Beneath Hill 60 tells the story of Oliver Woodward, a Queensland mining engineer who went to the trenches on the Western Front in 1916 to join a specialist platoon of miners.

Millions of other young men were there too, as we know from endless TV documentaries – The Great War, for instance – and any number of big screen movies from All Quiet On The West Front onwards. But what makes this story utterly absorbing, and this young man different, is that as well as carrying rifles, eating unspeakable rubbish out of mess tins, living in squalor and terror in the trenches and risking sudden death or terrible injury, he actually served as a miner.

The newly commissioned Lt. Woodward arrives from sunny, peaceful Queensland to a France of endless rain, death and freezing mud to take charge of an insubordinate mob of men. They’ve been there a while, have seen it all and are not impressed by the apparently callow officer. A wonderful performance from Steve Le Marquand, of sullen insolence that slowly turns into respect and affection, symbolises the relationship between officer and men as they set about their task. The task – unbelievably – is to tunnel beneath German lines to blow up the otherwise impregnable enemy redoubts and murderous high-ground machine gun emplacements.

The structure of the film is both classic and cunning. We get to know Woodward as the reticent miner who wasn’t required to sign up because he’s needed for the war effort at home. Then white feathers begin to arrive in his mailbox and locals start giving him the cold shoulder. Joining up is inevitable. Meanwhile he has fallen for Marjorie (Isabella Heathcote appropriately spunky and girlish) a young woman ten years his junior. His carefully slicked hair and best suit signal his intentions as does his request of her father that he be allowed to write to her while he is at the war.

All this is conveyed in serenely beautiful flashbacks from the awful place in which he finds himself. The sunshine, lush greenery, tranquillity and white-clad women heighten the contrast. They also serve as necessary pacing and respite as we get to know the men, their predicament and to find our way around the maze of creaking tunnels, dripping dugouts and stinking muddy trenches where the men live and try not to die. Famously shot in Townsville, Beneath Hill 60’s production designers, cinematographers, lighting camera-people and set constructors have done an astonishing job of creating both the above- and under-ground world of wintry northern France and Belgium. The tight focus on the men and their immediate surroundings – necessary to keep palm trees and other tropical Queensland give-aways out of shot – actually works brilliantly to bring the audience into the claustrophobic, one-day-at-a-time environs of trench war. And this underground part of it in particular.

Their daily life is weirdly, compellingly fascinating as we go with them while they dig, plan shafts and prepare explosives, listen for digging from the other side, listen and anticipate rock falls and other mining hazards, find something to eat, find a half-dry refuge to catch a few minutes’ sleep; and deal with the heedless, imbecilic antics of the top brass – arrogant Poms of course and a particularly terrific performance from Chris Hayward and his bristling moustache; and a gentler but equally hopeless John Stanton.

BENEATH HILL 60

The tension that slowly builds – enhanced by the already-mentioned flashbacks to snoozy Queensland – is a tribute to the story, the script and the up close and intelligent performances by actors, such as Cowell and Le Marquand, who are long accustomed to the intimate truths of the theatre and the honesty, effort and thought that goes into building a character and their journey in full view of a live audience. Anthony Hayes, Gyton Grantley and Harrison Gilbertson make up the platoon of miners and each has a well-rounded story that leads inexorably to their date with fate.

Beneath Hill 60 is a war movie with a heart, brain and guts. It tells a hitherto unknown and literally awesome story. It will have you gripped from go to woe and it’s also immensely touching – and has stuck with me now for days. Go and see what a bunch of Aussies can do with a bugger-all budget and total commitment.

If I did stars I’d give it four and a half.

 

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