"Actually we've been invited to blow up the Red House. Apparently, you blokes keep missing."
Made in 2009 in time for an Anzac Day 2010 release, Jeremy Sims' Beneath Hill 60 is an Australian war drama starring Brendan Cowell as Captain Oliver Woodward, a mining engineer who leads the 1st Australian Tunnelers on the Western Front during World War One. The script written by David Roach, was adapted from the recently discovered diary of the real life Captain Woodward, and was shot mostly in and around Townsville on a $6 million budget.. The story follows Woodward from his decision to enlist to his leadership of the group of Australian miners charged with creating and exploding the world's largest man-made explosion (at the time) directly underneath the trenches of the German army on the battlefields of Belgium. Woodward leaves behind his young sweetheart Marjorie, played by Isabella Heathcote, a woman ten years his junior and the younger sister of his mate whose wartime death spurs Woodward into enlisting.
The narrative alternates between the wartime struggles of Woody and co., and the story of his betrothal to Marjorie, and with this between rural Queensland and the Front. Much of the film is spent underground as the Tunnelers dig, plan attacks, plant explosives or silently search for German miners. The film emphasises the stakes of a silent war, where a single cough or squeak out of place is the difference between life and death. The supporting cast includes Gyton Grantley, Steve LeMarquand, Harrison Gilbertson and Anthony Hayes, among others. While Brendan Cowell is far-and-away the star, the supporting cast is solid as a as the blue clay they have to mine through.
Very films have succeeded in really capturing the ANZAC spirit through film. BH60 perfectly encapsulates the contemporary ideology of the ANZAC spirit and legend, and it declares this with it's tagline "After Gallipoli there was still a war to be won." Mateship, sacrifice, duty, and all with a laugh. Woody and his men crack jokes, huddle together, play rugby in the mud, and even enjoy a nice cuppa tea in the harsh and desolate warfield, in between bouts of being shelled, monitering the tunnels, and just surviving trench-life. The film treats the characters as imperfect men who did a great deed, but which is welcome and effective. The heroism of that deed, and the many others they perform, is suspect, open to interpretation, as the film more often focuses on the men themselves, rather than their actions and ramifications. The result is dramatic, and allows for enough association and appreciation of the characters and shines away from giving them an air of inherent nobility. It also very rarely portrays them as actual soldiers, more specialists who have to fight on occasion. This dynamic certainly allows for a wider array of emotion, rather than settling on the usual brutality and detachment that many war films force upon their characters.
The film-making style is rarely notable, but still solid, as is the score. There's lots of close-ups and playing with colour, as nearly all of the scenes shown below are lit by lantern or candle-light (within the film), where-as the daytime outside scenes are often blue-tinged. It's a simple and rather common colour contrast, but certainly effective. The close-ups also go a long way to enhance the character-driven claustrophobia. Where this film truly shines is in the production design as converting as small farm near Townsville into a believable WWI battlefield is no small task. And many props and costumes are sourced or directly copied from the real articles present in the Townsville War Museum.
Unfortunately, while the film is well-made, it is rarely particularly outstanding. It has little to nothing that makes it great, though just as little to make it bad. It's certainly on the highest order of Australian war films, and also a very good Aussie flick in general, but far from a great war film.
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