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Film Review: Crowe’s award-winning epic hits U.S. screens

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The U.S. release of “The Water Diviner,” an Australian film directed by and starring Russell Crowe, arrives the weekend of Australia’s memorial holiday, ANZAC Day (for Australia and New Zealand Army Corp). The date is particularly significant this year as it marks the 100th anniversary of the battle of Gallipoli (April 25, 1915) where over 10,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers were killed fighting for the Allies against the Ottoman Empire in World War I.

It might not be a sentimental context familiar to American audiences, but it forms the spine and soul of Crowe’s excellent directorial debut that has already been a huge box office success in Australia, and won three AACTA Awards (Australia’s version of the Oscars), including Best Film.

Last week on the promotional trail for the film, Crowe told me there was some debate prior to the U.S. release over how important the historical context would be. In the end he and Warner Bros. decided the story had enough emotional impact to stand on its own.

“Here’s a man, he had three sons, they went to war, they didn’t come back,” Crowe said. “People understand that, no matter where they come from.”

Simply put, that is the story of “The Water Diviner.” Crowe takes the lead role of Joshua Connor, an Australian farmer who journeys to Turkey four years after the battle of Gallipoli took the lives of all three of his sons. The grief of their loss has turned his wife (Jacqueline McKenzie) mad and he obliges her deathbed wish to bring her boys home for burial on their own land.

From the sweeping vistas of the parched outback of Australia — the title refers to Connor’s mystical and instinctive ability to find water — the film launches into the bedlam of a country devastated by war, and where its many conquerors now lay claim amid a rising Turkish National Movement.

Amidst the chaos, bodies of soldiers are being painstakingly claimed by the military. While hardly welcomed as a civilian intruder, Connor forms unlikely alliances, particularly with a Muslim widow (Ukrainian actress Olga Kurylenko) who runs the hotel where he is staying, and with a former enemy soldier, Major Hasan (Turkish actor Yilmaz Erdogan).

Hassan helps Connor navigate the stumbling blocks, in particular Aussie officer Cyril Hughes (an excellent Jai Courtney), who is in charge of the Imperial War Graves unit. Hassan is touched by Connor’s unrelenting pursuit, noting: “He’s the only father who came looking.”

Hassan is also the key to an important development that will take Connor on an unexpected journey to learn the true fate of one son.

Well-staged flashbacks keep the heat of battle as an ongoing reminder, but “The Water Diviner” offers a different perspective from other war films by not keeping it center stage (like Peter Weir’s 1981 epic “Gallipoli”).

While the narrative often hinges on melodrama, in Crowe’s deft hands, we are never tipped over the edge and are instead drawn into the emotion of a father’s loss, willingly and emotionally taking the journey with him.

The film is beautifully shot by Australian cinematographer Andrew Lesnie (“Lord of the Rings”) who helps give “The Water Diviner” a sweeping, old-fashioned epic look.

Crowe has said he wanted “The Water Diviner” to recall the golden age of Australian film (which launched the directors Weir, Bruce Beresford, Phil Noyce and Fred Schepisi). While it would be presumptuous to say Crowe can yet take the stage with such great filmmakers, his inaugural debut as director displays a capable and passionate ability to make a heartfelt and cinematic epic.

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KATHERINE TULICH writes about film and culture for Marquee.

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