Dominick Ehling Mr.

Bode World History 2 Period 1 11 May 2011 Gallipoli Paper The Australian movie Gallipoli is the story of a young Australian boy, Archy Hamilton, as he decides to join the army and fight in the war. The film starts out showing how talented of a sprinter Archy was. In the very first scene of the movie the producer shows us Archy practicing with his Uncle for a large race. We learn his pep talk here. After the big race Archy leaves to go join the armed forces. Unfortunately Archy is well known where he lives so at the sign up board knows that he is underage. So Archy with his newfound friend Frank Dunne go to a different time where he is less well known. After they sign up they are separated when they go off to the training location near Cairo in Egypt. During a training exercise they are reunited by chance and Dunne joins Archys brigade. They are then sent to the Battle of Gallipoli where the Allied troops (mostly Australian) were trying to take the Dardanelles. In the end Archy is about to go into the Nek, which was known to be a suicidal mission. Dunne, who was a runner between the command center and the front, got message that

the wave of the attack was being called off because it has done its job. However, he was too late to get to the commander at the front that blew his whistle, fired his pistol, and started the charge. The final scene shows Archy running gun less and there is a freeze on Archy as he is shot by the Turkish machine guns fire. This movie has much symbolism mixed throughout it. Symbolism is strongly used to get the watcher to really look into the film and think about what happened in World War One. One of the strongest symbols in the movie shows the potential that all the soldiers lost when they did in the war. Archy takes books to the front showing how much talent he has academically. The opening scenes show the talent that Archy possessed as a runner, a sprinter. Another large symbol is in the beginning of the film. Archy listens to his uncle reading from The Jungle Book. This particular part of the book is when Mawli has to leave the wolves that raised him. This is symbolic of how Archy is now about to leave his family to go fight in the war for his country. At the very end are the most obvious symbols. Just before his final charge we see Archy leaving a few things behind. First he leaves behind the medal that he won at the race just before he ran away to join up. This symbolizes the talent and potential that is being wasted as he goes over the wall. Second he leaves a watch. This watch

symbolizes that his time is up; he has run his race. Another very symbolic symbol that is seen at the end of the film is the starting of the final wave of the charge. It is started very much like a race. The commander at the line starts the last charge with a whistle just like in the very beginning of the film when Archys uncle started the race back in Australia. The commander also fired a gun into the air. This firing of the gun is symbolic of the starting of a race, just like at the start of the race at the athletic convention that Archy ran in at the beginning of the film. At the very end of the film the producer had a freeze frame of Archy just as he is shot by the Turkish machine gun. The freeze frame shows Archy arched forward as if he were breaking the tape on a finish line. This is symbolic of the fact that Archy has run his race. He has finished. Overall I really enjoyed this movie. I think it was pretty accurate in its details about the lives of the soldiers at the front. It has a great plot that is meant to draw emotion from the audience. I think though that the writer/director should have maybe decided to have a more positive ending. I understand that the goal was to evoke emotion about the war however I think that killing the main character was a little extreme because he had already killed a few of the other characters that we were acquainted to.