Passchendaele
(Paul Gross, 2008)
Being born and raised in Canada, I can tell you that the aspect of remembering the men and women who fought and died for one’s own freedom and the freedom of their country is taken pretty seriously, as it is in most countries, if not all. Why I bring up Canada is because during history class back in High School, the fact that Canada succeeded in winning Vimy Ridge for the Allies in a short ten hours when the French had tried for months without success.
Passchendaele, as you can tell by it’s title, is obviously not about the Vimy Campaign. It instead focused on the build up and events during the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917. And while the film’s war sequences are themselves impressive and attention hooking, I cannot say the same thing for the entire film.
The major flaw Passchendaele possesses is that it’s a war film that tries to incorporate a love story as another main plotline. As a result, precious screen time which could be used to further the truly fantastic and realistic trench warfare sequences is wasted on a love story between Gross’ character and a WWI field nurse, although how they interwove the plot lines near the final act has some redeeming qualities.
However I cannot stress enough how realistic this is for displaying the utter gore and brutality of the trench warfare of the First World War. This is a truly gory film with a ton of blood, and a few soldiers being killed in such a brutal way that it seems like something out of Saving Private Ryan and merits fellow soldiers listing their status as “really dead.”
