Lynn Belvedere

THE WATER DIVINER

The-Water-Diviner-WINDMILL

THE WATER DIVINER, an epic Australian historical action drama written by Andrew Anastasios and Andrew Knight, is opening in Australian cinemas this Boxing Day and represents Russell Crowe’s directorial debut.

In World War I, the Gallipoli Campaign, was an awful and notably failed offensive by the Allies, and took place on the Gallipoli Peninsula for eight months from 25 April 1915. Gallipoli derives its name from the Greek word “Καλλίπολις” (Kallipolis), meaning “Beautiful City”, and where the Anzac Legend began. Anzac Day every 25th of April, commemorates the date of that military landing at Gallipoli, and remains the most significant day for Australian and New Zealand commemoration of our military casualties and our veterans from all wars.

Long after this battle, in 1919, an Australian farmer Joshua Connor (Russell Crowe) travels to Constantinople, Turkey and then to the former battlefields of Gallipoli (Turkish: ‘Gelibolu’) to fulfill a pledge he made on his wife’s grave, to find his three missing sons, lost during the battles at Gallipoli, and then to bring them back home to Australia.

Connor is an amazing water diviner that can follow and find life-giving water buried deep under the earth, but finding his three sons seems impossible, when faced with the gruesome battlefield landscape of the sun-dried bones of the thousands of buried soldiers from both sides.

In the enemy capital city, Connor meets Orhan, a young and very mischievous Turkish boy who then guides him to stay at his family’s hotel, run by his mother Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko). At long last a Turkish former-officer gives the broken father hope. Connor risks his life to travel into the heart of Anatolia with him.

With the required attention to detail, almost everything looks like it should, for the year 1919 in Australia and in Turkey, as achieved by production designer Christopher Kennedy (Lawless) together with clothing by costume designer Tess Schofield (The Sapphires). The amazing and vivid soundscape created by Academy Award-nominated composer David Hirschfelder (Elizabeth, Shine) is perfectly crafted to match the emotions experienced in every scene.

This is an epic adventure film – running at 111 minutes – with many superb landscape vistas to be seen, plus every scene was carefully and beautifully photographed on location in Australia and Turkey by Academy Award-winning cinematographer Andrew Lesnie (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Hobbit Trilogy) and the film was well paced and tightly edited by Matt Villa (The Great Gatsby).

THE WATER DIVINER is fiction inspired by true events, plot premise is based on the one very intriguing line found in a letter from Lieutenant Colonel Cyril Hughes, who was an integral part of the Imperial War Graves unit in Turkey in the years immediately after the First World War: “One old chap managed to get here from Australia, looking for his son’s grave”.

Entertainment One and Universal Pictures will jointly release the film in Australia, with Universal Pictures solely releasing the film for Europe and Canada, and with Warner Bros. in the USA.

Recommended. Starring: Russell Crowe, Olga Kurylenko (The November Man), Yilmaz Erdogan (The Butterfly’s Dream), Cem Yilmaz (The Magician), Jai Courtney (Divergent), Ryan Corr (Not Suitable for Children, Where the Wild Things Are), James Fraser (The Turning), Ben O’Toole (TV’s Love Child) and Isabel Lucas (Red Dawn), Megan Gale, Deniz Akdeniz, Mert Firat, Daniel Wyllie, Damon Herriman, Steve Bastoni, and Jacqueline McKenzie. Go the Rabbitohs.

OFLC Australian Classification – Rated M

A book of the same title, based on the screenplay, is to be released by Pan Macmillan in Australia on Wednesday 9th December.

Published by Lynn Belvedere

Once we were old enough, my parents took the whole family to the Sydney CBD cinemas every week. Thus began a lifetime interest, in going to the cinema every week, and became a passionate cinephile by watching all those very heavily edited ''Australian Film Censorship Board'' true cinéaste versions of brand new release ''Cinematograph Films''. Greater Union always gave my father (who worked in Cinema Distribution Exhibition) guest double movie passes, to every first-night ''red carpet Opening Night'' at The State Theatre Cinema at 49 Market Street. Up until his death, my dad always received ''two house seats'' for every Opening Night performance events at the Theatre Royal SYDNEY and at Her Majesty's Theatre SYDNEY. As a child, when mum choose not to go, I often went with him, to those live performance events. As a young child, I remember being taken for each new show, at both The New Theatre at 60 Sussex Street, and the Phillip Street Theatre when located at 150 Elizabeth Street, and for classical music concerts at Sydney Town Hall. = = = ★★★★★ = = = Being happy is a choice, and I have always viewed my life, as material ready be made into a series of amazing tentpole movies. My New Years Resolution is kept every year: ''Get to see/review five new live theatre shows each week, and get to see/review six new cinema movies each week'', plus is one of the Australian Cinema Pioneers, and apparently have seen far too much already, but always wanting to experience more and more each year. I am also able to do almost everything that I enjoy doing. Yes, I do have a great daytime job in I.T. as ''Software Design Project Manager'', PLUS each evening until quite late - - - Australian Cinematograph Films historical censorship consultant - product-placement consultant - mystery-shopper consultant - playwright, writer, author, director, producer, photographer, cinematographer, color-grader, subtitles proofreader - arts/ drama/ music/ film critic and judge, journalist, member FIPRESCI & FCCA & AFCA, member AACTA accredited film reviewer-critic-writer, accredited IMDB.COM critic-reviewer-author, projectionist, plus an innovative iconoclast - - - ★★★★★ LYNN BELVEDERE ★★★★★ - - - [usr 5] - - -