25 April
Screened at Club Hastings (RSA)
9 October 2016
A warm welcome and informative introduction by Josephine Carpenter got the film 25 April off to a good start. Having very little experience with this type of film I wasn’t sure what to expect but what I saw, heard and felt while watching it convinces me that this film and filmmaker Leanne Pooley deserve to be up there with the best of them.
With brilliant imagery and using colourful graphics and animation,
completed by a great soundtrack the story of Gallipoli and the ANZAC experience
is told. The key points, including the
terrible military decisions (but importantly the original objectives), were
explained in a simple, easy to follow way. The story was narrated by real
people: several Kiwi soldiers and an Australian nurse, using their diaries and
letters home, a clever and very well used technique.
Obviously research was a
huge part of the filmmaker’s work. The closing scenes showed the characters
from the film which morphed into photographs of the real people themselves,
alongside a small comment on the rest of their life.
A gentleman seated in front of me kept shaking his head, and I found
myself doing it from time to time too, in my case in wonder at the absolute
horror and futility of war. I can only imagine his reasons were the same. One of
the nurse’s lines from the film warrants retelling “Sometimes the suffering was
so intense, death seemed like the best way out.”
An excellent movie, one with a great message simply told. It was well appreciated
by the 30 or so attendees, including a 91 year old ex WWII pilot, at the
Hastings Club this wet Sunday afternoon. I sincerely recommend it for wider viewing.