The Water Diviner (2014) (English Language)

Spread the love

Review

111min

Cast: Russell Crowe, Olga Kurylenko, Jai Courtney …and more

Writer: Andrew Knight, Andrew Anastasios

A World War I period drama set in 1919 after the brutal events of the Gallipoli Campaign, Russell Crowe makes his directorial debut and stars as an Australian farmer who fulfils a promise to his deceased wife by traveling to Turkey to locate his 3 soldier sons who are presumed killed in action.

Crowe has chosen a truly bold and ambitious project for his feature-film directorial debut and one which may court controversy given the complicated and still timely issues he attempts to tackle in what is essentially an anti-war melodrama.

Firstly we must pay tribute to the outstanding cinematography which presents a collection of stunning landscapes that hide hardships and horrors they have witnessed, ‘The Water Diviner’ is certainly visually impressive and on the face of it has the foundations of a fascinating story.

Here’s where the film starts to stumble, Crowe is taking on a lot of context within the story and perhaps it’s a bit too much, not only is there an anti-war morality tale but also a clash-of-cultures drama which is culturally relevant today all within a sometimes sentimental and predictable narrative, not to mention stereotypical character relationships and a romance we can see blooming from a mile away.

There is valiant and bold attempt to make some of the themes culturally relevant by depicting the Ottoman Empire in a sympathetic light which is unheard of in Western Cinema, this however is bound to cause some controversy in some European countries, not least of which would be Greece and you can be sure there will be criticism of the “liberties” taken with the historical accuracy of much of the last third of the film.

We should be able to forgive Crowe for not establishing the context of the history of the British & Ottoman Empires and the First World War while providing dramatic entertainment all in less than 2 hours, ultimately though ‘The Water Diviner’ is a polished and original drama storywise but too predictable and melodramatic to be an anti-war classic, nevertheless a solid debut from a superstar actor that may yet prove to be a good director.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Similar films you may like (Home Video)

Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

Harrowing historical period drama set in 1945 during World War II and telling the story of “The Battle of Iwo Jima” between the USA and the Japanese Empire, unusually told from the point of view of the Japanese soldiers entrenched on the island and awaiting the impending American offensive, a counterpoint to Eastwood’s other World War II work ‘Flags of Our Fathers’ which tells the story from an American perspective.

Directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya and Tsuyoshi Ihara among others.