#Passchendaele

[theworldofwars]

Two men of the 42nd Canadian Infantry Battalion (Royal Highlanders of Canada) clean a Lewis Gun in a reserve trench during the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele), November 1917.

[herprivateswe]

British soldiers cleaning up after coming out of the trenches. Near Ypres, 3 August 1917.

[lonval71]

[m-a-salter]

Period Drama Appreciation Week 2023 | Day 4: Favorite time period/era | Edwardian and First World War

A Room with a View (1985), Parade's End (2012), Legends of the Fall (1994), Passchendaele (2008)

[pisupsala]

It snowed when I went to Bastogne earlier this year, and then it rained in Passchendaele today. Fingers crossed for my birthday in Dunkirk later this week.

[adamwatchesmovies]

Passchendaele (2008)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

Written, directed and starring Paul Gross, Passchendaele is clearly a passion project. The grim reality of war is accurately presented but unfortunately, much of the film’s romantic passions come off as cheesy and disingenuous. This picture is much less than the sum of its parts.

In 1917, Sergeant Michael Dunne (Gross) is sent home as a war hero. While recovering in Calgary, Alberta, he meets nurse Sarah Mann (Caroline Dhavernas). Her younger brother, David (Joe Dinicol), isn’t eligible for military service due to his asthma but his girlfriend’s father pulls some strings and allows him to enlist. At the behest of Sarah, Sergeant Dunne returns to the battlefield to look over the young man, tackling his PTSD in the process.

Paul Gross incorporated certain of his grandfather’s own World War I experiences into the story. You can tell there’s a reverence for the armed forces here and a firm grip on the reality that war is hell. The film opens with a scene that burns itself into your head - the kind that would haunt a soldier until the end of their days. After Dunne and David are deployed overseas, there’s another great scene of armed combat. What was already a chaotic battle descends into madness. Guns are tossed away and men kill each other in the mud with knives, axes, rocks and even their bare hands. These moments are well done, as are other scenes at home. David wants to enlist so badly is because of his father, who left to fight in the war… on Germany’s side. We often hear of how unfairly people and governments treated citizens they theorized would align with their enemies during the war. It’s easy for us to feel like it was wrong and to gain sympathy for the people being victimized. In this case, it still feels wrong but you can certainly better understand why Sarah and David’s neighbors resent them. It's not theoretical. David's father is overseas right now killing his neighbors.

Everything Passchendaele does well makes the film’s mistakes that much more perplexing. Jim Mezon plays Major Randolph Dobson-Hughes, the recruitment officer who - at every opportunity - makes fun of his assistant for filling out forms instead of being on the battlefield and of Dunne for what he perceives as the man’s cowardice. Even if people like this did exist at the time, you know everything there is to know about this man after the first meeting. His character is only there so he can be punished later on. It’s supposed to be cathartic. Instead, it makes your eyes roll. Or maybe your “worst thing about this movie” pick might be the love plots, which are supposed to make us emotionally invested in the heroes but become increasingly embarrassing instead. Dunne meets Sarah on three separate occasions. It’s supposed to feel like destiny, like this romance is bigger than any distance the war might put between them and it might… if it weren’t for their sex scene, which comes in at the absolute worst time in every way. Nearly every scene that tugs at our heartstrings falls flat.

There isn’t a hint of cynicism or irony in Passchendaele, but there probably should be. A few lines of text appear on-screen right before the credits. They make so much of what we just saw feel pointless. Nothing about the film makes you think this was deliberate; it’s simply something that other, better war films have done before and Passchendaele is attempting to duplicate their success by emulating them. This feeling that the directorial choices Gross makes were made because "he had to" is present throughout and explains why so much of the drama and character moments feel so mechanical. (November 20, 2022)

[paulgrossaddict]

⭐️ to win an meet-and-greet with Paul Gross! ⭐️

seen on the Alberta Theater Projects page

[masonjarhead]

[edbloves]

After The War by Sarah Slean

Y'all want a hauntingly beautiful song about the war? This is it. I randomly remembered its existence today and had to share, so it's attached below. I believe this version was arranged for the movie Passchendaele (of course, about the Battle of Passchendaele in WW1) but mostly, I've heard it being sung as choral music. (My high school's senior chamber choir sang this at a couple of our Remembrance Day assemblies years and years ago; moved people to tears.)

Yes, parts of it are Buck x Bucky coded, especially just the first part:

After the guns are silent / After your wounds have healed / After those crosses have been planted in all those fields / After that long boat ride / All the way across the sea / And after this train carries thee

There is the obvious imagery of Bucky arriving at the stalag beat to hell and severely wounded, the empty graves that most of the bombers ended up with, the packed train cars as they were shuttled during the march, etc.

I will love you after the war / I'll love you for always, forever more /I will love you after the war / Forever, for always, and more

But there is also the post-war imagery of them healing and promising each other their lifetimes.

After your boots dry / And the tobacco's all but gone / Along with all those postcards you've carried under your arm / After I remember all the words I couldn't say / And after this long night fades away

And then here, I always think of Bucky pining after Buck in the stalag, watching him write and pour over Marge's letters, wishing he had cigarettes and alcohol to at least numb the hurt of seeing Buck love someone else (or so he thinks)

Anything he wants to say to Buck gets stuck in his throat, the fear of ruining what they already have paralyzing him and John deciding that its okay, he can live with only having Gale's friendship and that means more to him than anything else

But, if nothing else, this song deserves to be listened to in its own merit. It's tragic and real and chillingly beautiful. Unfortunately, it's not on Spotify or Apple Music, and this is the only non-choral version I could find. Definitely recommend giving it a listen!

[iceman-kazansky]

Hello!! I hope you’re having a good Monday/Tuesday wherever you are! I was curious, are there any books or films you wouldn’t recommend to others?

Books or films I wouldn't recommend? Oh boy.

Well firstly, I don't think I'd recommend "Passchendaele" (movie) it's a mid movie at best. Don't get me wrong, the characters and overall feeling of the movie is just 😍 but the overall plotting of events? It was an immediate shut down with the ending we received.

Another one, which is kinda wild, would've been "Pearl Harbor." (Also another movie) NOW, don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved Danny and Rafe and for the most part I was in love with the movie... until the end. I wanted to throw hands with whatever head person had decided to make that type of decision for ma' boys. It just infuriated me with the ending. I think it deserved so much better and was given a really shitty end of the stick.

--

Also, I am being vague because I don't want to even possibly spoil if you do decide to go and watch the films. Afterall, our opinions may vary

--

[davidcashuk]

The murderous hell that was Passchendaele - 12 October 1917.

Australian troops, the survivors of senseless attacks and incessant artillery, surrounded by dead comrades.

The location today with the remnants of the light rail line.

(Near today's Tyne Cot War Cemetery)

Photograph by Frank Hurley

[uraniumdaydreams]

Dear Mother

Dear Mother,

It's been a long time.

I've been far from home,

For far too long.

The shells come in day any night,

And we send back just as many.

It never stops.

It never stops.

I am somewhere in France,

Along a river called the Somme.

Nineteen thousand lie dead,

And it is only day one.

This is not the war I was sold,

These are the lies I have been told.

This is nothing more,

Then a synchronized sacrifice.

Dear Mother,

It's been a long time.

I've been far from home,

For far too long.

[herprivateswe]

Exhausted stretcher bearers from the 3rd Australian Division rest in the mud and drizzle of Broodseinde Ridge, during the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele), 11 October 1917.

[to-end-all-wars]

Ahhhhhhhh I posted this to the wrong blog, this is what I get for having a Misc blog, a ww1 blog, an asoiaf blog and a tolkien blog 🙃

Wounded Canadian and wounded German lighting a cigarette on Passchendale battlefield.

[zmkccommonplace]

Everything one does has some reward hidden away in it, & the thing is to discover that reward & enjoy it.

Sir Mortimer Wheeler

[nicholas-the-paleomancer]

I’ve been reading about the First World War and… uh… is this too soon?