I found this on youtube. 11 parts. [video=youtube;tyHgS2H85PY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyHgS2H85PY&feature=related[/video]
I found it pretty disappointing when I watched it - it wasn't terrible, but it was so little about the actual battle that I felt let down a bit.
Agreed. I kind of got my hopes up for this one on account of the subject matter (and being Canadian). Many of the characters I either couldn't relate to or were too cliched. The worst of them all IMO was that British recruiting officer. He falls under the latter category.
How do you know a movie is Canadian? Paul Gross is in it. The historian behind the film gave a talk in my World War I studies class years ago. He didn't really talk about the movie much (he was there to talk about Vimy IIRC) despite being happy with the battle scenes and such but he had a funny story to share about production. For the injury scenes they had hired real amputees to play those roles (they just put props over their amputated limbs), if I remember correctly he said the crew was kind of worried because they thought they might be forcing them to relive horrific memories of their injuries. Meanwhile, they [the amputee actors] were having a contest to see who could have their props flick blood the farthest up a wall! Edit: I'm reading the Wiki and it's really interesting, the scene at the beginning where Michael bayonets the German was inspired by a story Paul Gross's grandfather told him. He was even asking for forgiveness on his death bed for what he had done then. It's very emotional stuff and I can see why Gross was so behind the film. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passchendaele_(film) I think the movie was pitched wrong overall though, the trailers made it seem like it was all dedicated to the front but most of the movie is the homefront. If it was shown in that way I think it could have done better. Some of the dialog though, uggh. "Do you want to introduce some foreign matter in me?"... Edit 2: Saw the final battle, wow. It was good up until the German offensive took place. Why the heck weren't the Germans firing at the trenches when they were so close? The Canadian squad they showed pretty much took out the entire wave of soldiers with only a single casualty. Both sides had pretty equal losses from what I remember but you would have never figured so here. And then they had to have the crucification, there is no evidence support one took place and even if you were to put that in a film, a trench so close to enemy lines right after an offensive?
I waited over a year for Netflix to get this, excited to finally get it to find 90% plus love story and another 5% how big a jerk they were to the "coward". The battle scenes were just ok, the cross stuff, kinda stupid. Want good WW I still need to head to 1929 All Quiet on the Western Front.
I'm still trying to track down a copy of Westfront 1918 that doesn't cost an arm and a leg! It's an old German movie which was apparently revolutionary in regards to film making techniques. It was also filmed in post war Germany and I believe a majority of the actors were war veterans so there is an obvious significance to a film like that. There was another released around that time, Verdun, a collaboration between French and German veterans of the battle after the war had ended. They basically took footage both sides had during the battle and make a movie out of it. I don't know if any copies exist of it, it's super rare if any copies exist at all. =/
