Week Three Response

Unfortunately, I have to start this post in a negative fashion. The first group presentation was given this week and unfortunately I think they missed the point of the week. Though it may seem semantics, the two girls hadn't quite grasped the difference between 'nationalism' and 'patriotism' and in reference to Gallipoli there is quite a necessary disctinction. I would hestitate to suggest that there was any nationalistic sentiment in the film, either as depicted during the Great War, or as it would have been received in the 1980s. However, the two girls continually spoke of nationalism in the film, when they should have been speaking about patriotism.

Every Australia Day, a new series of debates arise over the matter of our national identity and writers constantly try to pigeon-hole sections of our community under broad, general headings. Not enough is the complexity of this issue acknowledged, and I fear any national identity we do have is an intellectualised one, rather than an organic, naturally occurring one. Perhaps we are not alone in that; I'm sure the case is the same in the United States, and national identities are meticulously constructed in the few Communist outposts that still remain.

I love the film Gallipoli, and I qualify that by stating that most other discussions of the battle leave me feeling rather ambivalent. I feel no tangible connection to that past, and only through this film do I get a sense that, "hey, those guys are just like me", their humour, attitudes, and values. I think Peter Weir has acutely studied young men from the 1980s and transmuted those observations into the fictional characters of the film. As such, I feel this film works on two levels; it provides us with a reflection of who we are now, as well as commenting on the contextual issues of 1914-15.

I will clarify the statements I made at the outset of this post; With reference to the reading, I believe that nationalism is an externalised phenomenon. Whereas, patriotism is an internalised phenomenon, that perhaps can only be felt and thus shared by those who possess the certain qualities in question. It is rare that I feel patriotic, but watching this film I do; that is the power of films like this. These events which happened almost 100 years ago are re-contextualised to an extent that I can connect and identify aspects of my own character and milieu in the filmic world. To galvanise my point about patriotism, few other nations could watch the scene where the Diggers mount donkeys and mock their British officers; to understand this there must be a degree of self-reflection and internalisation that is fundamental to a sense of patriotism. Ultimately, these are the moments, the sensations the girls were hinting at. But to suggest that they are nationalistic is unfortunately just plain wrong.