Well done Russell Crowe

Rating: 9/10 (4 April 2015)

4 April 2015 Film of Choice at The Plaza Dorchester Tonight - The Water Diviner. Directed by, and starring Russell Crowe, this is the story of an Australian farmer who makes a graveside promise to his wife that he will travel to Turkey and find their missing sons. Joining up together, all three boys fought side by side at the Battle of Gallipoli. History tells us after major battles like this, many fallen men on both sides are lost to the earth, nobody knows whose sons they may be and graves remain unnamed or even unmarked. Slow to start, this is not so much a tale of war, but the aftermath. It is a tale of of a man's desperation to find the truth, but his story is a basis for all the the stories to come out of the horrors of war. Russell Crowe did a good job with this, both in his acting and his directing. The film did not shy away from the distressing scenes brought about by the destruction of battle, but what we saw was essential to the story and set everything in place to direct our attention the the search made by a Father for his sons. Beautifully filmed with some very unusual camera angles from the outset, I felt immediately drawn into the scenes, whether the grand vistas of the Australian Outback or the crowded, smoky souks of Constantinople. A sobering tale, but a story that must be told.