Offensive

Rating: 1/10 (29 March 2015)

The Water Diviner is about a man who travels to eastern Thrace and Anatolia after the Battle of Gallipoli to try and find his three missing sons. The premise of an Australian wandering around western Anatolia in 1920-21 is itself incredulous. The story deals (in part) with the Anzac prisoners-of-war of the Ottoman Empire in World War One. The Water Diviner paints indigenous Anatolia Hellenes as barbaric invaders, at one point being labeled "Satan's army" by one character. Surviving Anzac prisoners recorded how Hellenes assisted their survival – and in some cases, their escape. The danger of this and other similar films that claim to be "inspired by actual events" is that because Crowe is a famous actor, his words are taken as being authoritative. His film may be treated as actual history. The Water Diviner is a film that will undoubtedly offend the descendants of numerous victims and should therefore be condemned. Russell Crowe's film is a distortion of history.