War is a snore

Big-budget Canadian epic
Passchendaele is earnest and stilted

PASSCHEN-DULL: Passchendaele

by MARK SLUTSKY

It is, they’ve been telling us, a major Canadian cinema event. An Event, really. With a budget somewhere in the $20-million range, Passchendaele is a huge film by Canadian standards, and it’s being rolled out with all sorts of pomp and circumstance: opening film at the Toronto International Film Festival, a great big marketing campaign. They’re doing everything they can to keep up with the Hollywood juggernauts, but despite that all, I’d be surprised if the majority of the Canadian moviegoing public has even heard of the movie. That’s half the tragedy of the Canadian film industry.

The other half is that the most highly touted Canadian films, especially the ones that aim to compete with Hollywood, are just no damn good. And as much as I’d like to champion a big national production at this crucial moment for arts funding in this country, there’s no reason to get behind Passchendaele for any reason beyond the most parochial.

Directed by Paul Gross, the film is set during WWI, and also stars Gross as Michael Dunne, a Canadian soldier who, after seeing serious action in Europe, returns to Calgary shell-shocked, working in the local recruiting office. There he falls for a pretty nurse (Caroline Dhavernas) with an insecure, asthmatic younger brother (Joe Dinicol). Dinicol is pressured by his fiancée’s father to enlist, and Gross follows him to the battlefield of the film’s title, looking to protect the lad for his ladyfriend’s sake.

Passchendaele starts out as a war movie of sorts, before turning into a drawn-out love story, and then returning to the battlefield. But it doesn’t really work as either. Both elements feel stilted and unconvincing, like a bad made-for-TV miniseries. It’s old-fashioned, but the film doesn’t seem to be aware of its archaic, earnest storytelling: not a fun throwback by any means.

Some humour from the director of Men With Brooms might have been a good counterpoint to Passchendaele’s self-seriousness. The film’s ridiculous imagery—the central motif is a Canadian soldier inadvertently crucified by mortar fire—is so deeply ponderous as to be unintentionally funny. It’s unclear who Passchendaele is meant for or how it was ever intended to find an audience, beyond the high school history students it’s certain to bore for years to come

PASSCHENDAELE OPENS THIS
FRIDAY, OCT. 17