Hacksaw Ridge

Mel Gibson’s new film Hacksaw Ridge has been nominated for 13 Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards (AACTA). Like Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, Hacksaw Ridge features a roll call of well- known Aussie actors.

Hacksaw Ridge tells the incredible, but true story of Desmond Doss. He was an American farm boy and conscientious objector who resolved to never, ever touch a weapon. Despite this, he enlisted in the army and as a medic saved the lives of scores of men on a World War II battlefield. He received the US Medal of Honour for his bravery and was the first conscientious objector to receive it.

This story of American heroes, heroism and heroics is told with all the attendant American storytelling techniques required for it to be commercially successful in America.

It’s the story of an individual who overcomes his humble and difficult beginnings through his faith in his god and country. His principles are so strong he can withstand ostracism, and even violence from his peers and superiors. He will not back down when the Army bureaucracy tries to break him, or when his sweetheart pleads with him to take the path of less resistance. When he is finally tested on the battlefield, his belief in what’s good and what’s right sees him overcome obstacles of Biblical proportions. When he comes down from the mountain (or in this case, a ridge) those who doubted him now hold him in awe and even reverence.

Gibson, an American raised in Australia, directs Hacksaw Ridge with the confidence and skill you expect of Hollywood legend. The camera sweeps, the score swells, the dialogue is economical and effective but breaks into lump-in-throat lyrical when Desmond’s (Andrew Garfield) faith in himself is tested to the limit. In these moments he speaks to the sky as smoke, ash and dark cloud billow behind as if they’ve been choreographed by God himself.

The film is divided into two parts. The first tells of Desmond’s childhood, his traumatised and alcoholic father (Hugo Weaving), his tightly wound and put upon mother (Rachel Griffiths). An incident with his brother exorcises any self-doubt and sets the course of his life which includes his pursuit of his wholesomely gorgeous sweetheart (Teresa Palmer) and his dedication to serve the war effort by saving, rather than taking lives.

In the second half, Gibson violently changes course to unleash an orgy of bloodshed, gore and death. It’s horrible, unrelenting and effective. Technically, it’s pretty astonishing as body parts spin and splatter and headless corpses act as shields from the Japanese who rise from their burrows like rats. It works dramatically too, as its killing fields’ camera work focuses on Doss and the fate of the prickly fellow soldiers we met in the lighter, first half of the film — these include Vince Vaughn and Sam Worthington as his superiors.

Click here for the full movie trailer.