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Reviews
Gallipoli from Above (2012)
Excellent
'A thoroughly absorbing new documentary in which former military intelligence officer Hugh Dolan attempts to overturn some common misconceptions about the 1915 Gallipoli landing. "If we're going to have a myth, an Anzac myth, let's get it right," he tells the camera. Fighting words indeed. The documentary, based on Dolan's book 36 Days, says the landing was planned by Australian officers, not British ones; that it took place at night, not in daylight; and that casualties were initially light. Perhaps the most interesting parts are the ones in which Dolan lays out the prelude to the landing. He does a good job of explaining the strategic importance of the Dardanelles; the reconnaissance flights that enabled Australian planners to build up a 3D map of the Gallipoli Peninsula; and of the role played by British diplomat-turned-spy Clarence Palmer.' Sydney Morning Herald
'Former military intelligence analyst Hugh Dolan sets out to overturn what he says is a myth. It is fascinating viewing.' Herald Sun
Revealing Gallipoli (2005)
'The tone is poetic and elegiac.
'The tone is poetic and elegiac. A complex appropriately brooding meditation about nationhood, morality, loss and politics. Fimeri works with a poetic restraint, he builds a rhythm that is the heartbeat of the experience, a kind of stream of consciousness in which one image, or thought, evokes another in the patch of tortured land where the legends began.' —
The Australian
'On television, history is no longer just history; it is 'living history'. The story of Gallipoli, though inherently dramatic, was brought vividly to life. One thing that television history can do with some effort, and which this documentary did well, is to give the sense of a mindset of a time. At times it was a little like a Shakespeare play.' —
Irish Times
'On the eve of the annual observance of defeat made glorious by heroes, this his conspicuously honest film is a detailed, absorbing chronicle, a compelling examination of the Gallipoli campaign.' —
Sydney Morning Herald. Show of the week
'It is impossible not to get caught up in the raw emotion of this story and wonder at the callousness of the high command and the bravery of their men. This is a brilliant compilation of a battle featuring both sides of the conflict. The canvas for this story is massive and the writer has brilliantly brought the drama into sharp focus to capture a depth of heroism and the tragedy on both sides. The narration is particularly fine.' —
Queensland Premiers Literary Awards
A marvelous documentary that captures the gravity of the tragedy with intelligence and a gratifying lack of parochialism. Unlike many contemporary military documentaries that seek to bring alive their subjects by resorting to empty re-enactments and computer generated trickery, Revealing Gallipoli has the confidence to rely on well grounded research and the power of the spoken word. A fine televisual achievement.' —
The Age
'This docudrama script demonstrates the writer's ability to delve into our nation's history and present us with an imaginative interpretation of events that is resoundingly authoritative. The story of Gallipoli has been told countless times, to the point where it has been etched into our national psyche. But what really happened? What were the disastrous and often insane decisions that led to this tragedy? Who were the soldiers that paid the ultimate price for this folly? What did they think, what did they feel, what did they understand about what was happening? These and many other questions are explored and answered in Wain Fimeri's innovative work.' —
The Village Roadshow Prize for Screen Writing
Pozieres (2000)
'This remarkable film, an ugly, horrifying story, brilliantly and simply reconstructed.' — Show of the Week, Sydney Morning Herald
'This remarkable film, an ugly, horrifying story, brilliantly and simply reconstructed.' —
Show of the Week, Sydney Morning Herald
'It is a masterpiece, pulling off the remarkable achievement of instilling a tragically humanized reality into a distant war and a near forgotten tragedy.' Marrying newsreel footage, photographs,a brilliantly researched narration and finely acted vignette style re creation of soldiers at the Western Front and their loved ones at home, this moving documentary offers viewers a real taste of a ridiculous battle. This is a great film.' —
The Herald Sun
'Gone are the days of dull, staid documentaries. Today, the good ones rival film for creative storytelling and presentation. One such documentary is Pozieres.' —
West Australian
'Pozieres is a remarkable docudrama that takes us to the tiny village of Pozieres in Northern France, drenched with Australian blood in 1916 during one of the bloodiest battles of the Western Front. Australia suffered 23,000 casualties - the 1st Australian Division lost 5,000 men in three days and Pozieres was turned to powder and blown away. The style of Pozieres brings to life a well-worn historical subject for a contemporary television audience. Scripted and narrated in the present tense, using diggers personal letters and diaries, the camera takes us on a journey from the point of view of 'witnesses' to the tragedy and the horror of war. Using this inventive camera style, diggers are interviewed and questioned about their experiences before and after battle, filmed as though they are protagonists for our nightly news. It's an honest account of both fear and bravery.' —
NSW Premier's History Awards
Captain Cook: Obsession and Discovery (2007)
Gripping stuff.' — Daily Telegraph
'One problem with learning about history in the school room is that many incredible feats are reduced to dates and basic details. If only all tales were recounted like Captain James Cook's in this fantastic four-part documentary. Gripping stuff.' —
Daily Telegraph
The program removes Cook from the comfort zones customarily created for him and shows him as both a brilliant but flawed and driven man. He left an extraordinary legacy in scientific terms. This was effected by dedication to his purpose and his duty which overrode the demands of his personal health and safety leading ultimately to his death. As it is interesting to the scholar as well as to the neophyte, Captain Cook: obsession and discovery sets a new standard for a well- researched history which is vivid, exciting and accessible.' —
NSW Premier's History awards
'THUMBS UP! Narrator Vanessa Collingridge manages to draw the viewer into this majestic journey with her bountiful enthusiasm.' —
Sydney Morning Herald
'An intriguing examination of the way technology, society and the man's own talents combined to produce a figure who, quite literally, changed the world.' —
Sunday Age
'It's a lively presentation of history supported with good vision of the exotic scenes Cook encountered: tropical orgies, New Zealand cannibals and hip-throbbing Tahitian dancers.' —
Weekend Australian
"Must See TV' —
Daily Telegraph
'The location work in Yorkshire, Canada, New Zealand, Tahiti, Hawaii and Australia is wondrous to see.' —
Sydney Morning Herald, Show of the Week
'This enthralling documentary carefully balances the insights and narrative of British author Vanessa Collingridge and re-enactments of Cook's expeditions without interfering with the enthralling story that unfolds.' —
Sydney Morning Herald
'5 Stars!' —
Time Out Magazine
Love Letters from a War (2003)
'This stunning documentary is illuminating and devastating.' — Sydney Morning Herald
'This stunning documentary is illuminating and devastating.' —
Sydney Morning Herald
'This is a love story of heartbreaking intensity. A docu-drama drawn largely from letters exchanged during World War II by John and Josie Johnson, the screenplay traces the lives of this couple who meet, fall deeply in love and are devoted to each other and their eight children, but who are then separated by war when John joins the army and finds himself at Tobruk. The letters are their only link, often taking months to arrive. It is not only the family which is vividly recreated here, the screenplay captures time and place in the minutiae of rural and domestic life and John's experiences in the army. The letters are candid, full of feeling, humor and incidental detail, but it is Wain Fimeri's command of story-telling that draws them together to create an absorbing narrative that is passionate while never descending into mawkishness or sentimentality. It is about war and its impact: love, loss and grief experienced at a deeply personal level, as well as at the level of a community, and a country still in the process of finding an identity. It is both a celebration and a work of mourning. ' —
The Village Roadshow Prize for Screen Writing
'A uniquely Australian tale of enduring passion, this beautifully blended part documentary, part drama, told with such gentle poignancy that it will linger with you for some time after.' —
Advertiser
'It's a simple spare story told with extraordinary affection. At its heart is the written word, preserved and cherished.' —
The Bulletin
'This is simply a brilliant program in terms of both its story and the way in which it is told. Recreated using archival footage and re enactments seamlessly cut together, and as a love story, it is inspirational.' —
Courier Mail
'One of the most touching love stories you're likely to see on television, exquisitely presented through a combination of archival footage and re-created events seamlessly to create a vivid, moving portrait of an era.' —
The Advertiser
Charles Bean's Great War (2010)
Wonderful
It's a wonderful story told with grace, quiet humour, and a great deal of cinematic skill. The tall, skinny, rather quaint journalist, with his russet hair and clerical manner, was known to the troops as "Captain Carrot, the war correspondent". He was an unlikely figure amid the carnage of that war, "a battle born of ambition in high places that ends in low slaughter"; bravely stalking the trenches in pursuit of what eventually became a mountain of facts. Never without his faithful Corona typewriter, his brass telescope and blank diaries, Bean recorded the war like no other. He revolutionised official war histories, writing democratically, emphasising not generals but soldiers in the front line, leaving us an honest and highly detailed account. This film is slightly more linear than Fimeri's remarkable earlier Revealing Gallipoli, though he again juxtaposes interviews with a round table of distinguished war historians, voice-over narration (here nicely presented by actress Nadine Garner), and archival footage. It's more of a filmic biography, with Bean beautifully played by Nick Farnell and his wife Ellie by Margot Knight. And on a small budget, with typically inventive and arresting camera-work by director of photography James Grant, Fimeri delivers an elegiac and thoroughly arresting portrait of one of our great writers. As he always does, Fimeri works in a kind of speculative reverie; always alert for what literary critic Peter Steele, writing about biography, once called "riddle, quizzicality and quirk". And like a biographer, Fimeri sees his job as winkling out the truth: one of interpretation, selection and conjuring a terrific story.
Graeme Blundell, The Australian
'His life is retold with admirable artistry and succinctness through terrific understated narration, (provided by Nadine Garner); and excellent re-enactments. The result is a wonderfully compact, complex and textured examination of one of the most quietly influential men in Australian history.' —
Critic's Choice, Pick of the Week, Sunday Age