At dawn, I pedaled hard for five kilometres to the Nathan Street bridge, and then home again, thinking of the beacon shining at the end of what would be long and intense day of writing. That beacon was a date with Vilis to see the newly released Australian movie Beneath Hill 60: The Silent War, which was filmed entirely in the Townsville area. Saturday’s edition of the Townsville Bulletin had whetted our appetites with a spread of articles related to the movie, which highlighted the role the 1st Australian Tunnelling Division, a unit of miners and engineers, had played in blowing up a strategic position held by Germany in Belgium during World War I.1
I’m not a big fan of war movies, but Beneath Hill 60 was like no other war movie I’ve ever seen. Focussing on the role played by Lieutenant and then Captain Oliver Woodward (whose memoirs were the springboard for the movie1), it led me into the world of the silent, underground battles being fought while aboveground battles raged. Both the Allied and German forces employed tunnelling and set explosives beneath enemy positions, and Woodward, a mining engineer and metallurgist portrayed by Brendan Cowell, signed up for duty and stepped into a command position with the 1st Australian Tunnelling Division in 1916. Portrayed as a strong but unassuming man, Woodward gained the trust and affection of his unit while making hard decisions in a war where the tunnellers sometimes appeared to be pawns of the military elite.
The story was filmed with breathtaking honesty – the dark, claustrophobic depths of the shafts and tunnels, the fear shown by terrified teenaged boys, both Australian and German, caught in the horrors of war, the courage of men in the face of death, the adrenaline-filled intensity of listening for the sound of the enemy tunnelling nearby. Flashbacks to Queensland and Woodward’s blossoming relationship with Marjorie Waddell, the sister of his best friend who died at Gallipoli, presented an utter contrast. They were lit with sun and gentle humour, with pathos, and with the beauty of everyday life and love. We saw plenty of action, too – explosions, enemy fire, creeping behind the lines – but the heart of the movie was its riveting attention to the personal responses made by the tunnellers to the soul-piercing demands of their task. Beneath Hill 60 is a good movie that deserves to be seen throughout the world. Well done, Screen Australia and Townsville.
Reference:
1. Rachel Toune. ‘Tunnellers the heroes.’ Townsville Bulletin, Saturday, April 17, 2010. p. 6.
