World War II in the Cinema of Green Continent

Abstract

Despite its remote location from the major theatre of operations, Australia participated in the war siding with the Anti-German Coalition from the outbreak of World War II up to it’s end. Naturally, this impacted upon economic, social and cultural life of the country. The war was broadly covered by the Australian filmmakers and took a significant place in Australian cinema. For Australia World War II began on September 3rd, 1939. A million of Australian men and women fought against Germany in 19391945. Talking of the war theme in the Australian cinema, one should firstly pay tribute to the memory of dozens of Australian cameramen sent to the World War front alongside with soldiers, who covered the events in the newsreels. As for feature filmmakers, they were not able to cover the war due to poor production funding. Only after “resuscitation” of the national filmmaking in 1970s Australian filmmakers got an opportunity of shooting a number of interesting films dedicated to the events that had taken place seventy years ago. The theme of World War II was covered in many films. A lot of the best national filmmakers paid tribute to it, ranging from Brendan Maher’s Sisters of War (2010) with its unprecedented harsh and truthful depiction of the role of Australian women in the war, to Jonathan Teplitzky’s The Railway Man (2013), based on the bestselling autobiography of Eric Lomax (co-produced with Great Britain). The relevance of this article and its innovative contribution comes down to proof, that, although the number of films dedicated to World War II is relatively limited, their quality is extremely high and noteworthy. It’s also noteworthy, that Australian filmmakers have brought back in the viewers’ minds the heroism of their fathers and forefathers, thus paying tribute to the memory of those who saved the world from Nazism seventy years ago.