I'm not really sure how to weight my two different opinions of Gallipoli. Essentially, the battle is viewed from two perspectives, that of the rank and file soldiers, and that of the commanders and political elites.
The strong point is the latter portions of the miniseries, where it tells the interesting story of how the futile struggle was allowed to go on so long and of the journalistic hero, Ellis Bartlett, who succeeded in ending it. It manages a complex portrayal of the character of General Hamilton, an honorable and likable man whose primary flaw seems to have been in not realizing when he was wrong.
The portion telling of the actual battle was the weakest - it's very solidly an anti-war film, or at the very least an anti-battle of Gallipoli film, which isn't exactly a controversial position. But its militant intent on robbing the conflict of all its glory, both through grim depictions of its most repellent aspects and its dreamlike interruptions of the most tense moments with flashbacks to a childhood romance, make these sections a slog. I can see this treatment succeeding in a film-length portrayal, but in a miniseries I found it tedious and repetitive.
The strong point is the latter portions of the miniseries, where it tells the interesting story of how the futile struggle was allowed to go on so long and of the journalistic hero, Ellis Bartlett, who succeeded in ending it. It manages a complex portrayal of the character of General Hamilton, an honorable and likable man whose primary flaw seems to have been in not realizing when he was wrong.
The portion telling of the actual battle was the weakest - it's very solidly an anti-war film, or at the very least an anti-battle of Gallipoli film, which isn't exactly a controversial position. But its militant intent on robbing the conflict of all its glory, both through grim depictions of its most repellent aspects and its dreamlike interruptions of the most tense moments with flashbacks to a childhood romance, make these sections a slog. I can see this treatment succeeding in a film-length portrayal, but in a miniseries I found it tedious and repetitive.