A father's search for his lost sons

The Water Diviner
English (U/A) Cast: Russell Crowe, Olga Kurylenko, Yilmaz Erdoğan

The horrors and emotions that a soldier goes through in battle can only be imagined by those who have not experienced it. It is easier to feel sympathetic towards the war-stricken than for the people who sent men to the battlefield.

The Water Diviner, Russell Crowe’s directorial debut, is a film about how war separates a father from his three sons; at least that’s how it was projected. Joshua Connor (Russell Crowe), an Australian, goes in search for his three boys who went missing in the Gallipoli battle during World War I.

There are, no doubt, heart-wrenching moments when it comes to this side of the story: flashbacks of happier times when Connor had his whole family to take care of and others of the three boys, in all their innocence, being gripped by the clutches of battle.

Empathising with such sentiments is difficult for most of us and if this was all that made up the film, it would only have turned out to be depressing and gory.

But fortunately enough, The Water Diviner brings more perspective. It depicts what people go through while blurring the lines between ally and enemy countries. How families on either side of the battlefield feel the pain of losing their loved ones, irrespective of whether their country won or lost. Turkish Major Hassan (Yilmaz Erdoğan), who decides to help Connor recover the bodies of his sons in the “one big grave” that is Gallipoli, is definitely the character to watch out for in this film.

While Connor, ravaged by the loss of his sons, strikes a good balance with Turkish widow Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko) who finds all her happiness in her son, Major Hassan brings out an element of the story that war movies don’t otherwise have.

In all, the film is a brilliant directorial debut for anyone, especially if the director is acting in it too. The visuals from cinematographer Andrew Lensie are breathtaking, with Turkey being made out to be pristinely beautiful and gruesomely repulsive, sometimes simultaneously.

The one big take-away from The Water Diviner is that though goodbyes are inevitable, they need not always be permanent.