Guest Blog post by: Dr. Pat Brennan Fellow, Centre for Military and Strategic Studies University of Calgary

Critics seem to be stumbling over one another in their attempts to find meaning in Passchendaele, and if they don’t find what they want, or don’t understand what they find, then to give meaning to it. So very convenient, that. Thus, reviews are full of allusions to misplaced Christian allegory on the battlefield or the plumbing of soldierly motives (with a spontaneous “ceasefire” to honour selfless sacrifice being rather more comforting than sinking a bayonet into a teenager’s forehead in a moment of rage). Add stereotypes of scheming upper classes lusting to fight the war for King and Empire to the last working man, the frightened shamed into enlisting by those who can stay home, bigoted oafs wrapped in the flag, and for good measure, the de rigeur Colonel Blimp recently arrived from the Mother Country who, finally revealed as a coward, meets a deserved end in the trenches. Maybe it’s just all about Afghanistan? Or a pale copy of Hemingway with maples leaves and beavers appended for local colour?

In fact the movie is rarely being seen for what it is. Passchendaele exploits “myth” to be sure, but myth in the cultural sense, the mixing of fact with belief to explain the past to the present. As for the many historical allusions in the movie, ironically they would resonate more strongly with the WWI generation portrayed than with the typical Canadian movie-goer.

Passchendaele is a timeless story of love and faith and endurance – two good souls broken and then brought together by war. It has an adequate share of villains and heroes, stunning scenery, and sufficient action and gore to shock and appall the video generation. In other words, apparently a war movie comme les autres. But it also happens to be based on a true story, one faithfully portrayed as unabashedly Canadian.

It is here where the movie excels - in by and large portraying that time as it was, uncomfortable and alien - and not just as we would like to see it. Not every contemporary Canadian will like the message, but Passchendaele can only try – whether it succeeds is up to us. For Canadians, absorbing the essence of this movie will require work.

The combat scenes are strikingly accurate, but the quagmire of the battlefield, while remarkable, is the least of it. By war’s end, forty percent of the lieutenants commanding infantry platoons in the Canadian Corps were, like Sgt Dunne would have been had he survived the day, battle-tested sergeants promoted from the ranks. Soldiers followed Dunne because they trusted his judgement, and because he led from the front, willingly sharing their risks and fate. In the grim world of kill or be killed, Canadian soldiers were a resigned lot, more than a tad cynical, and executed the enemy with relish. They endured terror and despair because they loved someone back home, were paying a moral debt, or didn’t want to let down buddies in their shell hole. And yes, most believed in elements of the cause, too. They voluntarily enlisted for a variety of reasons (no Canadian conscripts reached the trenches until mid-1918), not the least because of promises made, the search for revenge, a desire to escape demons, and love. Most Canadian soldiers suffered what today we’d call PTSD, but, like Sgt Dunne, somehow managed to carry on. They were turned into savages, but not dehumanized. Inappropriate Christian imagery – the young soldier “crucified” on the shattered duckboard, and Dunne dragging it across no man’s land. Really? Awareness, if not always the practice, of Christian culture pervaded the war generation in ways our secular Canadian world can only struggle to grasp. Historians tell us the image of the suffering (and innocent) Christ on the cross was probably the most pervasive element of the Great War Canadian soldier’s world view – a potent explanation of his own misfortune and, along with dry matches, one of his few comforts.

If Passchendaele’s portrayal of the Canadian soldier in a Canadian war rings true, then what of the portrayal of the home front? Bigotry masked in patriotism was all too real. So was sacrifice and grief and the grim despair of plodding on because turning back was unthinkably painful. There is a greyness and physical shabbiness to life that rings true for 1917. There is also hypocrisy in abundance, much naivete and a great deal of quiet courage on display, as was true of the time.

In assessing what Passchendaele is about, we face a daunting obstacle. The truth is we are today so far removed from war – surely more men are killed from a single battalion and a supporting, under strength company in the final 20 minutes of the movie than our losses in Afghanistan and all the peace-keeping operations combined – that we can’t grasp it as a normal part of life. When Sgt Dunne opines philosophically that we’re good at war because we do it a lot, and we do it a lot because we’re good at it, his generation, and their children who fought the Second World War, would have only nodded knowingly at its self-evident truth in their lives. The Great War generation wouldn’t recognize our interpretation of their time anymore than they could ours. The movie acknowledges this, does justice to them to a remarkable degree, and leaves it to us to try to understand them on their terms, which is as it should be. The supposed historical weaknesses of the film speak more of our own incomprehension of a profoundly different time and our self-centered obsession with “currentism” as well as the bottomless depths of our ignorance of our own national history.

Like all good historical fiction, Passchendaele utilizes history to attract our attention and tell us something meaningful – dare I say true – about our collective past, and utilizes the mechanism of the eternal human condition to forge the link. It is a love story taking place in a war, not a war story with love added on. More importantly, it’s our Canadian story, and because of that its greatest “gift” will be its capacity to reach – and teach – Canadians who otherwise wouldn’t have known the story at all. Well done, Mr. Gross.