With the release of the first-world-war film Gallipoli in 1981, director Peter Weir could finally shrug off the nickname he had laboured under since making his first films: “Peter Weird”.
Idiosyncratic work like Homesdale (1971), The Cars That Ate Paris (1974), and the deeply atmospheric, metaphysical dramas Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and The Last Wave (1977) had earned Weir a reputation for making quirky, mysterious, genre-bending films. His gift for creating mood and atmosphere at times overwhelmed his concern with linear narrative.
This tendency seemed to change quite consciously with Gallipoli. Weir has said the inspiration for the story came from a trip to Anzac Cove in 1976. Flying back to Australia from London, he took a detour to Turkey. At the Gallipoli Peninsula, walking in still-extant trenches, Weir found not just shrapnel and bullet-casings, but also the personal effects of young soldiers. These tiny mementos poking out of the earth were probably the final objects held by some young men before they died.