Release: Now showing
Running time: 122 minutes
Rating: M (mature themes, violence and coarse language)

Beneath Hill 60, actor-turned-director Jeremy Hartley Sims’ follow-up to his well-received thriller Last Train to Freo, is a affectionate tribute to the unsung Aussie heroes who worked underneath the battlefields of the Great War. Sims (who is better known as a performer in Idiot Box and Channel Seven’s ”Home and Away”) aims high with his sophomore effort behind the camera and- even if it does not quite reach its admirably lofty goals as a modern Gallipoli- it still a remarkably sincere effort to chronicle the bravery of our war heroes.

In 1916, miner Oliver Woodward (Noise and “Love My Way” star Brendan Cowell) is sent to the front lines in Belgium just as he has found the love of his life in Queensland. Captain Woodward and his team are charged with the task of digging beneath German territory to blast their enemies with high-impact detonations.

Although Beneath Hill 60 is a tale of sacrifice-in-the-name-of-a-greater-good, brotherhood-in-the-face-of-war and love-beyond-age-and-boundaries, Sims’ film tells this combat story from an unexpected perspective, showing the experiences of an experienced miner, not a soldier. As much as the filmmakers show some very graphic images of soldiers and miners facing certain death, the film tells a more human story than simple carnage and gore in the battlefield, focusing on the miner’s extreme claustrophobia and stress. At a Q&A session after the screening, Will Davies- author of the source material- commented that the real life trenches and tunnels were often claustrophobic death-traps for the soldiers and miners: “we’re talking about incredibly confined and awfully scary places. The men couldn’t swing a pick. They couldn’t breathe. You saw the candles go out; that was common. The air was rank. The water seeped completely through the walls. The walls move.” In this respect, director Sims made a fine decision in contrasting the dark, gloomy hopelessness of the Belgium frontlines with the bright glow of outback Queensland, helping to illuminate Woodward’s compassion and humanity.

The performances in Beneath Hill 60 help add to the film’s authenticity. Cowell is credible as the stoic Woodward- like Harrison Gilbertson’s Frank Tiffin- he contrasts moments of infallibility and fear with bravery and conscience in the face of battle- and he is supported by believable performances from the supporting cast, including Gyton Grantley (“Underbelly”, Balibo), Steve Le Marquand (Last Train to Freo, Two Hands), Anthony Hayes (Suburban Mayhem) and Jacqueline McKenzie (Romper Stomper).

At the Q&A session, Cowell commented on the importance of the multi-million dollar production’s sense of authenticity and reverence for the people and the time period. He tells “when Jeremy issued me the role, he said, you know, “Just basically read as much as you possibly can”, so that’s what I went and did. I had access to the diaries […] which was really helpful. Even though the diaries were mostly about different types of clay, wood and approaches to drainage, I still manage to find out a little bit about the man.”

This tense and sometimes scary illuminates a forgotten, but very important, part of Australian history, bringing this key incident in World War 1 back to the fore of our cultural heritage.

Ching Choo

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