Review: Before Dawn – Over there

Directed by Jordon Prince-Wright
Starring Levi Miller, Travis Jeffrey, Myles Pollard 

6.5/10

Disenchanted with his life on a farm, Jim (Levi Miller) signs up with friends for the Great War. However, once he is in the French trenches, he rapidly learns that the war is different from the tales he’d heard in Western Australia and very far from over.

As a director, Jordon Prince-Wright (The Decadent and Depraved) has previously proven that he can turn a modest budget into the look of a spectacular period piece. This time with Before Dawn, he brings us to the trenches of the European theatre of World War One. It drenches us in the atmosphere of excitement, hope, resignation, and fear that the troops experienced. Audiences find themselves in a labyrinth of mud and barbed wire, a world where explosions and shots ring out at a moment’s notice. All of which was made here in Western Australia.

Most of the film keeps the shot up close, giving us a good sense of the claustrophobic feel of the environment. Even when they go over the top, our vision is limited by smoke, darkness, or shelling, giving us a taste of the fog of war. The only time Prince-Wright breaks from this are the few glimpses we get behind the lines or for the big push at the end where we can be given a scale of things, be it a field of troops laid out for makeshift triage or a mad assault on a machine gun nest.

Narratively, Before Dawn hits the expected beats for the subject matter. We see a naive excitement broken by the horrors of trench warfare and forged into comradery and grim determination. Inspired by events taken from ANZAC diaries, it’s commendable that they haven’t strayed far from the source material, even if the characters are fictitious. However, the result is that Before Dawn relies more on its ability to convey a sense of place than deliver an original narrative. It’s fine, conveying a solid story, but it doesn’t break the mould.

Levi Miller (Pan, Jasper Jones) makes a serviceable point-of-view character. Initially, he starts as somewhat sullen, chaffing at the confines of his farming life, but it’s something his character never really shakes. However, it’s Myles Pollard (Danger Close, Jasper Jones) who steals the show as a jaded sergeant. He even gets his own Kilgore moment as he calmly looks around at the shells falling around him before slowly lowering himself to the ground.

A solid addition to the list of Australian war films, Before Dawn puts us in the muddy boots of the diggers in France.

DAVID O’CONNELL