Kokoda Front Line!

Renowned Australian wartime photographer Damien Parer provides a brief piece to camera at the start of this feature that would have been shown in Australian cinemas, reminding the population at home that they ought to stop whining about some minor inconveniences and appreciate just what those of the 2nd AIF were enduring deep amidst the New Guinea jungle. The film then goes on to illustrate precisely that as his camera tracks these troops foraging through a dense and hostile territory that provides ideal camouflage for snipers and trip wires as well as more naturally forbidding obstacles. This film benefits from being up close and personal with the soldiers in situ. We see them being drenched by torrential rain, crawling painstakingly through the undergrowth and carried on stretchers by local bearers whose bravery is no less significant than that of those in uniform (though the commentary might use some terms that we wouldn’t appreciate nowadays). Unlike so many propaganda features, this one actually takes the brutality and effects of the South East Asian theatre of war straight to the viewer, and short as this is, it’s lack of overt politicising and focus on what we can see works powerfully.