Kokoda Front Line!

Kokoda Front Line! (1942)

*** (out of 4)

This Australian film was one of four pictures to get a Best Documentary Oscar in 1942, the first year of the category. Damien Parer was the photographer who was on the front lines and shot all of this footage and while this 9-minute short shouldn't be called a masterpiece, I think it's at least fair to say it's very important from just a historical perspective. I thought that we really got some terrific footage to view here including getting to see some soldiers as they were pretty much just standing around waiting to go into battle. There are some terrific shots of the men waiting around for their orders and we get some other exciting stuff as well. The most dramatic footage actually happens early on and it's when a plane takes off and is trying to clear a hill of trees. I won't ruin what happens but it's quite an image. I think this film is mainly going to appeal to those who enjoy these older WWII shorts and there's no doubt that history buffs should get a kick out of the footage.

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.

Propaganda newsreel shot by the Australian war correspondent Damien Parer (who was to die later at the battle of Peleliu) in the Territory of Papua during the Kokoda Trail Campaign in 1942, narrated by the actor Peter Bathurst (Glory at Sea) and broadcast by the producer Ken G. Hall (The Silence of Dean Maitland) for the Cinesound Review "Voice of Australia" program.

The documentary begins with Parer's warning for carefree rear citizens about a war now very close to an Australia "in peril". Then it continues with scenes of this "uncanny jungle warfare", a "vital part in the Pacific conflict", against a Japanese enemy "master of camouflage and deception", "highly trained, disciplined and brave". Views of airplane supply, shootings and injured soldiers pay tribute to the "fine and tough troops" of a proud Australia, "fighting day and night under extremely difficult conditions", with "a rain monotonously falling every day as if the clouds had burst", while Wagner's Götterdämmerung finale music accompanies the screening.

Papuan natives are praised on their side for their "care and consideration for the wounded", helping to carry them. Parer concludes by calling the "ordinary civilians" to give the suffering fighters "all the support they deserve" in order to "go ahead with the job of licking the enemy". Raw footage for a double runtime are also available online on the Australian War Memorial collection.

The first Australian production to win an Academy Award focuses on a platoon in New Guinea. Viewers nowadays will notice the casual use of racial slurs in reference to the Japanese, and a patronizing focus on the New Guineans. Aside from that, "Kokoda Front Line!" will be of interest to history buffs as a time capsule. I had never heard of Damien Parer before watching this, but it sounds as though he did a lot of important work during WWII (he fell victim to Japanese forces in 1944). The fact remains that no person who hasn't served in combat can truly know what it's like; we get only get a sense from the footage.

It's worth seeing as long as we understand the dated content. Another New Guinea-set documentary that I recommend is "The Sky Above - the Mud Below", which also won an Academy Award.