War myths

Still from *Danger Close*. Photo: Saban Fims

Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan
Kriv Stenders (director)
Saboteur Media, Red Dune Films, Deeper Water Films: 2019
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In August 2016, a diplomatic kerfuffle broke out between Australia and Vietnam. The eighteenth of that month was the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan, Australia’s most famous battle of the Vietnam War, in which 108 Australians and New Zealanders fought off some 1,000 to 2,500 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers in a rubber plantation. The battle had escalated during a concert by teenagepop star Little Pattie at the Nui Dat operations base, in South Vietnam. So, for the anniversary, Australians planned a re-creation of that pop concert, filmed for broadcast back home — along with a gala dinner and the visit of more than a thousand Australians to a memorial cross at Long Tan.

That event was cancelled at the last minute by Vietnamese authorities, who had requested that activities be low-key and sombre, without any military uniforms or regalia. The Australian response was furious. Eventually it was agreed that small groups could pass through to the Long Tan cross during the day. Yet the resentment lingered among Australians, who felt that access had been unfairly restricted to the site of their national trauma, regardless of what it means to others.

The same attitude permeates Danger Close, a high-budget film that re-creates the Long Tan battle. Travis Fimmel stars as the no-nonsense Major Harry Smith, whose discipline and decisiveness see his platoon of mostly young conscripts through the ordeal. Its producer, Martin Walsh, co-produced a re-enactment documentary in 2006, in deliberate preparation for the feature film. Danger Close treats the historical events with more artistic licence, and introduces a fictional personal drama between Smith and one of his conscripts, Private Paul Large (Daniel Webber). This plot line — carried out with flat, folksy dialogue — has the cheeky Large clash repeatedly with the hardened soldier Smith, until they reconcile in the heat of battle.

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