Blank Check with Griffin & David - Gallipoli with Jennifer Kent

Episode Date: March 29, 2026

This week, we are honored to welcome Australian filmmaker Jennifer Kent to the podcast as we discuss Peter Weir's devastating classic Gallipoli. In addition to bringing much needed context on the history of Australian cinema, this episode also delves into the significance of the Gallipoli Campaign in the Aussie national consciousness, the undersung career of actor Mark Lee, and the genius of Peter Weir's approach to telling this story. Plus, we get to ask Jennifer about her role in Babe: Pig in the City AND we ask her to tell her buddy Justin Kurzel how much Ben loves his Assassin's Creed movie. Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From a place you've never heard of. A podcast you'll never forget. Okay, for a guest, just for the context of what just happened. That's the tagline of the film, and he's put the word podcast in there. The American tagline. Now, I think it's an interesting marketing strategy. It's kind of a tagline saying, oh, Jesus, this is a hard one to market. From a place you've never heard of.

You're a leading way to never forget. Hey, guys, I know this title is going to make no sense to you. But if you watch the movie, you'll be happy about it after the fact. Right. You won't forget it. It's also, it's a poster that's the final image of the film. That's what's fascinating. Yes, that is, that is really bold, I thought.

It is. But it's out of context. So I guess you don't know. That's what's so interesting about it is it's not obfuscating the ending at all, but it is out of context in a way where you don't read into it. And then when the movie hits that image, it's all. twice as devastating to now understand what that image was you were looking at. But Platoon did the same thing.

And this is a movie that reminded, like, Platoon really sort of is drafting off this movie. And that's another movie where they had the final image, basically, as the poster. But basically final. This is the actual final image. Yeah, you're right. Is Platoon the year? No, it's eight years later? It's later.

It's 86. Yeah. Yeah. When I was a kid, we used to actually go to the cinema for school. school. And so this film was a film that we all went to see. This was a, like, a new release school field trip to the theater. Yes, exactly. And I, watching it again last night, which is 45 years later, I could not believe that some images were emblazoned in my soul. And one of them was that final image. Right. I remembered that. I also remembered Jack's

conversation with his uncle, you know, that stuff about racing. I wrote it down, which is, you know, what are your legs, steel springs? What are they going to do? They're going to hurl me down the track. How fast can you run as fast as a leopard? How fast are you going to run as fast as a leopard? Then let's see you do it. And I was just like, as a kid, that really got to me. You remembered it? Yes, I do. How old would you have been when you saw it? About 10. Around 10. But the thing that's so devastating for me last night is as a 10-year-old, you see a film like this and you think,

what a terrible thing that happened in our history. Yeah. You know, that's terrible. But then, you know, as a woman in my 50s looking at this and seeing nothing has changed, I just started howling. I was like, you know, seeing what just happened in Iran and knowing that the human beings, the so-called forgettable masses

are the ones that always suffer. And just to know that nothing changes, this film, it gutted me last night. And I just felt, wow, this is a masterpiece. Hard agree. Jennifer, some lore on this podcast. This is Blank Fick with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David.

It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers, such as getting to make possibly the most expensive. of Australian film made up into this point, but possibly the Road Warrior beat it by a little bit. Okay, sure, sure, sure. It was basically at that level of the industry rising to establish this is the new ceiling of what could be made. And being given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce.

Baby, we are talking about the film Gallipoli. Yes. From a place you've never heard of. Podcast, you'll never forget. Hopefully. So is Australia the place you've never heard of? of or Gallipoli? That's what I'm trying to find.

That's why the American tagline is so funny. The Australian tagline was just Peter Weir's film of Gallifoli. Okay. It was very much a sort of like, you know, this is one of our emerging filmmakers has made a film about a very important historic event in Australia. Right. I guess it sold itself more in that way. Yes.

This is a mini series on the films of Peter Weir. It's called Podnick at Hanging Cast. Our guest today, to my great excitement, is one of my favorite modern filmmaker, someone I've talked about so much. And our guest from the furthest away that we've ever had, I think. This is true. A record being broken. I think so.

I don't think we've ever had a guest from so far away, beating on to the show before. Furthest away geographically, furthest away in time. You are far ahead in the future. Yeah, it's tomorrow there. Yeah, we're a day ahead. There's like flying cars and shit around here. Because I was, our friend, Rob Shearer, our mutual friend, helped us set this up. And we were going back and forth about what days and times to throw out.

And I said, Monday, And he went, and just to clarify, by that you mean her Tuesday, right? Yeah. This is always, I'm used to it. I'm the master of, okay, so you realize I'm in the future. Right. You have to deal with this all the time. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. A day ahead, but further, you know, later in the next day, if that makes sense. But anyway. Yes. I'm here. We made. The great Jennifer Kent.

The filmmaker behind the Babadook and the Nightingale, two of my favorite movies of the last 10 years. Yeah. Well, it's more than 10 years for Babadook. It was just the 10th anniversary? It was last year was 10 years, which is sort of unbelievable to me. I often contend it is like one of the most influential films of this century. It's a wonderful film. And I, beyond just how much I love it and how exceptional I think it is, I do think there

is a ripple effect across all of horror at a studio level, at an independent level globally. Like, I do think there was a turning point in that film, and I've seen the entire language of horror change around it. Wow. Well, you know, not, not, we're not here to talk about me, but in regards to that film, it was really hard to get made, actually, because there was a big snobbery within the Australian funding systems towards horror. Right. And so I said to them, it was art house horror, and their response was, you know, you know, There's no such thing as that. But that's the way I sort of treated it. I mean, to call it elevated is it sort of, it's a disparaging term towards horror and cinema.

I think all horror is elevated because it's just pure cinema. I am 100% with you. And I have always found the elevated horror thing very backhanded. Right. It's backhanded. But the fact that you had to call it art house horror and trying to get financing to make it shows that it was before the elevated horror conversation. Yeah.

Yeah. And now I think they're like, okay, bring us your horror, you know. Right. And that's good. I'm really happy that that means that other filmmakers who really care about the genre. And there are many, there are, you know, many of them in Australia. Yes. That they can get their films made.

But even finding a way to tell what is clearly like a story that personally means a lot to you that has big ideas and big emotions and big, like, story notions to communicate that it's not just like, I'll make a horror movie because that's what can get sold. Or I'll take a different idea and I'll dress it up in horror. When I saw Babadook, it felt like the atom was split of like, oh, this is a pathway for what this genre can be. And it has felt like, I don't know. I found it entirely transformative on, like, the landscape of horror as a movie I adore.

Also, I've told the story before on the podcast, but I went to see it with my parents. And, like, 40 minutes in my mother was gasping. It was my second time seeing it. I dragged them to see it because I loved it so much. Oh, wow. And, like, 40 minutes in my mother was, like, covering her mouth with her hand. And I said, it's really scary, right? And she went, no, you don't understand.

This is the only movie I've seen that depicts what it felt like to raise you as a child. Yeah, he was, he was the little bad boy right here. Wow. Oh, well, me too. I mean, I used to like invent go-karts without breaks and, you know, send them rolling downhills with me in them. And yeah, I was pretty pretty, maybe I wasn't seeing the Babadook in every corner. But I relate. Put it that way, Griffin. I don't know if I was seeing the Babadook literally, but yes, the movie did. It certainly helped me a lot in terms of therapy. It unlocked a lot of things. Yeah, I mean, I had one guy who wrote to me and said, that he lost his dad very young and his mom raised three boys and he said he said he's an editor and he was just watching it late at night like put it on half watching it and he said that

he he was just sort of drawn in and by the end he said thank you you know this was more valuable to me than 20 years of therapy and as a filmmaker I mean that when you get that kind of I mean that's why I do it you know I've really Turn down a lot to make films that Yeah, exactly. And get a cut somehow sent back to me. But no, it means a lot to really reach people, you know.

And you never know who you're going to reach. I mean, does Peter Weir know that, you know, someone's watching his film 45 years later and just ugly crying about, you know, the messages of the film and the futilities of war. It's like,

incredible to me. What is your relationship to Weir generally? Like, have you seen most of his filmography? What, you know, I guess you grew up with these movies, as you just said. Yeah, well, the interesting thing about, you know, without giving you a lecture on it, but we didn't make it. You were invited to give an election. We have to really just sit here while you give us an Australian film lecture. That would be just fine.

School or asses. Well, okay, let me start way back in the beginning. My great-great-uncles were film producers. Great, great. In the silent era. Oh, dang. Okay. In Australian silent film?

Yeah. Yeah. And so my dad, being low-key and sort of chill Australian, as we all are, just close before he died, said, oh, did I ever tell you that your great, great uncles were film producers? And I said, no. And anyway, told me the story that, you know, they were also film distributors, and they distributed the first film ever made. which is the history of the Ned Kelly gang, the history of the Kelly gang.

Like a silent... How long was it? It's the first film ever made, like in the world. Period. Yeah. And that was, you know, it was a feature length, but a lot, it's lost. There's only bits of it now. But then they went and produced, like, a lot of silent films with Raymond Longford and Lottie Lyle, who were like big stars.

And we had, in Australia, the most thriving film industry in the world. It surpassed Hollywood. So there were more bums on seats to see our films than there was anywhere in the world, including America. And then the Americans saw that and came in and went, we want to, we want that. So what they did was they, Mafiosa style came in and put a stronghold on all of the Australian cinemas so that Australian films could no longer be made because they wouldn't be screened. And so my great-great-great-uncles took these films that they were making and went round to town halls and public spaces and tried to screen them and they fought it and fought it and fought it.

And then they had to give up and they went into live theatre production. Right, right? And I feel like Australian cinema kind of atrophied, right? I mean, like, it's sort of... So that was in the 30s. And then for almost 40 years, we didn't make any films. Right, right. Which is insane.

Right. When you're reading about Peter Weir, sort of coming up in the 70s, it's like there's really not much of an industry. There's a television industry, which is how he's getting started or whatever. There's not much of a film industry. But also people in these interviews we keep reading and quotes from him at the time, you know, talking about what the Australian New Wave represented. Even though we've lacked this context, it's been very clear. They're not just saying like, oh, and then a new movement or a new style came in. The new wave was starting up the machinery again. the first time in dead right. And then so it puts it into context, right? Because if you look at, okay, in 1969 we had zero again.

I mean, there was one filmmaker Charles Chavelle who made like Jeddah, which is a very odd kind of intentionally good but quite racist film. And we have none of those in America. Oh, no. But then, so you had nothing. And then you had wake and fright, which is extraordinary. and Walkabout, which is also extraordinary. Ted Kottchev.

And walkabout. Yeah. And they were both directed by, you know, non-Australians, but they're both masterpieces. But it was because the government of all places, and it was a bipartisan thing, it was both the right and left wing, two prime ministers said, well, we're going to invest in culture. Right. We're going to give you some culture.

Yeah, let's get some culture going. And what's extraordinary to me is it wasn't like Ozzy, Ozzy, Ozzy, yeah, aren't we good? Let's make sort of propaganda films about how great Australians are. These films were very, they sort of equaled American independent cinema and European New Wave, you know, the French New Wave, in that they were very critical of our society, our culture. They're very dark. Odd and disturbing. Yeah. Like, we have a cinema.

tech here in Brisbane, it's all free. Like, they play incredible films. And one of the films I had the other day was the Cars that ate Paris. And, you know, even films like that, they're just subversive and weird and brilliant. Right. Cars that ate Paris we've covered. Yeah, right. His first major film. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sort of strangely funny. Do you guys get that in terms of its humor? I found it very funny, but I don't know if I'm finding it funny for the reasons he intended. I think it's making fun of a sort of small town, you know, mindset that I think we both, we did understand, but then there's certainly things we're probably not picking up on, on the sort of like small town mindset of the, you know, the 70s that like it's satirizing in Australia. Yeah, it just felt sort of quintessentially Australian to me, that film.

And sort of Babadook-style humor as well. And then I realized, oh, there is such a thing as Australian humor. Well, just to clarify, in the 40 years where theaters are operating, but Australian films basically aren't getting made, is it primarily American films that are playing there? Is it equal amounts of films from the UK? Right. And from other parts of Europe culture. I think we, yeah, I think, I mean, it wasn't around, but I, I, knowing from my mom,

who was a big, you know, sort of. we can call her a cinephile, but she watched everything that came out, and it was mainly Hollywood. I think that qualifies a cinephile. Yeah. I think we can give it the title. Like, unintentional, unintentional, sinophile. But we all, we had, we had a lot of British films made here. You know, the Sundelmas, and Chips Rafferty was an Aussie star. He was an Australian actor, but he was always starring as the token Aussie in British films that were made here. Right. Yeah.

And, you know, those early weird films, I mean, PICNic and Hanging Rock, I don't know if you have a particular impression of that one. I know that is sort of, that's such a, you know, totemic one for Aussie cinema. I mean, yeah, it's one of my favorites. I had to make a list for the age here just today, actually, of my 10 favorite Australian films. Wait, what are your 10 favorite Australia? Yeah, I want to hear it.

This was unrelated to the show. You were doing it for something else? Yeah, yeah. I had to make a list just because they're asking filmmakers what their favorite. I mean, I kind of hate making lists because filmmaking is not a horse race. Sure, because it's exclusionary to make a list, but it's fun too. But I made it. Yeah.

So my favorite Australian films today were Wake in Fright, walkabout, picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave. The chant of Jimmy Blacksmith. Oh, yeah, that's, right. Fred Chepsy. Yeah. Skepsy, yeah. And he, yeah, he's, that film made an huge impression on me, especially for the Nightingale, I think.

Gallipley, Mad Max, Snowtown, Ten Canoes, and Chopper. I don't know ten canoes. I'm looking at that one either. Oh, my God. Three out of ten slots was Peter Weir. Yeah, right. You have three Peter Weir. movies.

The last wave was a film we covered where I think we felt very out of our depth in terms of the sort of like the cultural stuff he's wrestling with there. It's a very interesting movie, yes. You're just kind of aware that there's a bunch of stuff underneath the surface that we don't have the ability to pick up on.

But it was fantastic. I think join the club in that it is, you know, it's a film about sort of climate, not climate change, but it's an environmental film, I think. And, you know, the Aboriginal presence in it, what I really admired that he did was just let them go. Right. So they – let them leave what the story was right.

And I mean, that's what I – we did in Nightingale as well was, you know, the script was made in full consultation with Paloah people, Tasmanian Aboriginal people. But that's what I think you probably – is that what you're finding a bit confounding? Like, oh my God, what is this? Not even confound. I mean, last wave I would say – last wave is trying to confound. Both Wasfraven Picnic at Hanging Rock are happy to leave you, you know. In the dark. Yes, a little unsatisfied in terms of explanations and ready to wrestle with it, which is great.

Gallipoli is not that at all. Gallipoli is a very sort of straightforward kind of, you know, punch in the jaw, which is fine. Like, I mean, that obviously works great. I'd say, I don't think it's that we've been confounded by these early ones, but there's almost like an anti-Dunner Kruger, Dunning Kruger syndrome thing, or the more we try to do some research, either going into the movie or after the fact, then you start to become more aware of how much you don't know, if that makes sense. We're like, oh, let's get like a slight better cultural context on this. I think that's why I do probably favor his earlier films that were made in Australia.

And it's not because they were made in Australia, but there's a tone to them that's very unconventional. Yes. And it's really purely from him. And you really feel that. I mean, in the last wave, I love that section where the older Aboriginal character is just saying to Richard Chamberlain's character, who are you? Who are you? Yeah. Who are you?

It keeps saying it over and over. And the first time I watched it, I thought, oh, my God, who am I? I was watching it. Who the hell am I? It worked. Walk to the kitchen, got a cup of tea, and thought, who am I? You know. But it's very Aboriginal, it's very authentic in that way.

And yeah, my memory of Gallipoli, having not seen it again last night, was that it's a very conventional film that I enjoyed as a kid. Right. That was my, so it was, you know, it is very conventional. But I would argue that now. It's like the antithesis of saving Private Ryan, which starts off so gritty. and confronting and horrific, and then kind of goes into a much more romantic,

everything's going to be all right, we're going to save this one dude who, you know, but this film, Gallipoli, is where mates, everything is going to be okay. Everything's going to be all right, and then nothing is all right. And like if you look at the structure of the film, it's like an hour in 46 minutes. And I just clocked at this time, you know, that the first hour and 15, minutes, you don't even sort of realize there's a war. I mean, you know there's a war because they tell you there's a war. And even when they're in Cairo, they're having fun and it's about their relationship. But it's in that last 30 minutes, right? Yeah, 30 minutes. And then it gets

serious all of a sudden. And then in the last 20 minutes, you're like, oh, my God, this is, this is a ridiculous. I mean, and it's horror thing. And I, because Gallipoli is such a, you know, pivotal, you know, I learned about that in school and, like, the battle. You know, you know. David grew up in London. I grew up in England. So, so, you know, World War I, we're all, you know, we were taught all this. Like, I think I thought of this movie as like a sort of definitive accounting of like, what happened at Gallipoli and what went wrong and what, you know, about the big battle. And then that's what I love about the movie is that it's not that at all. It's like, they're like, you don't need to understand. understand like what happened here except that it was lunacy, except that they were just throwing people, you know, over trenches.

The point is that it was meaningless. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And no one was, everyone was indispensable. No one was going to survive that. I mean, it was an absolute failure in terms of, you know, if you look, I mean, I'm no army historian, but any, most Australians can tell you that that was a failure. And, you know, 130,000 plus lives were lost on.

both sides. And they didn't achieve any, got anything out of it. And that it was a failure before they sent all these boys to die. Like, it was already a conclusive failure. And then there was this completely unnecessary mass sacrifice pushed on top of it. To establish some lorpe in the history of our show, Jennifer, when you were saying watching this, you view this as a period piece and then go, I can't believe this kind of stuff is still happening today. You know, you were comparing it back to your experience of watching this for a first time as a time. 10-year-old. My relationship to war in movies is like perpetually frozen at the age of 10 where more so than any other type of film, war movies tend to just make my brain short circuit for that exact

reason. I just become like a polyanist child where I go, I don't understand how this is real. Right. More so than any fantastical genre film, I just go like, I don't understand how this is still how things get settled. And I become so overwhelmed with anxiety that it's really hard for me. to engage with them. And I would say the war films I do like tend to, by and large, be movies that are not actually war films, quote unquote, as a genre. They are films for war as a backdrop, and there is some emotional story being told in front of the war. I did not know what to expect from this film, and I think I expected much like David. This is more a conclusive kind of epic retelling of this important moment in Australian history. And starting it and immediately

realizing 10 minutes in, oh, they find out the war is happening in the newspaper. There's just this kind of like, did you guys see there's some war happening? Right, right. And the fact that the movie is really structured. Yes, and I love the guy who's kind of out in the middle of nowhere and says, oh, is there a war going on? Yeah. And this movie is really structured more as like a boy's adventure film in the sense that it is like these guys going off to join the circus.

Right. And the war is kind of... And be friends. These guys are going to go be friends together. But the war is like obstructed. These boys are going off in a journey. They could just as easily be looking for like a hidden pirate ship. You know, it could be like a goony style adventure.

And they're approaching it with that energy. And there's a word that we, it's very dated. No one says larican now, but it's a very Australian word that would be used to describe these guys is, you know, larikins that they're up for a bit of fun. And they're a bit naughty and, you know, break the rules. but it's all going to end well with a beer and a joke. And that's why, like, and snowy. I remember as a kid, we all cracked up laughing at David Argue in that role. He, because he was so, in such an innocent, you know.

And then to say, that's when I lost my shit last night watching it was when he was in the tent. He said they're not, they're not giving me food or water. And I just broke down. And from that point on. And even when, I forget the actor's name, but the young guy at the beginning who's fighting Archie on the horse and Archie's running, remember when they re-free. I'm not sure. Let's see.

And then they sort of see each other as the bully character's just about to go over the trench and he's an absolute mess. Right. Harold Hopkins. That's that actor. Harold Hopkins, yeah, yeah, that's right. It's so well constructed, actually, as a script, I feel. It is, yeah. It's brilliantly constructed.

And also, I basically from that moment, like, just from the tone and where the story was starting at the beginning, I went, oh, I see what this is. And he is setting me up for, like, the grand tragedy of this movie, which is these guys aren't thinking of themselves as being in a war movie. They don't understand what war is. Exactly. This is like the beginning of some rip-roaring adventure and some coming-of-age tale, which is what this really is. The story of World War I, of course. It's like, this is a coming-of-age movie interrupted by the brutality of the world. Yes.

And he delays it and delays it and delays it. Yeah. Till the absolute, till they can't delay it anymore. Even when they rip off all their clothes and they jump into the water and their shells firing off around them. That's my favorite. The most beautiful thing. Right. Well, that's, I mean, that, you can.

go, oh, I don't feel good here, because, you know, there's this sort of danger that's introduced underwater so, so brilliantly like that. But then when the guy comes up, he's only had his arm hit and not badly. So he think, oh, good, you know, back to sort of laughing and having fun. But it's just like water ballet. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. Right. Because even until that guy is, like, nicked by the one bullet, even as their bullets flow, it feels like it's just adding to like the beauty and the ambience. Right. You know, it's kind of this like visually ecstatic thing. Well, just the whole thing at the beach and there's just like shelling going on.

Yeah. And they're just kind of like, yeah, well, that's over there. You know, like, you know, like just that feeling of it's like, yeah, it's close, but it's not here yet. Yeah. Until that night. Until that night. Until that night. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But like it's a sneakily sort of untraditional way to tell the story. Like, you know. It is. Yeah. It's not milking the drama and the kind of excitement of war. It's not milking that. Right. No. Right. No. Because when war hits, it hits and that's game over. It's it. That's the end of them all. Well, not all of them, but almost all. Weir said that, like, part of the big inspiration for this film, part of it was that he went to visit the site and he saw the bullet casings and such that were still there. Well, but it wasn't just that. He saw the case of the, um, that it was. It was a, um, the case of the, um, that it was. He saw the, um, um, that it was. It's Gibson's, Mill Gibson's character gets it in the care package. The beverage, yeah. Yeah, you know, he saw, and I have to find it.

Yeah, I will look. Yes. We have some research weekend. Like he got, he got the bath salts and the cookbook. It's the Eno bottle. Yeah, so is that an existing Australian brand? It's not anymore. Okay.

And it was, when I was a kid, it was. It was still a thing. So the audience is watching that would have gone, Oh, yeah. Okay, I know what that is. That was the big thing he said is he went to visit the site. There were still bullet casings there. And then he saw an Eno bottle. And it was like immediately conjured the idea of, oh, these were just kids.

These were kids who were using the same products that I use today. Right. The banality of needing to take like an antacid in the middle of this thing made him conjure the whole thing, which is also weirdly similar to how Last Wave came about. He talked about envisioning, seeing. the object in the cave. Oh, sure. It's two consecutive movies where he finds an object and is like,

that's a good idea for a movie. Wow. Wow. Have you ever met him or interacted with him, Jennifer? I have no idea how like... I haven't, unfortunately. I haven't had anything to do with Peter. But I mean, I feel I know him because...

Not in a kind of stalkery way. But just because, you know, as a kid, I saw these films and they're like a dream. They're like a dream that I had. And they're so important to our psyche as Australians, especially people in the arts and in film. So, yeah, he's an absolute master to me. And I would guess that many people don't know who he is in America. Do you think?

I think that he's, yes, a little bit on that edge. It's part of why I really wanted to cover him, if he's made a lot of very, very well-remembered films that do linger in the cultural consciousness. but he's not thought of as anuteur. I mean, obviously, by film fans, he's well regarded. But, like, you know, in the larger public, and he should be more. You know, and like, he's got such an interesting and varied filmography,

and he worked in every genre. And even when he came to Hollywood, he kind of never had one thing that he did. He kept kind of hopping between, you know, modes of storytelling, which was so interesting.