RUSSELL CROWE’S directorial debut feature centres on the overwhelming loss, love and politics of war set against the Battle of Gallipoli, whose 100th anniversary is just weeks away.

More than 100,000 soldiers, most of them Turkish, died in the eight-month long campaign in 1915.

This powerful drama unfolds four years after the battle, when Australian farmer and water diviner Joshua Connor (Crowe) heads to Gallipoli to retrieve and bring home the remains of his three sons.

In Constantinople he is thwarted by the British military but despite their efforts he manages to get onto the peninsula where, with the help of Major Hasan (Yilmaz Erdogan) — whose Turkish unit killed his sons — and using his water divining skills he locates them.

It’s a testament to Crowe’s extraordinary acting ability that he manages to pull the latter off without it seeming as derisory as it sounds.

He gives a compelling and moving performance as a father crippled by grief and guilt, having sent his children to their deaths and he makes his growing friendship with the former enemy Hasan, played superbly by Erdogan, convincing and heartfelt even though it is a little hard to believe.

Grittily shot, the flashbacks to the battle scenes are brutal and gruelling. Yet, although the film is told mainly from an Antipodean perspective, it does give a voice to the Turkish side — the opening sequence is of Turkish troops rejoicing as they reclaim Gallipoli with the Anzacs sailing off into the distance.

Crowe does an impressive turn in front and behind the camera, although the film is weakened by the ridiculous Mills & Boon romance between his character and Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko), a beautiful hotel owner whose young son befriends Connor.

Even so, that doesn’t detract from a film about forgiveness and the devastating trauma on both sides as the commemorations to remember the thousands who died at Gallipoli get under way.