The Lighthorsemen

In 1917 on the Palestine front, British forces are stuck in front of the Ottoman and German lines. Thirst is the great problem; to advance, the wells at Beersheba have to be reached. The film follows four young men in an Australian light horse regiment and the charge the regiment made on that town on 31 October 1917. At the end of the road lies several kilometres of open ground to be crossed on horseback under fire. The charge at Beersheba is counted among the last great cavalry attacks in history and is part of the national story in Australia. Simon Wincer shot the sequence with real horses, in wide shots, without models, and the charge is what the film is most remembered for. The account is built from the Australian side; the view of the other side, the Ottoman defence, finds no place in it. The soldiers are shown not as heroes but as young people who often do not know what they are doing.