Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom (David Michôd, Australia, 2010)
This debut feature by David Michôd, which won the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema at this year's Sundance Film Festival, is simply exhilarating. I'll go so far as to say that I think it's easily one of the top ten Australian films of the last two decades. To put that into perspective, the only films I’d place on that pedestal are: Everynight... Everynight, The Boys, Em 4 Jay and Samson and Delilah. If pushed, I could also include Ten Canoes, Shine and Three Blind Mice. And now Animal Kingdom.

Animal Kingdom is a mixture of genres – at heart an ensemble family drama, but also a crime thriller. The poster art perfectly captures the mood – much like a Shakespearean or Greek tragedy. Clearly inspired by the events surrounding the Walsh Street police shootings of 1988, it details a family’s implosion as crime and police corruption collide. Josh or J (James Frecheville) is embraced by that part of the family that his mother hid from him until she unexpectedly dies. He has no-one else to turn to. Like Malik, the young petty crim in Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet, he becomes our unwitting tour guide to the dark side as we follow a relative innocent’s induction into a world of crime.

Animal Kingdom is no less suspenseful than Audiard’s film and just as powerful. In fact, it's like a cross between A Prophet and The Boys. There is some violence, but it’s mostly off-screen. The film creates a nail-biting atmosphere by feeding the audience information that characters are denied. One of my favourite scenes involves a suburban dad (Clayton Jacobson from Kenny) simply backing his car out of his drive-way. We know the urgency of the situation, but he’s oblivious to the danger. There are various twists, which are wholly ‘organic’ and believable, as opposed to being tricksy Hollywood-style.

Some actors have never put in better performances. Michôd has brilliantly tapped a hitherto unseen talent in Ben Mendelsohn, without a trace of his usual larrikinisms. His inhabiting the role of a criminal psychopath is just as terrifying as David Wenham’s Brett Sprague in The Boys. Jackie Weaver's performance as the matriarch is also stunning. It demonstrates a skillful balance of excess and restraint, with an unsettling effect created by the contradictions of her homeliness, emotional neediness, mental stability and cunning ruthlessness. She has some great lines and is one of the backbones of the story. Guy Pearce is another and his performance as the seasoned detective is perfectly understated. Frecheville and Mendelsohn are the other pillars.

The whole ensemble cast performs well, with strong support from Joel Edgerton, Sullivan Stapleton, Dan White, Laura Wheelwright and others. Character development is just wonderful across the board. The story works so well because Michôd mostly underplays it, trimming the film of any fat. J is quietly introverted, so we don’t know what to expect. Ambiguity in characters causes doubt about who can be trusted. Sometimes, when action takes place, it seemingly comes out of nowhere. Court scenes are all but removed, focusing on the human and suspense elements.

Adam Arkapaw's magnificent camera work recalls László Baranyai's work in Noise (2007), easily the best aspect of that film. The music and sound design are terrific – pretty much on a par with the excellent achievements of Samson and Delilah. Each of the parts of Animal Kingdom is well-realised; the sum of the parts is sublime. This is a finely constructed story, one of the best films of the year and I can’t wait to see it again. Given that Sony Picture Classics snapped it up straight after the Sundance gong, hopefully it will do well in the US. I have no doubt it will receive a strong reception here.

Animal Kingdom is being released in Australian cinemas on 3 June.

Links: Official website

Here's the trailer:
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Inglourious Basterds

It's not often I do a separate post on such a mainstream film, but I wanted to brain dump by initial thoughts and here they are:

I don't think Inglourious Basterds is Tarantino's finest work, but I love anything he turns his hands to, including this. It does have some of the structure of Kill Bill and, like it, its main weaknesses are the indulgences and lack of tight disciple of most of his other films.

The violence is the most explicit of any Tarantino film and I question how often we needed to see a head scalped. Especially the last one, the activity could have take place off-screen with just the sounds and it would have been more effective.

In my mind, Tarantino seemed more than ever to be attempting to subvert genres. The opening credits exemplify that with the western font and Morricone-like score. The credits then changed to a contemporary arthouse-style before changing once again to a 1970's style. Throughout the film, Tarantino would appear to follow one genre convention, but then mix it with another, usually from a different period. This was most obvious with the music choices, but there were other details, which elude me right now.

The music is generally very good, though one track towards the end - I'm not sure who it was, but it sounded a little like Nick Cave - seemed right out of place.

Like any Tarantino film, it's largely dialogue driven, and is always entertaining. I like the way he assembles the chapters, which adds different angles and scenarios to exploit cinematically. The start is quite subdued but effective, and the growing momentum creates quite a lot of excitement as time progresses. Unfortunately, he can't maintain the momentum, and this is where I think Tarantino's indulgences are slightly his undoing (but by no means fatally). I found the last half hour to be a little laborious, dragged on more than necessary, which shouldn't be the case, given the climax scenario.

The performances were strong throughout with some really imaginative characterisations created by Tarantino and well-executed by the respective cast. The multi-lingual aspect is a fresh infusion by Tarantino and works just fine. The details of three fingers is an interesting cultural element that recalls the early dialogue in Pulp Fiction about Le Big Mac.

The climactic ending underscores how much this film is a fantasy, given how much it defies the historical record. But it's a lovely indulgence and I thought the Jewish aspect was real cute, given that the Weinstein producers are obviously Jewish.

All in all, I found the film really satisfying and would be happy to see it again. However, I doubt it will stand up to the multiple viewings that most of Tarantino's other films do. It is definitely one of the most entertaining films of the year, a real 'movie', which is what QT does best. In fact, his films (including this one) are 'hyper-movies', the very best examples of how entertaining movies can be.

The Limits of Control

The Limits of Control (Jim Jarmusch, Spain/USA/Japan, 2009)

Jim Jarmusch is quite simply one of the most interesting living film-makers working out of the USA. His latest film, The Limits of Control, is set in Spain with an international cast. There is at the core of his work a consistency of style and yet this latest outing represents a progression in the evolution of his body of work that is simultaneously understated and visually spectacular. One is never in any doubt that one is watching a Jarmusch film.

The Limits of Control is at least superficially a mystery. Designed like a Hitchcock spy thriller and oozing with a retro 70’s style that remains distinctly contemporary, characters behave like something out of an early James Bond movie or even Get Smart. There are secret passwords and the passing of small coded messages that are then swallowed. Knowing words are spoken cryptically: “Wait three days for the bread; the guitar will find you”. Despite sounding corny, it’s actually full of panache, though dark humour is (unsurprisingly) never far away. There’s also an element of film noir, including creative depictions of nudity.

The film is sparse with dialogue and characters speak languages different to each other. Sound familiar? It should. Language, communication and miscommunication seem to be recurring themes for Jarmusch. The very photogenic Isaach De Bankolé takes centre stage in the film and it is hard not to recall the scenario between his earlier character in Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog, a French ice-cream van vendor in New York, speaking not a word of English yet maintaining a friendship with the non-French speaking title character (Forest Whitaker).

Because of the sparsity of dialogue, often the words spoken take on deep and cryptic meanings, bordering on philosophical: “I am among no-one”, “reality is arbitrary”, “the girl is a criss-cross”. The mystery deepens when the words seem to be reflected in what the protagonist sees at subsequent visits to the art gallery (Madrid’s Centro de Arte Reine Sofia), such as a girl’s figure in the shape of a cross. A personal exciting moment was when we get the protagonist’s point of view of the Madrid skyline, which then seamlessly transposes over the Antonio López painting, Madrid from Captain Haya, which he views. I instantly recognised this same piece from when it displayed last year at ACMI as part of the Kiarostami/Erice Correspondences exhibition.

The film is episodic, which we often find in Jarmusch’s films. Each episode involves a different character, in a different location, with different art production. I must say that the visuals are an absolute delight: colour composition and the use of the frame are awesome. There is nothing showy in Christopher Doyle’s stunning camera work, which uses an assortment of great angles, often static, and any movement used is masterful and restrained. The opening shot is, in fact, a very unconventional and skewed angle that takes a few seconds to work out what the protagonist is actually doing, and sets the tone of the film.

The film plays on patterns. There are visual patterns – some of the most arresting images you’ll see in a film – and there are narrative patterns, that repeat themselves and create an expectation in the audience. But each iteration is different from the previous and it’s satisfying to detect the subtle differences in each idiosyncratic repetition.

The film has an impressive support cast including Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Gael García Bernal, Hiam Abbass, John Hurt and others, but no-one is named. The credits merely describe them: Lone Man, Nude, Blonde, Guitar, etc.

** SPOILER ALERT **

I put the alert because you may want to discover for yourself without pre-empting: the film’s subtext is about the eternal struggle between those who love peace and art (including poetry, music, film, philosophy, etc) and the power-mongering politicians. That becomes evident as the story progresses and is cryptically underscored with the film's final message: "NO LIMITS. NO CONTROL."

** END ALERT **

The film is self-reflexive, an ironic (perhaps even comic) conceit that Jarmusch allows himself that recalls Wim Wenders’ The State of Things, in which Wenders’ stand-in, Patrick Buchau, talks about the use of black and white (in a black and white film). Similarly Jarmusch’s characters discuss techniques in film that he is demonstrating at that very point in the film. It’s a lot of fun.

Despite the familiarity, there’s something profoundly refreshing about Jarmusch’s films. It’s not just the visuals, it’s not just the wild characterisations that border on the comic, nor just the bizarre dialogue, nor the lack of exposition. Did I mention the fabulous sound design and music? Basically it’s all of the above, and how Jarmusch constructs the elements in a way that exceeds the sum of the parts. It makes this film fascinating. I have several Jarmusch films to catch up on, but of those I have seen, The Limits of Control is one of his very best and possibly the best cinema release of the year so far. It opens in cinemas today.

The Week in Review - 21/6/09

Winter solstice - I love it! There's a change in energy and from today the days start to get longer. The two-week Guerín season started at Melbourne Cinémathèque and, if you missed this week (a highlight of my year so far), make sure you see the coming screenings on Wednesday.

FILMS:

• Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff, Australia/USA, 1971)
  
• En la ciudad de Sylvia (In the City of Sylvia, José Luis Guerín, Spain, 2007)
• Unas fotos en la ciudad de Sylvia (Some Photos in the City of Sylvia, José Luis Guerín, Spain, 2007)
• Tren de sombras (Train of Shadows, José Luis Guerín, Spain, 1997)
• Reservations (Aloura Melissa Charles, USA, 2008)
  

Wake in Fright + Q&A session
I don't have time to go into detail. I found this really enjoyable, a gutsy Australian film, made by a Canadian. Maybe it takes an outsider to take an honest look at ourselves, for that is what Kotcheff achieved. It's very authentic and has dated really well. It looks a helluva lot better than the pirated DVD copy of a VHS that screened at MUFF last year, but I was aghast when about a minute or two disappeared from the screening I attended. Grant wants to leave the pub when the cop (Chips Rafferty) is about to take him to task for not offering to shout a drink in return. We missed that, but the first-time audience wouldn't know it.

The Q&A was with director Ted Kotcheff, editor Anthony Buckley and moderated by Mark Hartley (Not Quite Hollywood). Various stories and anecdotes were shared and enhanced the evening. I raised the issue of the missing bits, but given that the speakers weren't in attendance during the screening, couldn't really comment. Buckley assured me that the film is present in its entirety, so I'm assuming it was a one-off glitch.

In the City of Sylvia
José Luis Guerín’s In the City of Sylvia has been described using various well-deserved superlatives. Not only is Guerin's unique film an amazing cinematic accomplishment, but it does it with almost no dialogue. It taps into primal human desires for connection and desire, exploring the nature of memory.

Humanity is a strange beast, full of contradictions. On the one hand, “man is gregarious” and we desire love, friendship, community and so on. On the other, there is an inherent incompatibility between both individuals and communities, who seemed destined for conflict. True friendship is, it appears, quite rare and many friendships seem to depend on absence for sustenance (a type of “absence makes the heart grow fonder”, I suppose).

The Melbourne Cinémathèque screening of In the City of Sylvia was greatly enhanced by Some Photos in the City of Sylvia which is much more compelling than it looks on paper. Not only is it completely silent (no dialogue, voiceover or music - which highlighted my rumbling belly and no doubt disturbed those sitting close to me), but there are no moving images either. It consists of a series of still photographs by Guerín that effectively constitute (unconventionally) a type of making-of documentary that explains the original film.

Not only is the original film highly autobiographical or self-reflexive, dramatising the director’s own experiences over twenty years earlier in the same locations, but it sheds light on his intentions with the film and the theme of the struggle between the human desire to connect and the natural resistance to the same, or disconnection.

The film has both a naturalistic look and feel, yet stylistically heightened. The visuals are stunning, with Strasbourg an amazing backdrop as our artist protagonist traverses the streets of this picturesque small city in search of his lost Sylvia. The film assumes a voyeuristic perspective, highly observational, perhaps as the guy sees the city. We see lots of images of women, particularly young women. Some are gorgeous, some not. Often they are backdropped by large perfume advertisements that feature the faces of gorgeous young models, underscoring the director’s fascination with femininity.

Guerín’s preoccupation with faces takes various forms and he often portrays how people appear from the voyeur’s perspective. He could almost be toying with the audience, demonstrating how from a distance one person looks relative to another: they are not seated together but from the viewer’s perspective appear to relate. Deep focus is used to good effect, differentiating between the different scenarios. Similarly, Guerín seems fascinated by the dual or parallel imagery of filming someone through a window whose reflections superimpose over the person, creating a unique kind of visual experience.

Couples kissing are a recurring theme. Several characters reappear intermittently, like the African belt seller. A homeless woman is sitting in the street and, while we don’t see her again, we recognise her discarded beer bottles. “LAURE JE T’AIME” appears to be scrawled all around the city. Who is this Laure? And who is her lover?

In a film where dialogue is near absent, the music takes on a heightened sense of importance. It powerfully punctuates the narrative in an organic manner as our protagonists wander the steets. Sometimes there are performers at the conservatoire, buskers in the street or music blaring over speakers in a bar or passing car.

In the City of Sylvia is poetic, original, beautiful, captivating and moving. It is an experience and a privilege. If you get the chance to see it, don’t miss it.

Tren de sombras
Fatigue set in during this screening and I don't think I imbibed it as well as I could have otherwise. So I don't want to comment on it, other than to say I'd like to see it again.

Reservations
Nice film, but unexceptional. Co-presented by ACMI and Women in Film and Television, it naturally has a woman director and features Australia's Kerry Armstrong in top billing in an ensemble piece. Like In the City of Sylvia, it deals with themes of human disconnection as we encounter various lonely individuals spending one night in the same New York hotel.

Reservations is what I find myself now calling a "worthy" film, and that's not a compliment. Like many local films of recent years that tackle "worthy" issues, it somehow lacks dramatic impact. Sure, a film doesn't have to be hyper-real, but it just lacks pizzazz, oomph, mojo, something. We can see where it's going, it seems a bit too derivative and the film's conclusion is a bit too neat. But it's worthy!

Disgrace

Disgrace (Steve Jacobs, Australia/South Africa, 2008)
Steve Jacobs' first film, La Spagnola, was an excellent debut that had the great misfortune of opening on September 11, 2001 and consequently didn’t get the exposure it deserved. It’s about a Spanish woman’s post-war migrant experience in Australia and is beautifully filmed. It is full of drama, passion and interspersed with comic moments that make it a largely undiscovered gem.

Disgrace represents a much more ambitious project by Jacobs. It’s an Australian-South African co-production, based on the Booker Prize-winning novel of the same title by the esteemed former South African (and now South Australian) writer, J.M. Coetzee. It is set in South Africa and stars John Malkovich as David Lurie, a Cape Town university professor of poetry. Like Ben Kingsley's character in Elegy, Lurie is a sexual predator who targets his female students.

That’s about the only comparison I would make with Elegy. Malkovich’s performance is perhaps his best in several years. He performs as an actor rather than the Malkovich stereotype we’ve come to accept (and sometimes hate). There’s none of that psychopathic screaming, for example, even though he plays a not particularly endearing character. In fact, the emotional baggage we may carry for Malkovich works in his favour, with the restraint adding a new-found nuance to his acting.

The uniting element between Jacobs’ films is a preoccupation with a country’s culture, albeit from different perspectives. La Spagnola depicts the difficulties of a Spanish immigrant, who gravitates towards the local Italian community. She is an outsider to both the Australian and immigrant communities. In Disgrace, Lurie's sexual indiscretions find him forced to resign from his long-held university position. He takes up residence in self-imposed exile with Lucy, his lesbian daughter on her remote rural farm. Here, Lurie finds himself in a totally different culture, one he struggles to come to terms with because of the violent local politics.

I haven’t read Coetzee’s book, so I don’t know how faithful to its source material the film is. But it feels weighed down, very much like a book-to-screen translation. Like a novel, the film withholds information. In a book, the writer completely controls the flow of information with words. In the film, various nuances were lost on me and I failed to comprehend gaps in information.

Generally, I’m all for not having narrative fully expounded. Imagination and deduction can be powerfully utilised in cinematic story-telling. The film does respect an audience’s intelligence in not spoon-feeding every little detail, but it also doesn’t convey details that may be required. It felt like it was emulating the source material’s structure without sufficient adaptation. On the plus side, the film leaves room for ambiguity and no doubt there will be countless debates over the motivations of different characters.

The story is largely concerned with Lurie’s relationships with women – in particular Melanie, the student he seduces, and his daughter Lucy, with whom he has a strained relationship. Jacobs’ exploration of these relationships remains cold and distant. We never see any warmth, affection or meaningful dialogue between Lurie and the women in his life (and this is the exact opposite of La Spagnola). These two women remain angry and we are never privy to their internalisations. Emotionally, it has the effect of distancing us from the characters. We only have Lurie’s misogynistic perspective, and he’s not particularly insightful or redeeming a character.

I felt Lucy’s lesbianism is largely inconsequential to the story and wonder whether this aspect of her life needed to be included. I acknowledge that her orientation is relevant in some respects, but it’s an element of the story that seems under-developed.

It will be interesting to see how Disgrace is received by both critics and audiences. I think most will be more impressed by it than I was. It should appeal to the same demographic that embraced I Have Always Loved You, for example. I suspect it will also appeal to those who have read the book and have more of an understanding of what is happening in the background, both in terms of the politics and the women's internalisations.

It is nice to see the film adding diversity to the year's local films, so maybe 2009 will be a turning point for the Australian industry. For me, though, this film doesn’t match some of the year’s stronger contenders.

Disgrace opens in cinemas on 18 June.

Cinema Nova is hosting an advance screening on Sunday 14 June at 5pm, followed by an impressive line-up for a panel discussion: Which is better? The book or the film? From Nova:

To celebrate the release of the film adaptation of J. M. Coetzee’s Booker Prize winning novel DISGRACE, starring John Malkovich, Cinema Nova in partnership with Readings are proudly present the first in an ongoing series of discussions to try and settle the age-old dinner party dispute: WHICH IS BETTER? THE BOOK OR THE MOVIE?

Melbourne’s best and brightest film, publishing and arts identities will join the panel and try to settle the score.

Elliot Perlman is a barrister and award-winning writer who adapted his own book, THREE DOLLARS, for Robert Connolly’s drama starring David Wenham.

Sue Maslin is the multi-award winning producer of Japanese Story and the executive producer of Irresistible starring Sam Neill, Emily Blunt and Susan Sarandon.

Catherine Deveny is a controversial social commentator for The Age, was named amongst the 100 Most Influential Melbournians and co-wrote the 2005 AFI awards with Russell Crowe.

Tom Ryan has been the film critic for The Sunday Age in Melbourne since 1989. A film lecturer in Australia and the UK, he has also contributed to several international film magazines.

Peter Rose is the editor of Australian Book Review. He was a publisher at Oxford University Press and is author the much loved memoir Rose Boys.

To be moderated by Michael Veitch a performer, broadcaster and writer, Michael started his career in TV comedy on legendary shows such as The D-Generation and Fast Forward. Born into a family of journalists, he has written as a theatre and literary critic for The Age, Australian and Herald-Sun newspapers. Michael is the host of ABC’s vastly popular Sunday Arts program.

MORE PANELISTS TO BE CONFIRMED CLOSER TO THE EVENT!

Buy the book before the event! 10% discount for in-store purchases of DISGRACE (Conditions: only at Readings Carlton, with a valid cinema ticket from the screening)

Samson and Delilah

Samson and Delilah (Warwick Thornton, Australia, 2009)
Call me cynical, but I’m always a bit dubious when Australian critics rave over the latest Australian film. Think Black Balloon, I film I detested more for its mediocrity and formula than anything else (though, before you all jump on my head, I know others loved it).

The vibe around Samson and Delilah has been a little different. It wasn’t because David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz both gave it five stars, reportedly the first time they’re both awarded the highest score to a film since they made the move to the ABC from SBS a few years ago. The trouble with that is that everyone knows they inflate the scores of Australian films, rendering their evaluations unreliable (and how do you differentiate between a five-star film and a four-star film you’ve given five stars to? It’s not like you can give six stars to a genuine five-star film).

It’s not that I discounted the raves from At The Movies, but it was more the word I was hearing from several, more reliable sources. That the film has been accepted into competition for Un certain regard at Cannes also added to the film’s credentials.

My verdict? I'll come out up front and say that I found Samson and Delilah a remarkable and original film. I saw it last night at the Nova, hosted by HRAFF and followed by a panel discussion.

Samson and Delilah is a type and quality of film we rarely see in this country. Director Warwick Thornton has very strong instincts. While he's made a number of short films (which, by the way, have won numerous awards and are screening next Thursday at the Nova), this is his first feature. Yet it has both a style and a competence that puts him way ahead of many seasoned operators.

On paper, the story might sound bleak - we follow a pair of impoverished indigenous teenagers as they generally get themselves into all sorts of strife - but I find it has little in common with what we might associate as bleak Australian cinema.

Usually, we associate a bleak film as one that depicts so-called low-lifes as they exist at the bottom of society’s barrel. We often gauge them, struggling against a middle-class back-drop and we make judgements, both of their class and society as a whole.

In contrast, the broader society is almost as absent in Samson and Delilah as it was in Rolf de Heer’s Ten Canoes. Bear in mind that the latter was set in ancient times, pre-European settlement. Samson and Delilah is a contemporary story that takes the perspectives of the two titular characters, and we get an insider’s perspective, a glimpse into their world, their lives as they live them in a remote aboriginal community in the Alice Springs area.

When circumstances force the pair to relocate to the Alice Springs township, like the characters, we never really get to interact with the broader community. Rather, they are passing characters who we never really make any judgements about. Nor do we really make any judgements about those in the remote aboriginal community. Thornton keeps his cards close to his chest about those kinds of judgements.

Rather than being a patronising story to highlight Aboriginal disadvantage, tugging at our heart-strings, our pity or our guilt, the film is really a fascinating inside look at a totally different way of life, a different culture. Rather than being a bleak social realist film, it's more of an ethnographic story like say, Tulpan or The Tale of the Weeping Camel. Poverty is, after all, relative. The film depicts life as these kids know it and have probably always known it.

Technically, the strengths of the film rest in the visuals, the sound and the music. The Alice Springs region is, of course, amazingly photogenic and Thornton uses it to good advantage without ever coming close to postcard cliché. Incidentally, Thornton wrote and photographed the film himself! Also as an aside, he demonstrates how to skilfully perform hand-held camera work.

The performances are strong all-round, many from first-time actors. Rowan McNamara (for whom English is a second language) as Samson and Marissa Gibson as Delilah (looking like a very young version of Cathy Freeman) are both extraordinarily natural performers. Marissa's grandmother, Mitjili Gibson and the director's brother, Scott Thornton as the alcoholic Gonzo both provided strong (and humorous) support. Their characters and the story are infused with a deep sense of humanism.

The sound design and music are unconventional and slightly off-kilter. That's not a criticism, rather it's very much a positive. For me there are three really outstanding moments, and each involves a slight disconnection between the visual and audio perspectives on the film.

*** SPOILER ALERT ****
You may have seen the film’s trailer where we see Samson dancing freely to his music. But we watch him from Delilah's perspective as we hear her music. The effect is extraordinary. In the other incidents, both of which involve cars, we see something that happens to one character, oblivious to the other, who is absorbed in listening to music.
*** END ALERT ***

Another arresting feature of the film is the scarcity of dialogue, especially between the protagonists. With another story, this might seem a bit tricksy, a bit too clever or contrived. In Samson and Delilah, it feels very natural and consistent with the culture and characters depicted. It also strengthens the focus on the visuals and sound design.

I love that this film is very personal to Thornton and made from the heart. It shows, and not only does the story feel authentic but it is ethnographically unique. And, as mentioned above, it does it without eliciting pity or guilt from the viewer. It simply is. Thornton is telling his mob's story (as he likes to say) in a way that is both engrossing while appealing to universal sensibilities.

*** SPOILER ALERT ***
The title of the film has nothing to do with the biblical story. But religious imagery is scattered through the film. A clearly-distressed Delilah enters a church, walks up the aisle under the gaze of the priest. She leaves and not a word is exchanged. In another scene, we see Delilah hauling a large piece of dead timber. The imagery is clearly reminiscent of Jesus hauling the cross. There are other visual references to Christianity, but Thornton depicts them in a matter-of-fact way without projecting any judgements of the place of religion. He leaves space for the imagination.

Some might find the car accident towards the end a bit incredible, especially because it leads to what might be considered a false ending. Having recently survived serious road trauma without a single fracture, and in better shape than Delilah, I found it completely credible.
*** END ALERT ***

The false ending is perhaps the closest thing to a flaw I could find, and I do think there’s a slight hiccough at that point, but it really is a minor quibble that doesn’t detract from the film’s obvious strengths. It would be interesting to get the director’s commentary on that, perhaps on a DVD/Blue-Ray release. But really, this is a magnificent looking film that screams to be seen on the big screen.

Ultimately, Samson and Delilah is a story about love and a story about hope. But there's nothing profound in that observation; that's the stated intention of the director.

Samson and Delilah is screening at the Nova, Rivoli and Palace Brighton Bay cinemas.

The Warwick Thornton short films are screening at the Nova cinema on Thursday 21 May at 7pm – it’s a single screening, so don’t miss it.

Links:

• Official website
• Thomas Caldwell's interview with Warwick Thornton and Kath Shelper
  
• Luke Buckmaster's interview with Warwick Thornton at Cinetology
  
• CitySearch interview with Warwick Thornton
• M/C interview with Warwick Thornton
  

Elegy

Elegy (Isabelle Coixet, USA, 2008)
Isabelle Coixet's Elegy looks like it wants to be profound, it looks like it could have been a good piece but ultimately, it's a clunky, clumsy film that insists on drawing attention to all its many faults. David Kepesh (Ben Kingsley) is an author and literary academic who prides himself on his sexual conquests of his young female students, until along comes the beautiful and classy Consuela (Penélope Cruz).

The film is concerned with beauty, fidelity, sexuality, aging, and death, i.e., pretty much all the big issues. The issues are tackled in a fairly heavy-handed manner, underscored by a less than subtle narration by Kingsley. It all feels contrived, melodramatic and theatrical, betraying its literary source material (Philip Roth's novel, Dying Animal). I haven't read the book and have no idea how faithfully it follows it, but it just seems to speak a different language. It's feels like a book translation rather than a cinematic event.

Cruz is actually a major distraction, whose casting seems to be pure exploitation of her celebrity, much as Catherine Deneuve was in After Him (Après lui). The film keeps telling us how beautiful she is when, quite honestly, I can't see it (and nor do I need to be told). It reminds me of the marketing of Julia Roberts. That Cruz gets top billing when Kingsley's character is the most prominent (the whole story is from his perspective) and he is the senior performer makes no sense. Coixet makes sure we get ample sighting of Cruz's breasts, which really are nothing special. It all seems a tad gratuitous.

The support cast looks good on paper, but none of the significant names seemed to be used to good effect: Patricia Clarkson's and Peter Sarsgaard's roles both seemed to be included to be true to the novel (not that I've read it; I'm just making an educated assumption here) but both their roles distracted from the main story. Deborah Harry also has a small role of little consequence.

The most convincing and interesting role, albeit short, is Dennis Hopper's George O'Hearn. O'Hearn is a Pulitzer prize-winning author, confidante, squash partner and sexual partner-in-crime of David. Hopper plays the role with more restraint than we're accustomed to, an intelligent, well-spoken man with a taste for young women.

Coixet was the principal camera operator which gives her no-one to blame but herself for the film's terribly distracting hand-held camera work. I often had to look away from the screen and watch with my peripheral vision, mostly at times when there was absolutely no need for it. Call it designer shake, but it takes me right out of the story.

Ultimately, the major failing of the film is a very week screenplay. It's inconsistent and doesn't maintain drama that the anguished characters should have been able to raise. The story gives a sense of self-importance but ends feeling hollow. I imagine it will be well-received by middle-class middle-aged arthouse audiences who will just love the play on sentimentality. After Coixet's not-too-bad My Life Without Me, it left me completely disappointed.

Wendy and Lucy

Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, USA, 2008)
Wendy and Lucy is a beautiful, moving film. We are lucky to have the opportunity to see a film of this calibre outside of a festival. On the strength of Kelly Reichardt’s sublime Old Joy, I’d been anticipating its release since MIFF nearly a year ago and it doesn’t disappoint.

In a sense, Kelly Reichardt subverts the film-making process. She not only demonstrates that money need not be an obstacle to telling a compelling story, but that there is a story to be told in the most everyday of situations. Wendy and Lucy is the story of a young woman and her dog. En route to Alaska in search of a job, Wendy’s car breaks down and is subsequently separated from her dog, Lucy.

The film captures with great emotional impact, the struggles of Wendy to deal with the situations she finds herself in. Small, seemingly innocuous actions have major ramifications. People can be harsh, indifferent or unexpectedly kind and the film captures the nuances of these different aspects with warmth and compassion for the characters.

Wendy is living on the margins of society. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot separating her from a lucrative job up north, homelessness, jail or mental illness. For you and I, we may not think twice about say, buying a coffee. For Wendy, however, every penny counts.

Michelle Williams is in virtually every shot and really shines, though there’s nothing grandstanding about her role at all. Rather, it’s a nuanced performance with minimal dialogue, where her increasingly dire situation is deduced by her budgeting notes and unexpected expenses. Walter Dalton performance as a shopping mall security guard is also excellent. As an aside I noticed with some interest that Gabe Nevins, who plays the lead character in Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park, has a small incidental role.

The film’s visuals are gorgeous, not dissimilar to Old Joy. As an amateur photographer, I appreciate Kelly’s observational style and framing. She uses static shots frequently, interspersed with tracking shots, a mix that is aesthetically very pleasing and subtly adds to the story-telling.

On a superficial level there’s not a whole lot happening in Wendy and Lucy. Deeper though, there’s much to experience and relish, and words don’t do it justice. It just has to be seen. Highly recommended.

Wendy and Lucy opens this Thursday and is screening exclusively at the Nova.

Summer Hours

L'heure d'été (Summer Hours, Olivier Assayas, France, 2008)
Sometimes we see a sunset so awe-inspiring, it takes the breath away and one wishes we could bottle it. We know this to be impossible, but then Carlos Reygadas comes along and gives us Silent Light. Similarly, a film occasionally seems to come close to capturing emotions in a rare, almost transcendent way. Like plutonic love in the final scene of Lost in Translation, or grief in Three Colours: Blue.

In Summer Hours, an understated and nuanced family drama, Olivier Assayas has not only crafted a multi-layered and authentic story about generational change, but also captured something magical, something everyday and universal in a very special way.

Summer Hours is a story about family, about secrets, competing expectations, hopes and dreams. It’s about loss, change and disappointment. “All things must pass”, sang George Harrison, a truism that is at the core of the film. Some accept that and others have trouble letting go. The essence that Assayas has bottled is nostalgia, the sadness of the passing of the guard as one generation passes, mixed with the joys and aspirations of a new one.

What happens when a person with memories and possessions accumulated over a lifetime, reaches the end of the road? We can divide things up. Some things are taken by one party, some by another. Some things are lost or given away. In examining the small details of this aspect of life, Assayas demonstrates that he has a keen eye, and authentically depicts how death in a family can variously affect the family members.

The confidence of the direction is apparent, with Assayas refraining from putting into words that which can be conveyed visually. A “less is more” methodology gives the film a satisfying aesthetic, as we are left to discover and ruminate on the little details of the picture Assayas has painted. The cinematography supports this structure, with fluid movements of a roving camera that gives a sense that we are observers within the family.

An example of an unexplained detail is Frédéric (Charles Berling) appearing with a beard for a while. This is not uncommon when someone has died, particularly in Europe. Without words drawing attention to it, some may not notice this detail, and for the observant there are many like this.

The film’s ambiance strongly reflects the title’s suggestion of season. The use of light, scenery and sound all convey a sense of time and place. The sound in particular seems heightened, whether it’s birds singing or the click of a car’s seat belt, and creates an awareness of things occurring inside and outside the camera’s frame.

If the use of artistic items in the film looks authentic, it’s because many of them are genuine pieces provided by Musée d’Orsay, who apparently originally commissioned the film to commemorate the institution’s 20th anniversary. In the story, the family has a history of involvement in art. The film highlights that objects you may admire in a museum case were once everyday objects for people used in often mundane ways.

There’s something about Juliette Binoche – no stranger to films about grief – as a blonde that doesn’t quite work for me. I noticed it in The Flight of the Red Balloon, and I found it a little distracting in this film, too. As a 40-something, she didn’t quite look authentic. Binoche and Jérémie Renier are both fine actors I have high regard for, though Renier, as a 20-something, isn’t completely convincing as a 40-something. Mind you, it’s the film’s marketing, not the film itself that tells us his age, so this is only a minor quibble.

The main character of the film is Berling’s Frédéric, and who is most convincing. It is he who is most disturbed by the compromises to be made for family unity. Through him we understand how one’s visions of the future can collapse, and how grief is not just about what is lost, but also about what can no longer be. Dreams and expectations vanish.

The film is bookended with children playing. Ironically, the start includes a treasure hunt. The ending provides a bridge between past and future. Summer Hours is a very satisfying film, of a quality we don’t see enough of outside of MIFF and the French Film Festival. It doesn’t fit into the gritty milieu of films like say, Private Property or The Child, but nor is it a run-of-the-mill family melodrama. This is serious adult drama that is neither shocking nor challenging, but both entertaining, moving and thought-provoking.

A final point in passing: I shudder to think how much of this film’s subtlety will by spoiled by reviews that deprive the reader of any mystery of the story’s unfolding. My suggestion is just see it, no questions asked.

Summer Hours is screening at the French Film Festival, between 5 and 19 March (in Melbourne) and is being released in cinemas on 2 April.

Revolutionary Road

Revolutionary Road (Sam Mendes, USA, 2008)
Sam Mendes is proving himself a very deft director, not that any of his previous work indicated otherwise, but with successive films he's certainly accumulating an impressive body of work. Revolutionary Road is a really well-made film that I find hard to flaw. Mendes has removed all the overt humour and satire he used in American Beauty and given us a very raw and real suburban drama.

The film is multi-layered, tackling various themes, some overt and some very subtle. This is where Mendes shows his skill. He depicts themes specific to the period (the 1950s), but doesn't join all the dots. He assumes we know enough of the period not to have to articulate everything we see on screen.

Meanwhile, the more overt elements comprise largely the dynamics between the two main characters, married couple Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and April (Kate Winslet). The film socially and culturally is set in the 50s and the idiosyncrasies of the time are well captured, but more importantly, Mendes demonstrates his astute awareness of the complex nature of conjugal relationships that are universal. This element is so rich, depicted with so much skill that is a testament to the ability of the director and the excellent performances of both DiCaprio and Winslet.

Frank is a more significant character in the film, so DiCaprio really gets to show that he is maturing as an actor. I thought there were hints of this in The Aviator, but his youthfulness worked against him in that film. In this one, he seems perfect for the part.

Winslet has got to be one of my favourite British actresses and this has got to be one of her best performances. It's nuanced, strong, conflicted, erratic and captures the duality of femininity. I'd have to say it's one of the most authentic roles of its type that I've ever seen. She has a natural non-conventional beauty and I was struck by the similarities with Gillian Anderson, another actress that I also find both very attractive and smart.

A theme the film explores is the idealism that is sacrificed by reality and the need to make ends meet or get ahead in the world. The conflict this causes within a relationship, and the evolution (or devolution) of love is examined with heart-breaking honesty.

Michael Shannon was excllent in Shotgun Stories, and his performance in Revolutionary Road plays a curious role. Adding a light touch of a different kind, his character is basically a device to articulate that which normally is unspoken in such a society. Through him, we can also question what is insanity, or who is truly insane.

The film looks great, the art production gives a very authentic ambience, the support characters are all authentic (Kathy Bates' character is great, especially with her comments at the end), the camera work is excellent and Thomas Newman's score, though not dissimilar to his work in American Beauty, seems just right.

I know many often refer to American Beauty as a satire or comedy, but I never took it as that. I always felt that it was so close to the bone in its depictions of family life that it was pure
drama, albeit made more digestible (for mass consumption) through the use of humour (which is different to comedy). Revolutionary Road does tread similar territory to American Beauty which I think shows how serious a story-teller Mendes is, even with funny material. The dynamics, issues and aesthetics are very different between both films, but it's interestingto compare them.

Good American dramas have been very thin on the ground for some time, and Revolutionary Road is long-overdue in this regard. It boosts my faith in cinema releases.

Lastly, the less you know and have seen about the film, the better. I'd forgotten what it was about until it got started and I loved that things didn't pan out the way I expected.

The Class

Entre les murs (The Class, Laurent Cantet, France, 2008)
Today I saw this Palme d'Or winning film for the second time. Coming out of the cinema, I found myself in conversation with Age film critic, Philipa Hawker, whose first comments I completely agreed with - why did they change the title? So much meaning is lost in translation and the actual French title "Between the Walls" is so much more poignant and carries nuances that the English title discards.

I'll say up front that I find it a good film, but not the masterpiece I often find a Palme d'Or winner to be. My partner, a secondary school teacher herself, was keen to see it and I was happy to see it again (not something I do frequently). I enjoyed the film more on second viewing, which reflects that it stands up to scrutiny.

The Class is no "To Sir With Love", though it has elements in common. The film is based on a book by François Bégaudeau, who plays the teacher in the film, and based on a year of his experience as a teacher in a similar Parisian school with "difficult" demographics, ie, poverty, unemployment and immigration issues. The film employs a cinéma vérité look as if it were a documentary. The element that most distinguishes the film from others about school life is that the perspective is entirely from that of the teacher, and only from within the school walls (most of it within the one classroom). There is no "god" view that gives us privileged insights into the minds or lives of the children or even the teachers. It's as if we were there in the classroom documenting this one Year 4/5 French class over a span of months.

Cantet has a history of making observational films on non-sensationalist subjects, on revealling the drama of ordinary people in realistic situations. This is so in The Class, in which the drama is believable. Conflict occurs in the classroom and the teacher needs to control the constant threat of disorder. Sometimes he handles it better than other times, and there is no "Mr. Perfect" thing going on. In fact, sometimes the teacher inadvertently contributes to conflict.

There is a natural tendency for the audience to identify with François' general policies in the classroom. He seems a nice enough guy, sincere and with good strategies for eliciting participation and imparting knowledge. Yet, in meetings with other teachers, we see conflicting ideas and can't help but agree when another teacher accuses him of just trying to keep peace in the classroom.

In keeping it real, Cantet portrays the difficulties and small triumphs faced by teachers and depicting the behaviours of adolescents that a teacher has to deal with. As my partner often says, a teacher's role is often just managing behaviour, in order to build trust and create an environment where children choose to learn. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

François is a French teacher and grammar is a much stronger component of education in that language than it is in ours (in this country at least). As a student of the French language, it was at first a little distracting to find I was digesting the lessons in l'imparfait infinitif and the subjunctif, which I found a little amusing. And it was also amusing to see the behaviours up close that I constantly hear complaints about in my own home, war stories from my partner's work.

A curious element is the differences between the French educational system than ours. For example, the procedures of discipline and expulsion. Or how student representatives are present during staff evaluations of students. These are small cultural details that I find rewarding from watching foreign cinema. It reminds me of how when I travel overseas, I am more interested in the seemingly mundane, like travelling on public transport and visiting a supermarket to see the differences in everyday trivialities than in visiting major landmarks.

The Class is not as emotionally engaging as Cantet's earlier Time Out, but still a quietly satisfying film that has potentially broad appeal as solid adult cinema, a good French film. It should be especially of interest to teachers, older students and parents. It opens this Thursday, and in Melbourne, screens exclusively at the Nova.

Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle, UK/USA, 2008)
You've got to hand it to Danny Boyle - he really knows how to reinvent himself. Nearly every film he makes is a different genre. From thriller (Shallow Grave) to contemporary drug drama/comedy (Trainspotting) to drama (The Beach) to zombies (28 Days Later) to sci-fi (Sunshine), and now romance/drama/thriller with Slumdog Millionaire. This latest outing, set in India, shares some themes with his earlier Millions (2004), a story of some working-class kids who hit the big-time when they find a suitcase of cash, though this latest film is much more ambitious.

In Slumdog Millionaire, Jamal, a poverty-stricken youth, an orphan from the slums of Mumbai, falls under suspicion of cheating the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire when he makes it all the way to the final question, with the top prize of 20 million rupees at stake. How does he know the answers? The film's exploration of this question leads the viewer down various rabbit holes, revealling Jamal's past while giving the audience a view into aspects of contemporary Mumbai culture.

The film has a frenetic pace, with aesthetics similar to City of God. The music is sensational, completely in-your-face. Boyle has gone for a highly stylised and heightened sense of reality, using highly saturated colouration (with matching sub-title backgrounds as a subtle stylistic device). I'm not usually a fan of fast editing, but like the City of God (also set in slums), it works to very good effect here.

The film is unashamedly sentimental and uplifting, but that's not a criticism. In fact, it works quite well. We see life in the slums from a child's perspective, there is a central love story, there is the drama of a life of crime and there is the excitement and suspense that is known to anyone who has watched Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Boyle has packed so many angles into the film that skillfully play out in parallel that the story remains compelling from start to finish.

The game show aspect is really quite fascinating. The set, lighting, music and game structure is virtually indistinguishable from the Australian version. The biggest difference is the compere. Instead of Eddie Maguire and "lock it in Eddie" we have Amitabh Bachchan (played by Feroz Abbas Khan). The actual show is itself dramatic, but portrayed cinematically, it goes to a whole new level of suspense.

The film is highly entertaining and is sure to be popular with arthouse audiences, possibly mainstream audiences also. In fact, this may be Boyle's most successful film yet, though it's not particularly my type of film. It's not in the same league as Trainspotting, but then, I'm a sucker for bleak cinema. Comparisons have been made to other so called “sleeper indie hits” like Juno and Little Miss Sunshine. Slumdog Millionaire is far superior to both those films.

Slumdog Millionaire opens on 18 December, with preview screenings on 12-14 December.

Baz Luhrmann's Australia

Australia (Baz Luhrmann, Australia, 2008)
I’d like to preface my review of Baz Luhrmann’s Australia with some discussion of the film’s context. I’m generally not a fan of blockbuster films nor epics, and Australia is both. I’m quite selective about the media previews I attend, as time is usually an issue and, unlike a general cinema screening, you can’t select your session. There are a number of reasons that I went out of my way to see Australia.

Luhrmann has been particularly ambitious with Australia. While it’s not a genre of film that usually interests me, the project he has embarked upon has a significance beyond the film itself. Luhrmann is attempting a breakthrough film, something that hasn’t really been attempted. He’s taking on Hollywood on its own terms, playing their game, and attempting to win over both the local audience and ultimately an international audience.

Luhrmann wants Australians to change how they look at local films. People often roll their eyes when it comes to Australian films. I know, I often do it myself. He is unashamedly putting our culture (or a reimagining of it) before us and saying, “let’s be proud of our culture, of our way, of our stories… let’s change the perception that ‘Australian film’ means ‘boring’.” For this, I admire him.

The reimagining of our culture may be a total fantasy, but if the uniqueness of Australian culture is imbued/imbibed, in a way that we can feel good about ourselves, and have a good time, then that’s got to be a something good.

But wait, didn’t this film cost something like $130 million to make? No local film can recoup that kind of serious moolah; Luhrmann has clearly made this film for a global (or at least a US) audience, of which conquering the Australian market is just one step in a larger battle plan. The marketing of the film has been inspired by the Hollywood model. This film was being hyped before filming had even started some two years ago. Even the film’s title is an audacious emulation of American-style movie-marketing, which often proudly proclaims “America-this”, “New York-that” or just plain “Chicago”, “Philadelphia”, etc.

I’ve spoken personally to local directors, as well as questioned others at post-film Q&As. I have concluded that generally, foreign distributors are only interested in Australian films that enable them to market our films with just the type of clichés that Paul Hogan exploited with Crocodile Dundee, for example. I sense that Luhrmann is going for broke with Australia, crafting a film that is designed to appeal to as wide a global audience as possible, and perhaps through its desired success, lead a resurgence of interest in Australian films overseas. Much of the Australian film industry could reap the benefits if this strategy is successful. Again, I laud this attempt. For these reasons, I decided that Australia was a film I wanted to see, regardless of whether I like it or not. So, the verdict?

I like it, a lot. On most (but not all) accounts, Australia beats Hollywood at its own game. It uses over-the-top caricatures like those in Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom to excellent comedic effect, with Spielberg-like family adventure (think Indiana Jones) and blends in indigenous themes used in Noyce’s Rabbit-Proof Fence and the magic and story-telling in Rolf de Heer’s Ten Canoes. All this with an aesthetic that also recalls epics like Gone With the Wind. The result is a great romp that both reinforces and reimagines Australian mythology.

The film looks absolutely fantastic, with excellent use of the widescreen to frame the landscape and the characters. I’m familiar with the area in which the film was shot, and I’ve often commented on how beautiful it is. For example, it’s great to see boab trees depicted, which are specific to the Kimberleys. The film is a joy to watch.

There is more CGI in use than one can detect. I’m not a big fan of CGI, but I didn’t feel it detracted from the film (like it did in say, Lord of the Rings, which relied on it way too heavily). It doesn't draw attention to itself and is used to support the film, as it should.

Some critics bemoan the clichés. Oh for fucksake, the whole film is one giant cliché and that's an intrinsic part of its appeal. This is fantasy, it's caricature, it's over the top, it's what people expect of a blockbuster. Others have commented on the use of the word “crikey” as if it’s a Steve Irwin rip-off. I find this petty nitpicking. Crikey is a term I grew up with; my mum used it all the time, and its use was much more common in previous times. I think Luhrmann is effectively tapping into that Banjo Patterson sort of Australian mythology, with a kind of cheeky wink at Irwin without resorting to Irwin’s buffoon-like use of the word.

When Nicole Kidman’s character is first introduced, it is with an over-acted performance that I initially cringed at. Kidman-haters will have a field day with this. However, when the same scene is replayed from a different perspective, it then seemed quite in context. From that point on, I had no problems with her acting at all, and am impressed with her ability to do comedy. By the way, that trailer that had Kidman doing that “whoosh” thing really didn’t do the film justice. I had no problems when that scene played out.

I generally don’t like Hugh Jackman as an actor, but he played the part of The Drover with gusto and was perfect for the role. My favourite characters are Nullah (Brandon Walters), the young aboriginal boy from whose perspective the film’s story is told, and King George (David Gulpilil), the boy’s grandfather who plays an almost guardian angel-type role for the boy. Their stories are the most moving and I love what Luhrmann has done with these characters.

There’s an extensive support cast that includes Jack Thompson (in one of his best roles in a long time), Tony Barry (as a dead-ringer for Chips Rafferty), David Wenham, Bryan Brown, Barry Otto, Ben Mendelsohn, Ray Barrett, Bill Hunter, John Jarratt, among many others.

“Here I am, this blockbuster-sneering film-snob, getting caught up in the emotions of a highly contrived film. Luhrmann must be doing something right”

The film is unashamedly sentimental. You know where the film is going, you know you’re being manipulated, yet I still couldn’t help shedding a tear at all the right spots. Here I am, this blockbuster-sneering film-snob, getting caught up in the emotions of a highly contrived film. Luhrmann must be doing something right.

I only had four hours sleep last night and was a bit concerned whether I'd stay awake for the 165 minutes. The film captured my attention and I didn't nod off at all, though there was a flat spot mid-way. This was when the film reaches a kind of natural conclusion, the end of a chapter. Then the film’s main flaws kick in. It goes into epic-mode and, in doing so, loses the momentum and coherency of the first half. It also loses some of the comedic edge.

Luhrmann was reportedly working on the editing of the film right up to the night before the film’s premiere. I can guess the parts he was working on, and it didn’t seem as well put together as the first half. It’s probably too late for Australian audiences, but hopefully the studio will allow Luhrmann to tweak the film before it is released overseas. I didn’t find these flaws by any means fatal, but I’m sure it’s what some critics will focus on.

In conclusion, Luhrmann has crafted a film that demands a viewing, and it really needs to be seen on the big screen. It will appeal to a wide audience and I’m sure my 8-year old will enjoy it immensely. It’s a lot of fun, a lot of adventure, good old-fashioned story-telling. It’s contains some nice messages, without being preachy or ramming political correctness down our throats. It succeeds in being unashamedly entertaining, poking fun at Australian mythology while also reinforcing and reimagining it. I enjoyed the film much more than I expected. I’m sure it will do well here, and hopefully it will do well overseas.

Choke

Choke (Clark Gregg, USA, 2008)
Choke is actor Clark Gregg's writer-directorial debut, with a screen adaptation of a novel by Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club). I suspect that connection will draw many people to see Choke, but really they're very different films. First, Clark Gregg is not David Fincher, secondly this is a very different story.

Apparently, the story is semi-autobiographical, but I don't intend to go into the details of what parts are autobiographical, which are metaphorical, and which represent the experiences of those close to Palahniuk. I don't find it particularly relevant, but if you're interested, you can Google that yourself (or check out this article in The Age).

There's a lot happening in Choke, and the film attempts to get around this by depending too heavily on Rockwell's voiceover narration. It might have worked well with Edward Norton in Fight Club, but seems both a bit heavy-handed here and it detracts from the coherence. What the... ? The whole point of narration is to improve coherence, a shortcut alternative to depicting everything on-screen by relaying a character's thoughts.

I found the film a little disappointing. It looks good, it sounds good, the acting is good (Sam Rockwell is always good value, and the rest of the cast is also fine). The story is quirky, and to some, that could be code for where the film doesn't work.

The quirkiness factor comes in right from the start with just too many competing themes that feel forced (à la Little Miss Sunshine). There's the sex-addiction, and the attendance at group therapy sessions (a good place to get laid, apparently). Then there's the heritage theme park where Rockwell's character, Victor, plays a part alongside his best pal, Denny (a charismatic Brad William Henke), also a sex addict. There's the ruse Victor pulls in restaurants, pretending to choke, in order to get the sympathy of strangers. There's the descent into dementia by Victor's mother (Anjelica Huston), who may hold the key to some mysteries about Victor's identity. And there's the complexity that Paige Marshall (well-acted by Kelly Macdonald) brings in the form of a potential love interest.

On the surface, that's a lot of ground to cover, and Gregg does a not too bad job as first-time director. I'm sure a lot of people will find this film a lot more enjoyable than I did; the success of films like Juno and Little Miss Sunshine is testament to that. For me, there were many elements that in isolation may have been good, but didn't come together successfully as a whole. The editing of the film may be at least partially to blame, but ultimately, Gregg has been a little too ambitious and hasn't quite succeeded in sewing all the bits together as well as he intended. There's a twist at the end that I found a little weak and conventional, but I'm not giving that away. To the film's credit - and you'd expect this from a Palahniuk story - it's unconventional.

Choke opens on October 30.

The Naked Bunyip + Q&A

The Naked Bunyip (John B. Murray, Australia, 1970)
In 1970, when The Naked Bunyip was released, I was too young to see it. However, the film cast a long enough shadow throughout the 70s for me to be vaguely cognisant of it having some kind of cultural significance, a significance that I only realised yesterday at the film’s screening at ACMI.

ACMI’s weekly Australian Perspectives, screenings of little Australian gems from the past, are on most Saturdays and unfortunately often don’t get the attendances they deserve. This tends to confirm the point that director John B. Murray was making when he set about to film The Naked Bunyip nearly 40 years ago. The event was co-hosted by the Australian Film Critics Association (AFCA, of which I am a member) and a Q&A session was held after the screening with Peter Kraus (AFCA chair), Jake Wilson (a film critic from The Age, and one of my favourite Australian media film critics) and John B. Murray himself.

What a surprise the film was. I like to know as little as required before seeing a film, and I didn’t know that it was largely a documentary. But what a documentary! I wonder if John B. Murray had visions of it encapsulating the zeitgeist for posterity in the way it has. I did speak with him shortly after the screening, but I didn’t get the opportunity to ask this specifically.

My perceptions of The Naked Bunyip before seeing it were that it was a low budget pioneering film that was big on tits and genitalia (requiring John Russell-Clarke’s famous images as a censorship device to cover up the bits the masters of morality deemed too offensive) and low on narrative. The film received a nod in Mark Hartley’s recent Not Quite Hollywood (which is still screening at the Nova), which raises awareness of the historical significance of The Naked Bunyip.

Murray’s work is not another so-called Ozploitation film, but rather a very considered, intelligent attempt to both analyse and stir the Australian psyche, to get Australians to look at themselves in the mirror and define and find their own identity. Because of the distribution and exhibition system in this country since the 1920s, Australia had become almost solely a consumer of foreign (ie, US and UK) cinema and The Naked Bunyip was Murray’s attempt to address this, to get Australians to look towards their own film-makers and support a local industry. Oh my god, doesn’t this still sound so familiar today?! Nearly forty years later, this subject is very much in the psyche of those who care about Australian cinema.

Murray uses a cinema verité style of interview, with interviewees directly addressing the camera. Reading Murray’s significant essay The Genesis of the Naked Bunyip on Senses of Cinema, it is clear that he was aiming for the same effect that Errol Morris later achieved with his invention of the Interrotron.

Other than a couple of skits, one the setup in a social research organisation, the other a fake interview between Graeme Blundell and Dame Edna Everidge (Barrry Humphries, complete with gladioli), the bulk of the film consists of interviews with various people, investigating attitudes to sex and sexuality.

The sheer number of people who appeared in the film is awesome; many are now household names: Barry Humphries, Beatrice Faust, Barry Jones, Jackie Weaver, Harry M. Miller, Graeme Blundell of course, Fred Schepisi (who was directing commercials and hadn’t yet made a feature film), Russell Morris (performing “The Real Thing”, perhaps as window dressing, but alluring nonetheless), Dr. Bertam Wainer, Senator John Button and Keith Dunstan, among others.

Blundell is used for comic release, a clever device to make the subject matter more palatable. He remains largely mute, though sometimes his thoughts are narrated. His parts are interspersed throughout the film. His character was further developed in Alvin Purple (which I was also too young to see). Murray’s use of comedy in his film was very innovative, preceding by many years a style of documentary film-making that has become very popular perhaps since Michael Moore’s Bowling For Columbine. Today we see many documentaries getting released that combine the idea of uncovering facts with other narrative and cinematic devices, such as Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me and Ari Folman’s Waltz With Bashir (currently on release).

The film initially explores sexuality in popular culture and after the intermission (the film has one, but screened without break at ACMI) it heads into darker territory with abortion, homosexuality (then illegal) and prostitution. Some of these subjects were very much taboo at the time, much more so than now, and Murray had difficulty in finding homosexuals who would speak on camera. He mentioned during the Q&A that during post-production he eventually found a couple who would speak on camera about their homosexuality and it was a rush to get this material included in the film.

Q&A
The question and answer sessions are what really adds value to these Australian Perspectives screenings. Each Q&A is unique; this one because John B. Murray is such a lucid and intelligent speaker that his answers were detailed to the extent that there was time for only three questions. Each of the panel members asked one and I asked the only audience question. This took about 45 minutes and we then had to vacate the cinema for the following screening.

Peter Krausz asked how the film came about. I can’t even begin to recount a fraction of the detailed answer, but basically Murray revealed:

• It was driven by Murray and executive producer Phillip Adams, who was then a partner in a public relations firm, where perhaps the idea of the social research organisation in the film came from.
• It cost $40,000 to make, had a crew of three and was filmed in three states over ten weeks. There was seven weeks of pre-production and a long post-production.
• It was very difficult to meet homosexuals, and harder to get any to speak on camera.
  
• The censors were very accommodating but demanded 36 cuts totalling five minutes. To the chagrin of the censors, the cuts were replaced with the bunyip cartoons or beeping, which gave some indication of what was being censored.
• Prowse was the chief censor and Don Chipp was the minister responsible.
• If anything, the censors had been too lenient, and allowed material that would not be passed today.
• No-one had much faith in the film and so Murray marketed and distributed it himself. The local exhibitors showed no interest whatsoever, due to the US and UK strangehold on the industry. The only venue Murray could find was the Palais in St. Kilda, with 3500 seats. By closing the upper circle, this was reduced to 2300 seats. Murray basically hired that facility, foregoing any rights to income from sales of food and drinks (the major source of income for theatres) for $1750 per week. He arranged for flyers, brochures and, with Natalie Miller (currently part-owner of the Nova) doing publicity, arranged party bookings. Confounding all the sceptics, some 2,000 people arrived on opening night, forming a queue that went all the way down the street round the corner and down to the Esplanade. Murray described it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and he counted only 12 walkouts during the film.
• The film was initially booked for 2 weeks, but it was extended to 7 weeks. But he still couldn’t get any local cinemas to screen it, but found a live theatre in the city that he fitted out and booked for 6 weeks, where it sold out 2-3 times each week.
• Murray then went on tour with the film to each of the capital cities, screening it wherever he went. He calculates he saw the film 600 times before taking the film to regional areas. He ended up touring with the film for two and a half years. He says he succeeded in breaking down prejudices against Australian films. Indeed, Tim Burstall was so encouraged by Murray’s success (they had worked together on the earlier 2000 Weeks, a complete flop which had Burstall fall into depression) that he went on to great success a couple of years later with Stork, Alvin Purple and other landmark Australian films. After the success of The Naked Bunyip, Stork screened for only two weeks at the Palais before Village agreed to distribute it.
• The idea of the bunyip images came about when Murray actually researched the relevant censorship act to determine what was and wasn’t allowed.

Jake Wilson asked how much of the film was intended to connect with audiences and how much of it was intended to challenge them. Murray answered by saying that all directors want to connect with their audiences but his specific intent was to challenge them. He wanted to hold a mirror to Australian audiences, to open up a taboo subject. There was very little reading material on the subject (does anyone remember The Little Red School Book?), the subject confronted people and you couldn’t speak of homosexuality. According to Murray, the film needed to confront people. We hadn’t thought things through and what we spoke was simply rote.

Jake Wilson also asked where the idea of using Graeme Blundell came from. Murray said he cast him but didn’t want him to speak, as this would distract from the flow of the film. Murray wanted him to be a Buster Keaton-like character. He has the right physical attributes, isn’t quite with it, but always tries his best. Murray also mentioned that Humphries’ appearance was his first on film, and that his part was scripted by Phillip Adams.

When I asked a question from the audience, I mentioned that Murray’s example of distribution was quite inspirational and that this is still topical and relevant today. I asked what comments he could make about how young film-makers could get their films distributed and what issues he sees in the current system (alluding to funding practices). Murray mentioned that this is something he has been discussing in different roles for years. I don’t know if he adequately answered my question or if, indeed, this was possible in the time constraints. In passing, though, he mentioned that film-makers these days are much more specialised and don’t have the range of skills that earlier film-makers needed to possess: understanding film as art, film as a product to be marketed and distributed.

Murray says it’s a lot harder now, since John Howard opened up Australia to foreign commercials. Production equipment is very expensive but with the input of foreign commercials, the local industry has been seriously weakened, and the money isn’t there.

Peter Krausz asked about Murray’s opinion of Not Quite Hollywood’s inclusion of The Naked Bunyip. Murray replied that he was initially sceptical as he didn’t see his film as fitting into the category of Ozploitation. Hartley convinced him that the film would be treated with respect, and Murray says Hartley honoured his commitments. When asked why he wasn't interviewed for the film, Murray replied that it's probably due to his initial scepticism.

The Naked Bunyip was both an extremely bold (in subject) and extremely ambitious (in breadth) project, and one we can be thankful that Murray was passionate enough about to embark upon. He has left ours and future generations a legacy, a document of a point in time that might otherwise be forgotten. It is entertaining, insightful, revealing and infused with a sense of importance of its time. If you get the opportunity to see it on the big screen, take it. Otherwise, it is available on DVD from Umbrella Entertainment and includes the deleted visual and audio scenes and a 20 minute featurette.

Links: John B. Murray’s website / Genesis of The Naked Bunyip / Refused Classification