Reel Australia

Anyone who has read my previous columns may have noticed I’m not particularly patriotic. I like to have a good whinge about Australia and in particular its arts industry, which has never shown the slightest interest in employing me, no matter how much time I spend hanging around its door hoping to slip my foot in. Usually someone will have to twist my arm to get me to see a locally-produced film, or to use a free pass to what the independent movie club heralds as “the latest Australian tour de force”. I resist because experience has proved so many of these so-called masterpieces to be nothing more than bloody clunkers.

My head hangs as I write this, but my support of local cinematic talent extends to diplomatically steering clear and hoping the filmmakers will soon get the picture about their picture. In the past few years, however, something else besides innovative choc-top flavours has given me reason to rejoice over a visit to the cinema. Everything — the story, the performances, the mise-en-scène, the direction — came into riveting focus, and these films that demanded so much of my attention were all Australian.

Australian dramas, to be precise. The clunkers I mention above are emphatically not dramatic, but laboured ‘quirky comedies’ aimed at making international audiences laugh at our antics (do they?) and alienating the locals. Most of them are produced by brat pack comedians who made it big on the ABC in the ’80s and still think the way to international success is to combine Crocodile Dundee with Home and Away, load the script with clichés and colloquialisms (a bloke in a navy Bonds singlet cooking a barbie under the watchful eye of his pet kangaroo? Bloody oath), cast Bill Hunter in a character role, then film the entire thing either out in the bush or under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Kenny, a recent stand-out that winningly combines intelligence and irony, shows that all is not lost for our comedies, but it is Australian drama that has come of age — and without borrowing too heavily from the New Wave masters (e.g., Peter Weir) of the ’70s. Keep your popcorn warmed up for some of these little beauties, that may be hard to come by for some, but are well worth the hunt.

Candy (2006) appeals primarily because of its two main characters, Candy and Dan, played by Abbie Cornish and Heath Ledger, who provide charisma as well as looks. Happily, and pretty much from the outset, Candy and Dan’s electric love story turns into something a lot more compelling, thanks to the main theme of addition. Candy, an artist, descends into junkie-dom as she attempts to reach the creative heights of Dan, a poet who has used heroin for years. Prostitution and pregnancy feature in Candy’s downward spiral, as Dan, already at the bottom, looks helplessly on. That their addictions to creativity, desire, and drugs are unable to be sustained by the two main characters imparts even more tragedy, which is subtly handled by the script, adapted from Luke Davies’ novel of the same name. All characters seem to have a hundred dimensions; all are sympathetic, and all flawlessly acted, with a standout performance by Noni Hazlehurst, who proves deserving of her status as a veteran of Australian television and film, as Candy’s mother. I’ve heard criticisms that the film is as irresponsible as Trainspotting, in that it does not actively condemn heroin use and addiction, but that is largely the point: the line is drawn, but keeps on wavering, between those in the light and those in the dark. The despair belongs to both sides.

Rolf de Heer’s Ten Canoes (2006) created a positive stir in Australia for being the first feature-length offering with its dialogue entirely in the indigenous language of Ganalbingu. The film is mainly about storytelling, such an important part of all Aboriginal culture — the main tale is a cautionary one, told to Dayindi (Jamie Gulpilil) who risks contravening tribal law because of his desire for one of his brother’s wives. But there are more stories than just one and more than are told through speech: de Heer includes an homage to a famous anthropological photograph by Donald Thomson, which shows 10 Arnhem Land hunters out in their canoes, and switches from colour filming to black and white for the different narratives of the 10 Aboriginal canoeists, many of them new to performing. I would caution people not to be put off by the swag of awards this film has garnered — just because the arty farty critics have reasons to like it doesn’t mean no-one else will. Its lustre, warmth and humour are captured in its opening lines, narrated by the legendary David Gulpilil: “Once upon a time in a land far, far away…No it’s not like that. It’s not like your story — but it’s a good story all the same.”

Look Both Ways (2005) is a personal favourite because it was shot mainly in Port Adelaide and Semaphore and so features all my local haunts: the train station, Semaphore Road, Lipson Street. This novelty aside, the film takes on the close proximity of chaos and destruction, all told in an exceptionally gentle way, considering the main storyline involves Meryl (Justine Clarke) witnessing the death of a man who tries to save his dog from a train, and Nick (William McInnes) being diagnosed with cancer. Director Sarah Watt doesn’t abandon the genre she is best known for — animation — but instead infuses the film with moving images that give action to the interior monologue of Meryl. Anthony Hayes joins Clarke and McInnes in the ensemble, whose faces are familiar Australians but more than unlikely unfamiliar to foreign audiences, and so for them will possibly have more honest impact. Some of the best scenes were those with unnamed characters, however, such as the exchange between the Train Driver (Andreas Sobik) and the Dead Man’s Wife (Daniella Farinacci) as he comes to her door in what can only be described as guilt and supplication, waiting for her blame that never comes. A few key moments of humour ease the sense of doom the characters battle, but it was the sights and sounds of the all-too familiar and quasi-threatening world on screen that made me look at the world off screen in more ways than one, and this I believe is easily translatable, wherever you are.

On the slower, more subtle side of storytelling, Japanese Story (2003) is an emotionally drawn-out but intensely rewarding film. It is chiefly shot in the Western Australian outback, which seems the setting of choice for any filmmaker who wants stretching red sand and vast blue sky as a backdrop to the less distant emotional play of the characters in the foreground. The plot revolves around a romance injected with tragedy: the first half of the film focuses on the evolving relationship between Sandy Edwards (Toni Collette) and Tachibana Hiromitsu (Gotaro Tsunamisha) from the mutual animosity created by cultural differences, the second half around Tachibana’s death and Sandy’s grief. Director Sue Brooks piles on complexity through clever use of subtexts, exploring cross-cultural tensions through the visual delicacy of Hiromitsu, a slight figure in his dark business suits, and the toughness of Sandy, whose outback survival skills save both their lives. The landscape of the Pilbara region is effortlessly connected to the cultural isolation, the grief and loss the characters move through. Enigma remains the mot of the movie, however, with the motivation behind the characters often dubious, but nevertheless adding to the mesmeric whole.

Lantana (2001), like Look Both Ways, is an ensemble piece and follows the intertwining lives of four married couples. While exploring struggling relationships is not a new premise, there is an atmosphere of hopelessness in the film that drags you down and does what all good cinema does: reflects life back at you (and if what is presented is truly your life, I suggest liberal ingestion of the handiest stimulant because the picture isn’t a happy one). The flashes of optimism in Lantana, such as Nik’s (Vince Colosimo) interaction with his children, are vague, and come every now and then as if only to show what might have been for all characters involved. The cast includes the well-known faces of Anthony LaPaglia, the magnificent Geoffrey Rush and Barbara Hershey, but Kerry Armstrong and Rachael Blake give the most compelling (and, in Armstrong’s case, luminous) performances, entangled in their love triangle with LaPaglia’s character Leon Zat, and both suffering the effects of his angst. Lantana was adapted from a stage play by Andrew Bovell, but you wouldn’t know it — it converts to screenplay with suitably tense and loaded dialogue. Not a cheerful film, but a fine example of recent Australian drama.

Notable mentions include The Boys, a gritty crime drama starring the incomparable David Wenham, Walkabout, a strange, surreal ’70s flick by Nicolas Roeg, Bad Boy Bubby, a disturbing exploration of life ‘on the outside’ and Gallipoli, a touching and gore-less look at the botched invasion of the Dardanelles in World War I. Of course, I urge everyone else to uncover their own treasures in the many rich, complex dramas (and comedies) that Australia’s filmmakers have produced. Speaking as a recent convert, I anticipate looking in the new ways of emerging film talent in this country, and seeing through the direction of their vision.