Arthouse Imitates Life:
June 30th 2008 00:16
It was a scenario that felt a little Hamletesque, not only because I crossed paths with Brendan Cowell as he hoovered up popcorn. But when your suburb, in all its physical glory, gets plastered on the big screen, showing its seedy underbelly, you start empathising with Gertrude.
However in this absurdist setting, watching our town displayed in a story a little too close to home, I was a little uncomfortable. Not only because I saw my huge balcony displayed on the screen (no wonder starlets get eating disorders...).
The film is brilliant. If you saw "Spider", you will know the sort of stunts Nash is capable of. This movie was full of such moments. I can't say I was disappointed that the fake shark did not actually appear on screen. When I saw them trying to perfect it, with one guy on the riverbank with a CB, and another in full SCUBA gear, in the river, with a large fin strapped to his back, aiming to be submerged enough to trick the audience into thinking it was a real shark; I laughed. Loudly. Clearly, it was too hard to make it look real, so they implied the presence of a shark instead.
What was left in was the sort of shocking black scenes with equally shocking black humour intertwined. Very cool. Very Australian. Very shocking, because you find yourself laughing at the scenarios. Add to that some gorgeously blunt, ocker lines from the legend Bill Hunter, some amazing performances, most startlingly from a young NIDA grad who portrayed a woman caught in an abusive relationship brilliantly. She was constantly nervous, terrified that her partner, played by Joel Edgerton, would snap at any moment. Cripple by fear, crushed into submission, and entangled in the crimes and violent tempers of her de facto, and his associates; she was brittle and fragile, like a crazed windscreen just poised to collapse into a million pieces at the slightest pressure. Joel's character, amongst all the scary facial hair and bad 21st century mullets, looked boyish and much less scary than most of the cast of crims and dodgy tradies. Yet his character was, based on his on screen girlfiend's performance, psychotically violent, exuding a terrifying energy which caused her to lose her soul in his presence, and shake like a frightened little lapdog. You feel for any woman caught in a similar bind.
The other NIDA grad enlisted, Clare Van Der Boom, was great too, as the partner of the scariest mullet of them all. In her home, she was the gopher girl whose life was servitude to the low-class, high calorie culinary whims of her boyfriend and his dodgy mates. Professionally she was a hairdresser. Privately (well, by the side of the Wonnie Bridge in her little yellow Laser), she was having an affair with the manager of a building site. It was this opening scene, which was unmistakably our bridge, which made me feel a bit like Gertrude, watching the horror of her life, and of those around her, unfold before her astonsihed eyes...
TBC...
In the meantime, check the red carpet interviews, and stay tuned...
Your text goes here
However in this absurdist setting, watching our town displayed in a story a little too close to home, I was a little uncomfortable. Not only because I saw my huge balcony displayed on the screen (no wonder starlets get eating disorders...).
The film is brilliant. If you saw "Spider", you will know the sort of stunts Nash is capable of. This movie was full of such moments. I can't say I was disappointed that the fake shark did not actually appear on screen. When I saw them trying to perfect it, with one guy on the riverbank with a CB, and another in full SCUBA gear, in the river, with a large fin strapped to his back, aiming to be submerged enough to trick the audience into thinking it was a real shark; I laughed. Loudly. Clearly, it was too hard to make it look real, so they implied the presence of a shark instead.
TBC...
In the meantime, check the red carpet interviews, and stay tuned...
Your text goes here
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