iPad Round-Up 7 - ORANGES AND SUNSHINE

ORANGES AND SUNSHINE is a turgid earnest historical drama more suited to be a TV afternoon movie than a feature release. The debut feature of TV director Jim (son of Ken) Loach, the movie tells the true story of a British social worker in the 1980s who stumbled upon a scandal, whereupon British kids of unwed mothers were shipped off to workcamps in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s, only to be abused and exploited. This powerful material should've made for a powerful film but this film is damp, dull, earnest, attempting to beat the audience into submission.  Emily Watson is becoming typecast in these suffering martyr roles - the only real revelation on the acting front is Hugo Weaving as  a suffering man, so far from his superhero roles, and David Wenham as a macho Aussie bloke coming to terms with his childhood abuse.  I suspect one would be better off reading the book upon which the movie was based. 

ORANGES AND SUNSHINE opened in summer 2011 in the UK, Ireland, Australia, Greece, New Zealand and Lebanon. It went on limited release in the US on October 28th. It is available to rent and own.

London Film Fest 2011 Day 7 - SNOWTOWN

SNOWTOWN is a searing, brutal movie about Australia's most notorious serial killer. An assured and powerful debut feature from Australian writer-director Justin Kerzel - it contains scenes of such explicit torture that in the screening I attended, a dozen people walked out at around the seventy minute mark.  But the unflinching depiction of torture should not distract us from the intelligent and nuanced depiction of psychological manipulation that brought to the point where one powerful psychopathic personality could commandeer a crew of three of four young men all complicit in murder.  To that end, SNOWTOWN is fascinating not just as an examination of this particular case, but of all those cases in which a charismatic personality creates heinous gang behaviour - the Manson Family, for example.

The movie opens with Kerzel deftly establishing the poverty and claustrophobia of smalltown life, centring on the extended family of Elizabeth Harvey - her brood of step-siblings. They badly need a father figure and in walks charismatic apparent family man, John Bunting.  He immediately asserts his personality, cooks meals, asserts discipline, and the mother almost looks happy. But behind his almost cherubic, bearded, cuddly image, we soon learn that he is capable of snap judgements about who is a menace to society - mostly gays and paedos, a seemingly interchangeable category for him, but then junkies, bullies...anyone in the wrong place at the wrong time.  

For the first hour of the film, Kerzel exerts supreme self-discipline.  Bunting's power is shown in a couple of breath-taking set-piece scenes around the kitchen table. where he builds on the innate bigotry of his neighbours to whip up a lynch-mob frenzy.  We suspect he is already killing people but the only thing shown on screen is a still shot of a bathtub covered in bloody hand-prints from tortured victims - incredibly powerful. But then, in the second hour, Kerzel shows us exactly what has been happening starting with a scene where we see Bunting goad his girlfriend's teenage son James into participating in the torture of the boy who raped him.  That scene is necessary to show how a fragile boy could be psychologically broken, but the following scenes of torture did at times seem to verge on torture porn.

That's a small criticism, though, and shouldn't distract from the fact that this is a brilliantly crafted film (DP Adam Arkapaw - ANIMAL KINGDOM) that doesn't fall for the typical "police hunt serial killer" genre tropes. Rather it focuses on Bunting and his crew, what they did, and how they did it.  Daniel Henshall, despite his soft features and friendly face, is absolutely terrifying and magnetic as John Bunting. Late on, there's a scene where the camera looks at him head on sitting in a chair smiling. It's so sinister that we are petrified of what we will see when the camera pans round to show John's point of view.  That's the power of the performance. Young Lucas Pittaway as the James, the kid John manipulates, is also deeply sympathetic, although I was conscious throughout that the film, like the trial, was essentially based on his evidence. One wonders whether he really was such an unwilling and unwitting part of the gang.  At any rate, this is a must-see film, although be warned about the ultra-violence it contains.

SNOWTOWN played Cannes 2011 where it won the FIPRESCI Prize - Special Mention. It opened in Australia in May 2011 and opens in the UK on November 18th and in France on December 28th.

Overlooked DVD of the month - MARY AND MAX

MARY AND MAX is an amazing film, and all the more wonderful for being un-expectedly so. It's a darkly comic, emotionally raw clay-animated drama about the unlikely friendship between two very lonely people - a little girl called Mary, who lives in Australia, and an old man called Max, who lives in New York. Mary Daisy Dinkle is lonely because her mum is a mean drunk and her father is a withdrawn taxidermist. She hates how she looks, she's socially awkward and other kids tease her. Max is lonely because he finds the world strange and irrational and frustrating and retreats into a closed existence of comfort-eating and writing angry letters. They are each other's only and best friends. 

The movie takes us from the early heady days of their friendship - the first not to involve an imaginary friend for both of them - through Mary's adolescence and marriage. The friendship blossoms, then flounders on betrayal, and is finally redeemed. The journey is genuinely moving - I cried like a baby at the end of the film - and I was happy to have spent time with these intriguing people despite the harsh material I was forced to endure - drug abuse, sexual infidelity, self-loathing, suicide and chronic disease. 

If all this makes MARY AND MAX sound about as much fun as shock-therapy, then please believe me that despite the unbearable sadness as its heart, it's also a very funny, and ultimately uplifting film. The detail of the art design is wonderfully witty, with lots of clever details to repay a repeat viewing, and the verbal humour is at once pathetic and laugh-out-loud funny. I have always had nothing but praise for Philip Seymour Hoffman, but he really surpasses himself as Max, imbuing every sentence with common-sense, hurt, longing, fear and unintentional wit. Toni Colette is wonderfully misguided and sympathetic as Mary, and even Eric Bana gives a sweet cameo. So, if you love the kind of gentle, warm, heart-breaking humour found in the following quotations, please check MAX AND MARY out. As for me, I just can't wait to see what Australian writer-director Adam Eliot does next.

Max Jerry Horovitz: When I was young, I invented an invisible friend called Mr Ravioli. My psychiatrist says I don't need him anymore, so he just sits in the corner and reads. 

Max Jerry Horovitz: Butts are bad because they wash out to sea, and fish smoke them and become nicotine-dependent. 

MARY AND MAX played Sundance and Berlin 2009 and opened in Australia, the Czech Republic, New Zealand and Russia that year. It opened last year in Denmark, Belgium, Greece, Norway, Brazil, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Hungary and the UK. It is currently on release in Singapore and opens in Japan on April 23rd. It is available to rent and own.

ANIMAL KINGDOM

ANIMAL KINGDOM is a fascinating but not flawless Australian crime thriller that has garnered critical acclaim, not least in a Best Supporting Actress nod for Jacki Weaver. The feature debut of writer-diretor, David Michod, it's the kind of movie that has so much ambition, and has so many individual moments of brilliance, that you can't wait to see what the director does next, even though the product before you is fairly raw. 

The movie is loosely based on a true story of armed robbers in late 80s Melbourne. As we meet the characters, that era of armed robbers and corrupt police is coming to a close. The criminal Cody family is being hunted by the police, and once cornered, turn on each other. The film watches their disintegration and the shifting allegiances and power positions within the familial set-up. We see the weak killed; the under-estimated rise to the top; the old order removed and the so-called establishment side-lined. The nominal paterfamilias is "Pope" Cody (Ben Mendelsohn) - a man who we must assume was to be feared but who know, though still capable of extreme acts of violence - seems lost - uprooted - almost tragic. He is a man out of time. The world is moving on but he doesn't know what to do. His brothers are similarly adrift. Darren (Luke Ford) is scared and parasitical, just looking for another leader to cling to. Craig (Sullivan Stapleton) takes refuge in drugs. And into this mix comes "J" - their teenage nephew whose mum OD'ed and who looks brainless, comatose, and like a patsy in the making. But the REAL power in the family is the creepily over-emotionally involved mother, played by Jacki Weaver. A woman who'll call you "darling" and "love" while arranging your murder - a woman who epitomises the maternal survival instinct. It's a chilling and often blackly funny performance. 

ANIMAL KINGDOM is at its best when it's documenting the shifting power-structure within the family and watching these apparently fearsome robbers looking ineffectual. I love that David Michod has the confidence NOT to turn this into a courtroom drama, even though the final third of the movie is all about a big case. Rather, he cares about the "before" and "after". The scheming, the prep, the digesting of the results. In that way, this becomes a movie that constantly pulls the rug out from under your expectations. It feels satisfyingly dense and hangs on several highly impressive performances - Jacki Weaver, Ben Mendelsohn and Guy Pearce as the cop. But the movie has its flaws. I regretted never seeing the family at the height of its power against which to contrast its fall. Sometimes, when the guys were being completely ineffectual, it felt implausible that they had ever committed the crimes they were accused of. At times, the plot felt too messy - too hard to disentangle. Sure, it's great for a director to trust his audience and introduce ambiguity - especially regarding the final scene. But earlier on, some of the exposition seemed murky to me. And finally, a lot of the film just seemed plain implausible. I didn't buy that the girlfriend's family would let her hang out with "J". I didn't buy how she exited the film. And I really didn't buy the transformation of "J" at the end of the film. Major problems. Still, for all that, this is a brave movie containing powerful performances, and I can't wait to see what David Michod does next. 

ANIMAL KINGDOM played Sundance 2010 where it won the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema - Dramatic. It opened last year in the USA, Canada and Poland. It opened earlier this year in Spain and Finland and is currently on release in Denmark and the UK. It opens in France on April 27th. Jacki Weaver was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars and Golden Globes but lost to Melissa Leo for THE FIGHTER. She did however win at the National Board of Review awards.

Random DVD Round-up 7 - SUBURBAN MAYHEM

Like an Australian mash-up of TO DIE FOR and NATURAL BORN KILLERS, Aussie director Paul Goldman's (THE NIGHT WE CALLED IT A DAY) SUBURBAN MAYHEM is a lot of fun up until the point where, well, it isn't. The star of the show is Emma Barclay's Kat - a slutty media-whore intent on raising the cash to get her murderous brother a retrial, and willing to manipulate meat-heads into off'ing anyone who gets in her way. The first half of the flick is carried along on a wave of black humour, loud music, saturated colour, ludicrous characterisation and hilarious talking heads. However, as the movie hits the second half it falters without a remotely sympathetic character to anchor our interest. It's like a lurid rock song that lasts way too long. Indeed, Kat is such a monster of narcissism, and the director takes such evident pleasure in filming this teenage single-mum whoring it up, that one might almost be tempted to call this a rather misogynistic flick except for the fact that screenwriter Alice Bell is evidently taking equal pleasure in showing how simple-minded the guys are who fall for Kat's manipulation. Still probably worth a watch just for the bravura performance from Emily Barclay and for an early glimpse of the now Hollywood-famous Mia Wasikowska as Lilya.

SUBURBAN MAYHEM won 3 AFI awards and was nominated for a further 9. It played Cannes and Toronto 2006 and was released in Australia in 2006 and in the UK, New Zealand and France in 2007. It is available on DVD.