2009 is looking like the year that will restore my faith in Australian Cinema.
It was an auspicious year already, with the long-awaited restoration and cinema/DVD re-release of Ted Kotcheff’s seminal masterpiece “Wake In Fright”, one of the most important (and greatest) Australian films of all time. I’ll write a blog on this film soon, as I attended a screening a while back that was introduced by Ted himself, and have had a long-standing obsession with it.
Donald Pleasance in 'Wake In Fright'.
But we’re also seeing a real return to form in the films currently being produced and released here, too. To date, I have seen (and been incredibly impressed by) Adam Elliot’s first animated feature Mary & Max, Warwick Thornton’s brutal, essential Samson & Delilah, Robert Connolly’s terribly angry and moving Balibo, and Rachel Ward’s Beautiful Kate (which holds a special personal significance for me, as it is the first feature film shot by my long-time friend, the very talented cinematographer Andrew Commis. I’m also eagerly awaiting Jonathan Auf Der Heide’s Van Deimen’s Land, which looks like a cross between the sensibilities of John Boorman and Werner Herzog, if the 20 minute short version I saw is any indication.
It seems, at least temporarily, that Australian film-maker’s are throwing off the yoke of the fussy, static, twee and cowardly ‘coming of middle-age’ movies that plague our industry (and die lonely, deserved deaths at the box office) for darker, more expansive and bold works, that delve into our culture and have some actual relevance.
About. Fucking. Time.
