tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/melbourne-international-film-festival-29840/articlesMelbourne International Film Festival – The Conversation2023-08-24T20:20:47Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2109652023-08-24T20:20:47Z2023-08-24T20:20:47ZThe five best films at this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544123/original/file-20230823-26-6l3bnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=59%2C11%2C3916%2C1964&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">MIFF</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I’ve been talking to my film students lately about the way that viewing contexts affect how we receive a film – whether this means different hardware, locations, moods and modes of engaging. </p>
<p>While many of these conversations have been around the value that can be found in any kind of viewing, the perceived ideal still seems to be the darkened theatre, with a fellow audience. The Melbourne International Film Festival gives such a fantastic opportunity for coming together like this for two weeks of really concentrated cinema experiences, a welcome retreat from winter. </p>
<p>While the dozen or so films I managed to see can’t be fully representative, they offer a sample of some of the different kinds of cinema experience MIFF 2023 had on offer. Here’s a rough top five:</p>
<h2>Walk Up (Hong Sang-Soo, South Korea, 2022)</h2>
<p>Hong Sang-Soo has directed 28 features since 1996, and they are nearly always a festival highlight for me in that their effects last a lot longer than my immediate reception. I’m always thinking about these films days, weeks, months later. </p>
<p>Part of the difficulty in writing about Hong’s work is that conversations among fans can feel exclusionary, heading immediately into auteurist gushing about form and repeated character types. This repetition is one of the real pleasures of encountering his work. </p>
<p>If you’ve never seen a Hong film, you can expect slow, realist plots about relationships (romantic, familial). Austere cinematography (locked-off mid shots are a favourite). Protagonists who are barely veiled Mary-Sues, usually filmmakers themselves, sometimes novelists or film professors. Expect excessive drinking, the tables packed with empty soju bottles.</p>
<p>The “puzzle film” is usually used to refer to a director like Christopher Nolan, but Hong could not be further from that (a common, facile comparison is made between him and Woody Allen, a more robust one for me is Eric Rohmer). </p>
<p>Nevertheless, his movies are a delightful, abstruse puzzle box, where getting to know a character requires careful observation of not only what they say but how they behave. </p>
<p>In Walk Up, the filmmaker protagonist Byung-Soo (Hong regular Kwon Hae-Hyo), adult daughter in tow, visits an old girlfriend who owns a four-storey apartment building. Over a four-part structure, we make occasional jumps forward in time, from the evening with the friend and daughter, to a growing relationship with the proprietor of the second-floor restaurant, to our hero’s occupancy of the top floor with a new girlfriend possibly years later. The final part returns us to the beginning, with the filmmaker again encountering his daughter on the evening where the first chapter ended. </p>
<p>It’s so satisfying to slowly see commonalities unfold across the four parts. How, late in each chapter, a character leaves the building and the others spend the remainder of that chapter awaiting their return. How entitled, pompous Byung-Soo is looked after by the women around him, all of whom, in very different ways, are concerned about his health. </p>
<p>I note how poorly Barbie performed in South Korea, and how despite their strength and power, Hong’s women are often still beholden to his comically self-assured, quixotically dreamy – or just deluded? – men. </p>
<h2>Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt, US, 2022)</h2>
<p>It’s fascinating how the most interesting hot teen actresses of my adolescence now play frumps in films by female auteurs. Beautiful Michelle Williams’ dowdiness here rivals even Kirsten Dunst’s in The Beguiled or The Power of the Dog. You would never believe this croc-clad, slouching woman was playing Marilyn Monroe 12 years ago. </p>
<p>A ceramicist slogging away at administrative work for an art centre, Lizzy’s (Williams) life is the series of dismissals and microaggressions that plague anyone made invisible by a shy manner and complete dearth of pizzazz in appearance or personality. As she prepares for her own exhibition, Lizzy is overshadowed by the success of her charismatic but flaky colleague and landlord Jo (a brilliant turn by Hong Chau). Jo’s popularity is even more galling because she is weeks behind on fixing Lizzy’s water heater and keeps saddling her with caring for an injured pigeon.</p>
<p>This film manages to make a joke out of the po-faced ludicrousness of the art world, while never (for me at least) making fun of art or artists themselves. It’s a fine line to walk, but one that I found tethered by Lizzy’s ability to subtly, gracefully, if unwillingly shoulder the worry, responsibility and labour that is necessary for making creativity bear fruit. </p>
<p>This is the funniest of Williams and Reichardt’s collaborations, but still grounded in their usual quietness and honesty. </p>
<h2>Femme (Sam H Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, UK, 2023)</h2>
<p>The moment Femme ended, the stranger to my right turned to me and said, “Wow, that was intense hey? My friend edited that!”, and all I could reply was “Kudos to your friend!” </p>
<p>This film is complete white-knuckle suspense through its brief runtime, though the homophobic violence that prompts its revenge narrative is <em>really</em> hard to stomach. </p>
<p>I was reminded of how many rape-revenge films don’t seem to understand that revenge is only satisfying if the survivor gets away with it. In Femme, the satisfaction at the end is knowing that beautiful, tender hero Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), has the love of his community, and all the things that made a closeted, abusive bigot want to hurt him are also his strength and grace. </p>
<p>And that sometimes we don’t want to see bullies learn the error of their ways – we just want to see them left out in the cold. </p>
<h2>Gush (Fox Maxy, US, 2023)</h2>
<p>This was the only festival screening I went to that was sparsely attended, and I think this is partly because the program seemed confused on how to describe it – it’s an experimental film, which they appropriately describe as “maximalist”. </p>
<p>The editing is unrelenting, with layers of sound collage and grainy digital shots of nature overlaid with MySpace-aesthetic animations, auto-tune, scenes of live theatre and TV clips of Tyra Banks and Naomi Campbell. There’s also director Maxy dancing with friends or chatting to them in the car about men they know on Instagram, and I feel like the impulse – in a festival context – is to tell you what all this is ABOUT, some decisive statement that makes the whole film cohere.</p>
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<p>This feels anathema to experimental film, which does sometimes intersect with the essay film (with an argument and something to say), but doesn’t have to. My reception of Gush was primarily aesthetic – I got a very tactile impression of the life Maxy was living at particular points while making this, and while the film is informed by relation to land, the digital era, indigeneity, trauma and gender it didn’t feel like it was making laboured statements about any of those things, as such. Rather, they give it its form. </p>
<p>Also – as I see someone clever on Letterboxd saying, it reads like “a series of bitchy Jonas Mekas TikToks”. A very funny comparison! </p>
<h2>Phenomena (Dario Argento, Italy, 1985)</h2>
<p>This was part of the festival’s Argento retrospective – new restoration prints of the horror and giallo master’s classics. And 1985’s lurid hallucination Phenomena is a total blast. It concerns a teenager (Jennifer Connelly) arriving at a foreign boarding school and encountering a serial killer targeting young women (well, the latter is a feature of nearly every Argento film). </p>
<p>There’s also a discovery that she can communicate with bugs telepathically, a sleepwalking affliction and a kindly wheelchair-bound etymologist (Donald Pleasance) and his support chimpanzee. The ludicrous plot is barely the point, though, as the film is primarily governed by a sense of dream logic, with one event linked to the next in the most tenuous fashion, and aided by an operatic 1980s rock soundtrack that completely knocks. </p>
<p>Phenomena culminates in a long set-piece where Connelly descends into a nightmarish underground complex, falls into a pit of maggots and decaying bodies (this scene actually made me retch), is chased by a deformed child, escapes via a boat which catches fire, summons a protective swarm of insects, and seems to have been saved only to have the antagonists fall and rise again in true slasher style. </p>
<p>The final minute involves a rescue so ridiculous the whole audience burst into celebratory laughter and applause. You can watch a film nearly anywhere, but you need to be in the cinema for that kind of delightful experience. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Grace Russell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From Korean realism to experimental maximalism, our top 5 of the most memorable films from the 2023 Melbourne International Film Festival.Grace Russell, Lecturer from the School of Media, Film and Journalism, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1895302022-09-08T04:42:24Z2022-09-08T04:42:24ZThe best films at this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482925/original/file-20220906-18-205e94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C11%2C3988%2C2646&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">MIFF</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After two years online, the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) returned to its regular, outsized form spread across a range of inner-city, suburban and regional Victorian locations. </p>
<p>It’s been many years since the experience of the same festival has been something to share with fellow moviegoers. These days, everyone traces their own path through the myriad of bad, good and excellent films and related experiences on offer. </p>
<p>If anything, this has been accentuated post-lockdown, now it is also possible to watch some films online and stick to particular geographic locations. This certainly has had an impact on the festival, fragmenting any real sense of a coherent and truly shared experience. This is not really a criticism – as there are many advantages to being able to cherry-pick and fully curate your own festival – but a reality that reflects the smorgasbord of what is on offer. </p>
<p>This is also reflected in the attendances at the festival. These varied massively between the small number of blockbuster films on offer (things like Park Chan-wook’s atmospheric but insubstantial Decision to Leave) and the many sparsely populated screenings that characterised the two-and-a-half weeks back in the cinema. </p>
<p>The festival is a unique and essential event, but it has been as affected by the challenges of clawing back an audience. In this regard, it was fascinating to see one of the festival’s highlights, Gus Berger’s The Lost City of Melbourne. This conventional archival documentary with talking heads spoke with some urgency about the legacy and impermanence of Melbourne’s built environment with a particular focus on its many lost and few surviving picture palaces. </p>
<p>Of the 25 or so films I watched – life didn’t stop to allow me to fully feast at the table – here are five that have stayed with me.</p>
<h2>Man on Earth</h2>
<p>Over the past 20 years, Amiel Courtin-Wilson has emerged as one of Australia’s most perceptive, challenging, honest and adventurous filmmakers. His latest film, Man on Earth, is an unflinching, unguarded and deeply affecting experiential portrait of the last seven days in the life of Bob Rosenzweig. </p>
<p>Living in Washington and suffering from Parkinson’s, Bob has chosen to die with dignity. Courtin-Wilson’s intimate and deeply respectful documentary provides a touching portrait of a man making peace with those around him, including the filmmaking team. Man on Earth emerged from another project that used thermal imagery to record the final moments of human life and its afterglow. It is a true collaboration between the filmmakers and Bob, who asked them to document his last days. </p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Melbourne International Film Festival</span></span>
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<p>This provides a wonderful sense of encounter and discovery as the filmmakers (who remain careful observers and not the object of the film) get to know their subject in the hyper-aware, emotionally charged and privileged moments that mark the end of his life. Although the film remains focused on Bob and his encounters with friends and family – his last call to one of his sons on the day of his death is heart-wrenching – it also highlights the passage of time, the changes in weather and the arcs of light that sculpt his final days. </p>
<p>Man on Earth is a beautiful, pensive, deeply engaged companion piece to an extraordinary group of intimate portraits (of Jack Charles, Cecil Taylor, Robina Courtin and Ben Lee) that have provided the spine of Courtin-Wilson’s filmmaking career.</p>
<h2>Senses of Cinema</h2>
<p>This edition of the MIFF provided a rich slate of what might be called contemporary independent Australian films. A wonderful counterweight to this was John Hughes and Tom Zubrycki’s long-in-gestation Senses of Cinema, a deeply archival portrait and argument for the ongoing legacy of the film cooperative movement in Sydney and Melbourne in the late 1960s, ‘70s and early '80s. </p>
<p>Senses of Cinema draws on archival material, especially recorded interviews with key players such as Albie Thoms, Margot Nash and Phillip Noyce, as well as footage from an astute collection of the widely varied but often activist films shown and distributed by the co-ops. It provides a convincing argument for the essential contribution of these collaborative and politically charged organisations to Australian cinema. </p>
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<span class="caption">A co-op meeting as documented in Senses of Cinema.</span>
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<p>The co-ops didn’t fund or make films, but provided an essential space for local and international work to be shown and debated. Hughes and Zubrycki’s documentary borrows its name from the more recent and groundbreaking online film journal, Senses of Cinema. In so doing, it recognises a shared connection between the various facets of non-mainstream, activist, grassroots and experimental screen culture in Australia. It sits alongside the extraordinary group of documentaries devoted to leftist film history Hughes has completed over the past 40 years, as well as the more observational and deeply committed works Zubrycki has created over the same period.</p>
<p>Made by two of Australia’s most important and, at times, maverick documentarians in the twilight of their careers, Senses of Cinema speaks, in every way, to the importance of collaboration and the necessary recognition and resurrection of often-forgotten parts of our film history and culture.</p>
<h2>The Afterlight</h2>
<p>Both Man on Earth and Senses of Cinema document lives, events and organisations as they pass into memory. Charlie Shackleton’s archival documentary, The Afterlight, memorialises those who live within an “afterlife” stored on celluloid. </p>
<p>The Afterlight is part of a broader movement in contemporary cinema and gallery art that highlights the decay and impermanence of the moving image, particularly in its material form prior to the digital turn. Taking its place alongside the work of filmmakers and video artists such as Bill Morrison and Christian Marclay, it collages together images from hundreds of films – all in black and white – that feature actors who are no longer alive. In some respects, the implications of Shackleton’s film are banal – who hasn’t registered that the images you might be watching are of people who are no longer alive? But his work is given force by both the way the images are organised and the conceptual conceit that surrounds the film’s distribution and exhibition. </p>
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<p>Afterlight was completed on celluloid and only exists in a single 35mm print that will tour the world and eventually weather and disintegrate. The varying quality of the footage it includes also speaks to the unequal fate of marginalised films alongside those that have been carefully guarded and monetised by the archive. In its global circulation it will also melancholically map the dwindling capacities of the world’s cinema to show archival films in their original state. </p>
<h2>R.M.N.</h2>
<p>Since his Cannes Palme d’Or-winning film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1032846/">4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days</a>, Cristian Mungiu has been carefully building a rich filmography exploring the legacies of communism and the Ceausescu regime. His work also focuses on the deep-seated traditions and faith of Christianity, the impact of multiculturalism and multi-ethnicity on more traditional, often insular communities, and the opening up of contemporary Romania to the rest of Europe. </p>
<p>Set during the holiday period in the early days of winter, R.M.N. provides a subtle yet ultimately devastating portrait of a community gradually undone by the arrival of overseas workers, and the tide of xenophobia that crests in their wake. Centring on a local resident returning from his employment in Germany, Mungiu provides an unsettling vision of contemporary Transylvania. It shows a community embracing the modern world while also returning to the ancient prejudices and behaviours that lie just beneath the surface. </p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Melbourne International Film Festival</span></span>
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<p>Taking its name from the Romanian acronym for a MRI, R.M.N. is an outstanding portrait of a physical, experiential and psychological environment. It’s a film that seems usefully unresolved, providing a heat map of the urges, prejudices and troubling histories that sit just below its often-beautiful, wintry surface.</p>
<h2>Corsage</h2>
<p>Along with R.M.N., Marie Kreutzer’s Corsage screened at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and will undoubtedly move on to a relatively wide release in the world’s arthouses. </p>
<p>On one level, it follows the conventions of what we might expect of a late 19th-century period piece. But it combines this with a revisionist account of the life of Empress Elizabeth of Austria (popularly know as Sissi) as she turns 40 and starts to question the restrictive public role she has been corseted into. </p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Melbourne International Film Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The cinematic representation and legacy of the figure of Sissi is indelibly marked by the trilogy of films made in the 1950s featuring the breathtakingly young and beautiful Romy Schneider in the title role. Kreutzer provides a different perspective on Sissi’s life, experience and appearance, drawing an extraordinary performance out of Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread) in the central role. </p>
<p>Corsage wades into very crowded waters alongside other 21st-century feminist takes on historical figures like Marie Antoinette and Princess Diana – and the use of modern pop songs on the soundtrack certainly brings to mind Sofia Coppola’s opus. Nevertheless, it provides a singular account of famous and admired woman trying to break free from the shackles of both societal expectation and history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189530/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I do know several of the filmmakers mentioned in this article - Ameiel Courtin-Wilson, John Hughes & Tom Zubrycki (this is not surprising within Australian screen culture & considering my role as a curator). I have curated programs of their works perviously for the Melbourne Cinematheque. Other than co-programming screenings devoted to the Co-ops, I have had no direct involvement with any of these films.</span></em></p>Our expert shares the five films from the Melbourne International Film Festival that have stuck with him.Adrian Danks, Associate professor in Cinema and Media Studies, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1876252022-08-11T20:04:32Z2022-08-11T20:04:32ZFriday essay: sex, swimming and smudgy louvres – watching Monkey Grip 40 years on<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478246/original/file-20220809-16-p1hk56.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C19%2C673%2C442&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An early poster for Monkey Grip, starring Noni Hazelhurst and Colin Friels.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">MIFF</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The woman’s name is Nora, and she’s getting out of the pool when she goes to look at the guy she’s seeing and sees something better: a sexy stranger, Javo, who radiates a type of bruisy depth. He hangs back near the famous sign, AQUA PROFONDA, while Nora and the guy she’s seeing, Martin, do their thing. He looks like he’ll be trouble, but not the bad kind of trouble; the kind it might be interesting to catch.</p>
<p>Nora learns from a mate that Javo likes heroin, though he seems to have kicked it; the mate is the girlfriend of Nora’s housemate, and in the anything-goes manner of the time, Javo is soon hanging out with Nora and Martin, enough that Javo can ask Martin how “together” they really are, and relay Martin’s evasive response straight to Nora – a canny move for such a cruisy guy.</p>
<p>Soon, she’s taking him to an art show that she has to cover for the small, busy alternative paper for which she writes reviews. Afterwards, she asks him if he’d like to stay the night. “That would be good,” he tells her, and it’s on.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478176/original/file-20220809-19-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a woman and man, smiling, stand in front of a weathered wall, the side of a house" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478176/original/file-20220809-19-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478176/original/file-20220809-19-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478176/original/file-20220809-19-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478176/original/file-20220809-19-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=284&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478176/original/file-20220809-19-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478176/original/file-20220809-19-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478176/original/file-20220809-19-ffr1dv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Noni Hazelhurst as Nora and Colin Friels as Javo in Ken Cameron’s 1982 film Monkey Grip.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MIFF</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the morning, Nora’s 11-year-old daughter, Gracie, finds out; Martin finds out. After Javo heads off, Nora relaxes in the kitchen and says, “I suppose I’ve done it again” – the wrong thing, the wrong man – but the story we’re talking about, of course, is Ken Cameron’s <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/the-screen-guide/t/monkey-grip-1982/122/">Monkey Grip</a> (1982), and the casting of Noni Hazlehurst is one of its great coups. </p>
<p>Resignation, pleasure, self-satisfaction, concern: it’s all there in the delivery, and it all takes a back seat to a wonderful feeling that it doesn’t matter much at all. She supposes she’s done it again, and you may now grow aware of a disquieting question that is interesting to this movie the way a mouse is interesting to a cat.</p>
<p>Maybe understanding the implications of what you’re doing has little to no bearing on whether or not it’s actually done? And then the inverse – you can be wise enough to know what’s happening to you and have it happen anyway. This suspicion becomes unbearable as the film goes on. Nora’s carefree nature, which can be cruel but is rarely nasty, lifts the viewer and carries them over the movie’s darkest parts, but there’s always the sense that something irrevocable is happening, a little bit past the line of sight, a little way out of control.</p>
<h2>Making a novel into a movie</h2>
<p>The film is based on Helen Garner’s 1977 novel, and Garner and Cameron are listed as co-writers. On the indispensable website Ozmovies, where <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/the-screen-guide/t/monkey-grip-1982/122/">the Monkey Grip entry</a> splices an interview with Cameron by Peter Malone and an account of Cameron’s DVD commentary into a narrative of how the screenplay was written, Cameron explains that he cut up and re-pasted the novel, typed it up “so that it resembled a movie”, then finessed the adaptation in constant conversation with Garner; he has a collection of letters in which she suggests solutions and scenes. </p>
<p>Garner says on the DVD commentary that she saw 14 or 15 drafts of the script, and then was there for the filming because Nora’s daughter, Gracie, is played by her own daughter, Alice, who is a sharp presence through the film, cheery and watchful, and possessed of slightly eerie wisdom.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1DK_GmoxOfI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Helen Garner co-wrote the film Monkey Grip, with director Ken Cameron.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Garner disliked the casting of Colin Friels as Javo, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/bach-to-the-future-20080614-2qob.html">telling</a> The Age’s Peter Wilmoth in 2008, “I just can’t believe they cast Colin Friels as the junkie. [. . .] He was so healthy, a great big bouncing muscly surfing guy.” We all know people like Javo – if not the heroin, then the sulky mood – and it’s true that they’re not Colin Friels. </p>
<p>But I think of a point that a friend once made about a different kind of story, where two impossibly hot people have a meet-cute on a tram. That doesn’t happen in real life, someone at the time complained. But there are people in the world who look like that, my friend explained; when they hook up, it’s often with each other, and it has to happen <em>somewhere</em>. </p>
<p>If Friels’s Javo is not realistic to the story, then neither, perhaps, is Hazlehurst’s Nora, and you have to have someone like Friels to make the viewer believe that someone like Hazlehurst would give him the time of day. Monkey Grip is a movie, and it has to have some glitz. They have to hook up <em>somewhere</em>, and they hook up here.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478247/original/file-20220809-20-m5kemu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a woman riding a bike past the Edinburgh Gardens" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478247/original/file-20220809-20-m5kemu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478247/original/file-20220809-20-m5kemu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478247/original/file-20220809-20-m5kemu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478247/original/file-20220809-20-m5kemu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478247/original/file-20220809-20-m5kemu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478247/original/file-20220809-20-m5kemu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478247/original/file-20220809-20-m5kemu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Noni Hazelhurst’s Nora seemed to herald a new era of complex roles for women in 1982.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Umbrella Entertainment</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sex was an issue for this film. At first, nobody liked it, neither the distributors, nor “most of” the Australian Film Commission, which, speculated producer <a href="https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/vale-patricia-lovell">Patricia Lovell</a>, saw it as pornographic. Stratton had interviewed Lovell for his 1990 book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16041149-the-avocado-plantation">The Avocado Plantation</a>, about the turbulent economics of the 1980s in Australian film. The story of Monkey Grip’s production is harrowing. It almost found funding, but “fell over for lack of $150,000”. </p>
<p>Lovell moved on and produced <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082432/">Gallipoli</a> instead; by the time tax breaks made production more viable, other costs had gone up, so it was still a struggle to fund. When it finally got off the ground, some new funding problem meant that it looked like production might delay for two weeks – sending Lovell to hospital, where she spent 48 hours under sedation from nervous exhaustion. </p>
<p>When the film was done, Lovell heard that Gilles Jacob, director of the Cannes Film Festival, had been told “by someone in authority” that “the Australian government would not be pleased if Monkey Grip competed at Cannes” (though it did). Lovell screened the movie for three distributors in Melbourne, all of whom turned it down; one told her, “I loathed it.” Finally, Lovell distributed it herself, and after the first week’s takings offered proof of its heft, it was picked up officially by Roadshow.</p>
<p>Lots of films are incredibly sexy or incredibly sexual (dark, yearning, weird); Monkey Grip is both. It shows the parts of sex that are all about desperation, habit and distraction as much as those that are about intimacy, spontaneity or fun. </p>
<p>The first time Nora has sex with Javo is full-on, but first it’s so tentative that you think it might not happen; they get under the covers and at first you think they might just go to sleep. As soon as it’s happening, you realise that it was silly to think it might not. The eyes are closed, the clothes are off, the facial expressions work very hard; there’s some finger-sucking where the camera doesn’t cut away, and a kiss that’s more sexual than the finger-sucking.</p>
<p>Cameron told Stratton: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I had no problem with the actors during the filming of those scenes. I felt it was worth going all the way with them, and I was young enough not to have hang-ups. The atmosphere on the set was a bit funny: in the end, I had the entire crew, myself included, rehearse naked . . . we all believed in the novel and the film, so we felt those scenes had to be done that way.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s great, and sex reappears throughout the film as something that’s both absolutely normal – enmeshed in work, time, reading, eating sandwiches, meeting deadlines, having daughters, moving house, writing lyrics, being in bands – and something that’s like Javo: on a spectrum between consuming and impossible.</p>
<h2>On smack</h2>
<p>After Javo behaves oddly at a party, he says to Nora, “You just don’t get it, do you?” When he’d told her he was “stoned” earlier, he meant he was on smack. Nora smiles and kisses him. Javo overdoses. Nora visits him in hospital, where Javo is smoking. He looks at an old man across the room and says, “Jeez, old people give me the shits.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478233/original/file-20220809-22-x5kab1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a sad-looking woman with shaggy hair looks to the right" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478233/original/file-20220809-22-x5kab1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478233/original/file-20220809-22-x5kab1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478233/original/file-20220809-22-x5kab1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478233/original/file-20220809-22-x5kab1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478233/original/file-20220809-22-x5kab1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1252&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478233/original/file-20220809-22-x5kab1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1252&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478233/original/file-20220809-22-x5kab1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1252&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The film-tie in cover of Monkey Grip.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Abebooks</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Javo comes over to Nora’s share house and finds her in the shower and decides that she will be the one to give him outpatient care. Someone who knows how to inject penicillin comes over to show her how it’s done. Nora gives the injection; Javo is upset. They make jokes about the penicillin injection that are really jokes about junk; Gracie grabs the needle and says, “Don’t do it – you’ll get hooked!” All laugh. Everything in the house appears to settle down. Javo becomes part of the family, presiding over the children Nora lives with and the sharing of gifts.</p>
<p>And then one day Javo’s gone. First there is a false bottom, which presages those to come. He’s gone, and Nora finds him again, in a kind of drab bohemian lair, a large, dark, brick building with an arched window, where he gets to gesture at a traumatic origin. He has sex with Nora. He says – or sort of says; the line is fed by Nora – that his father is the reason women “never hit the mark”. </p>
<p>That night, Nora wakes up and Javo isn’t there. She finds him in another room, in the middle of shooting up, which he finishes doing despite her presence, half meeting her eyes. And then he’s really gone; he’s off to Singapore, with Martin (the guy Nora was seeing at the start – played by Tim Burns). Javo sends Nora a postcard. He wrote it on the plane, so there’s nothing about the trip itself. The world has swallowed him up.</p>
<p>The seasons change; Nora’s place of residence changes. She hears news in the winter that Javo is in Bangkok, in prison for stealing sunglasses (also with Martin). She sends him letters daily. “I miss him a real lot,” she tells a friend she’s hooking up with. “Like a piece of glass stuck in your foot,” the friend suggests.</p>
<p>And then, one sunny day, he’s back – in a garden full of hanging ferns and staghorns, Nora’s new, less-ramshackle share house. They go inside; she touches his face; they have sex slowly. “Now that he was back all the splinters of my life made sense again,” narrates Nora. </p>
<p>But straight away, there are new complications – pasta, women, alternative theatre. Nora takes Javo for coffee and gnocchi with her pension cheque, and Javo ruins it by going to talk to another woman under the obvious pretext that he wants to see what kind of cigarettes they’ve got behind the counter. The woman is Lillian (Candy Raymond), a co-star in a play he’s acting in, and he lurks on the other side of the restaurant chatting her up while the waiter brings the meals out to Nora.</p>
<p>“I mean, she’s too much,” Javo tells Nora; but Nora “feel[s] like she’s lining you up”. Later, the play is staged, in an awful and effective little scene, with Javo as the greasy bartender in a shiny vest, while Lillian is playing a “sight for sore eyes”, a “babe” in a silver slitted dress. </p>
<p>He has to throw up, he leaves the stage but doesn’t quite make it, getting as far as a prop piano bench. Nora runs down from the audience to tend to him, and he keeps speaking his lines while he’s sick.</p>
<h2>A third-act feeling</h2>
<p>Now there’s a third-act feeling; things begin to escalate. But part of what makes it so hard to watch – so like relationships you’ve seen people have, relationships you’ve been in – is that there aren’t any climaxes or moments where peace is restored, there’s just peaks that mean nothing, moments of understanding that distract from other problems, resolutions that will probably be broken. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478232/original/file-20220809-22-hux0f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a woman, mirrored, with a man, mirrored, and two hands gripping each other across the poster" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478232/original/file-20220809-22-hux0f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478232/original/file-20220809-22-hux0f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478232/original/file-20220809-22-hux0f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478232/original/file-20220809-22-hux0f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478232/original/file-20220809-22-hux0f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478232/original/file-20220809-22-hux0f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478232/original/file-20220809-22-hux0f8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ken Cameron found Helen Garner’s novel, Monkey Grip, hard to adapt for film.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Movie Database</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Garner told Wilmoth that Cameron found her novel hard to adapt for film because </p>
<blockquote>
<p>it hasn’t really got a filmic structure. It’s like a long-running TV series . . . it just starts and it goes on and on and eventually it stops.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The film mirrors the novel, which mirrors life, yes, but it also mirrors Javo, whose personal magnetism is all the more striking because the rest of him is staggering, exhausting. Cameron cast him after Doc Neeson, frontman of the Angels, dropped out and Cameron saw Friels at the Sydney Opera House playing Hamlet. For all his gravity he’s also disappointing and ordinary (“Jeez, old people give me the shits”); the story is never allowed to settle around him.</p>
<p>He creeps into Nora’s bed for comfort like a sick kid would. She holds him and kisses him. A needle is left out on the dining room table, in the middle of a household scene where the children are hitting Nora in the head with their dolls and asking her to make them cups of Milo. </p>
<p>“I want to stop,” says Javo, “but I can’t do it now. I can’t stop while the play’s on . . . I can’t perform when I’m coming down.” Nora understands. “When the play’s finished I’ll get off it and we’ll go away somewhere, go up north.” They’ll go to Sydney, see some friends, go to the beach, get a tan. He’ll go cold turkey. “I’m sick of the junk,” he says.</p>
<p>Cut to Javo playing harmonica in the passenger seat of a Mack truck being driven by a stranger, Nora and Gracie in the back. Soon, they’re at a diner just outside of Sydney, facing the kinds of problems faced by families on Australian road trips. They can’t order pies because the diner microwave’s turned off. Perhaps things are going to be all right.</p>
<h2>Filming Sydney as ‘a pretty good Melbourne’</h2>
<p>Although Cameron seems sheepish about the fact that Monkey Grip was filmed largely in Sydney – he explains in the DVD commentary that he was based in Sydney, as were Lovell, the DOP and the production designer, so by the time casting was done (in Sydney) and they’d secured funding, “we’d dug a big hole for ourselves in Sydney” – it’s a great joke of the movie that it does a pretty good Melbourne. </p>
<p>“I would have loved to have made it in Melbourne,” says Cameron, beyond the one week of exteriors he was able to film: “it’s the plaster that you see outside the window, it’s just all sorts of tiny things that you can’t reproduce”. </p>
<p>But when Nora rides her bike down a wide, leafy street, it feels like a suburb of Melbourne where you just haven’t been. Because the film is iconic to Melbourne (as is the novel), it’s satisfying that this seems to have no impact on viewers, as little as knowing that Rear Window <a href="http://movie-locations.com/movies/r/Rear-Window.php">was filmed in LA</a>. It undercuts the seriousness that forms around iconic things; it makes it easier to see the thing itself.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eeRBctkbd7o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Monkey Grip was filmed in Sydney, but here are some of the Melbourne exterior scenes, spliced together.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When they get to Sydney – which scenes were also filmed in Sydney – the house they stay in is all pink light. The bed is “pre-warmed” by a dog. ‘What a good idea!’ says Javo when Gracie jumps in the bed, and they cuddle up together. It’s holiday time. With a clean shirt, Sydney light, and a comb run through his hair, Javo is transformed into a man on the upswing. Nora catches him trying to take money from her purse while she’s napping and says “Jeez, you’re good-looking.” He asks if 20 bucks is okay; he’s “just going to see some friends”.</p>
<p>While he’s out, Gracie consults the I Ching – big part of the novel, small part of the film – about the likelihood that the three of them will be going as planned to Manly tomorrow. The universe responds and says “don’t count on it, sister”. Nora asks Gracie what she thinks of Javo, who acknowledges that he’s a junkie, which of course has its problems, but, “You should be nicer to him, and leave him alone, that’s what I reckon.” When he finally comes home, Nora finds him in the kitchen, suspiciously going to town on a baguette. </p>
<p>“This was supposed to be a holiday,” says Nora. “What are you doing, what do you want?” He says, “I want some Vegemite,” and it’s all downhill from there. He converts a fight about doing smack and making empty promises into a discussion about whether or not he’s understood. If she understood him, would she like him? A good question at the wrong time.</p>
<p>Later on, in bed, he says, “I do this over and over. Whenever I get something good, I destroy it.” But just as he’s really exhausted your patience (you lose patience with both of them), the film finds something new in the couple, which is one of the pleasures of the looser, TV-like structure, where characters don’t have to change and grow; they can surprise you with qualities that disappear, then emerge anew, as if shuffled. </p>
<p>When it’s obvious that they’re done with each other, generosity becomes possible. They have a tender disagreement about which of them is going to leave the trip early and go home to Melbourne. It’s him. They kiss. As he rides away in the cab, he plays a little riff on his harmonica and gifts it to Gracie. Gracie and Nora catch the ferry to Manly. “You’ll get over it,” Gracie advises Nora. The ferry’s nice at night, she observes. While Javo has been happening to Nora, Gracie has been growing up. How often do you get to see this kind of thing on film, the child turning casually into the adult? </p>
<p>In The Avocado Plantation, Stratton points out that Hazlehurst as Nora in 1982 seemed like it would herald a coming age of complex roles for women actors, which the rest of the 1980s turned out to largely squander. He also mentions Wendy Hughes’s role as Vanessa in Carl Schultz’s excellent 1983 movie <a href="https://www.ozmovies.com.au/movie/careful-he-might-hear-you">Careful, He Might Hear You</a>, another adaptation of a well-loved Australian novel. </p>
<p>I got chills when Nora and Gracie went on the Manly Ferry; at the end of Careful, He Might Hear You, Vanessa, who’s a snob, decides for once in her life to cross the Harbour on the Ferry, gets into a collision, and drowns. Over in Melbourne, Hazlehurst’s Nora puts on her lipstick and decides it’s time to give her life a little TLC. Her metaphor is a tub that’s been draining towards Javo; now it’s time to put the plug back in.</p>
<p>She goes to a gig. (It looks like The Corner, but I’m sure it’s in Sydney.) One of the odd surprises of the film is that Chrissy Amphlett, Divinyls frontwoman, plays a muso in Nora’s circle named Angela; at the gig, she plays ‘Boys in Town’ from start to finish, but with actors playing the band (the rest of the Divinyls turned down roles in the film). </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dRuNkBybku0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Chrissy Amphlett plays Nora’s muso friend Angela in Monkey Grip.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nora’s hair is slicked down and tied back; she’s wearing a sleek, feathered dress. She cuts loose, dances, laughs with friends; she reconnects with former housemate Clive (played with warmth by Michael Caton). Nora’s world remains spiky and young but it’s comfy without Javo. Soon, she’s writing in front of an open fire. She’s writing on a tram. She writes a short story addressing her feelings towards Lillian and doesn’t think there’s any particular reason to show it to her before publishing. Her life changes again. She moves house again. There’s the sticky business of telling her housemate, but these things are there to be dealt with.</p>
<p>“I just want it quite clear,” she tells the man she’s moving in with, “that we’re not moving into this house as a couple.” She reads books; she looks up words in the dictionary. Around her, children squabble. The framed picture of Virginia Woolf that Nora transports between residences assumes its place above the new workstation, perpetually stately and sentinel. Then, once again, there he is, in a striped shirt of thin fabric and a ragged, rather fashion-forward open seam. “You look great,” she says. “What happened?”</p>
<p>It’s Javo’s softer side. They go up to her bedroom. He sits in a sunny chair. “I’ve been having a really good time these days,” he says. “I’ve been knocking around a bit. Seen Lillian a couple of times.” Nora lies on the bed looking deeply unimpressed. Unprompted, Javo explains that he never loved Nora; he really needed her when he came back from Thailand, but he’s starting to feel better again. A tear slides down her cheek. “Come on, mate, we can outlast the lot of them,” he says. “We see so little of each other, we’re bound to,” she says, as if that’s the point.</p>
<p>In another room Nora’s housemate sits on the bed, playing guitar in his yellow socks and Volleys. He knows Javo is there but he’s being tactful about it. Later, they all go to a party. Life happens around them. A woman at the party observes that men do not like liberated women. People meet for quiet chats by a trellis adorned with green lights. And then the awful moment: someone’s crying in the dark over a can of Fosters and it turns out, incredibly, they’re crying about you.</p>
<p>It’s Lillian, and she’s now read Nora’s published story, the one she decided not to tell Lillian about. “Events don’t belong to people,” Nora explains. But everyone knows who the characters are, Lillian argues. “Twenty people in Carlton do not constitute everybody!” says Nora. </p>
<p>Lillian accuses Nora of just <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/25/helen-garners-monkey-grip-makes-me-examine-who-i-am">publishing her diaries</a> – a critique that famously dogged Garner at the time, as if, she wrote in an essay in 2001 and was still telling Claudia Karvan in <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-28/books-that-made-us-puts-australian-literature-in-the-spotlight/100645224">an ABC special</a> 20 years later, writing diaries isn’t an interesting, challenging, valuable thing to do. But there’s no time for that discourse; Javo is inside, and look – he’s thrown up on himself again.</p>
<p>“Sorry, Nor!” he says. “Guess the dope’s fucked me liver.”</p>
<p>“Don’t be sorry, people have had to do this for me heaps of times,” she fibs, as she picks him up and hauls him away from the party. </p>
<p>Her housemate goes on tour. She rides her bike; she thinks. She drops a letter round to Lillian’s: “Can you see this gets to Javo?” She keeps riding her bike – one of the skills Hazlehurst had to learn for the film; the other, she told Women’s Weekly, was swimming – and soon she’s at her old share house, where lovely Clive still lives. She cries in his arms. She cries in the arms of a woman she hasn’t met. She leaves the house and cries again in front of the cast-iron fence. Was this scene filmed in Melbourne? Again, if not, it’s a pretty good fake.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478174/original/file-20220809-26-mtzcdn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="swimmers in the Fitzroy Pool, with the words 'AQUA PROFUNDA' (deep water) on the wall behind them" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478174/original/file-20220809-26-mtzcdn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478174/original/file-20220809-26-mtzcdn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478174/original/file-20220809-26-mtzcdn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478174/original/file-20220809-26-mtzcdn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478174/original/file-20220809-26-mtzcdn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478174/original/file-20220809-26-mtzcdn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478174/original/file-20220809-26-mtzcdn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fitzroy Pool, with its famous ‘AQUA PROFONDA’ sign, is an iconic Monkey Grip location: ‘a paradise’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ashton_29">Ash29/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And now we’re back at Fitzroy Pool, and it’s summer again. In the DVD commentary, Alice Garner points out that the scenes at the pool, which were filmed at <a href="https://www.ryde.nsw.gov.au/RALC">Ryde Aquatic Leisure Centre</a>, have done the trick for any Melburnian who’s seen the film, and even Cameron says he’s “quite proud” of the recreation. (When I watched it, I took it as self-sighted gospel that the bleachers at the Fitzroy Pool used to be blue on the verticals.) </p>
<p>Rachel Ang, whose 2018 comic <a href="https://www.glompress.com/swimsuit-by-rachel-ang">Swimsuit</a> was set at Fitzroy Pool, told me they set the comic there because “it’s really an amphitheatre, this stage for all kinds of emotional drama”. Ang, who is also an architect, was struck by the “formal power” of the space where the sun acts as a spotlight and shines on “everything”, the dramas and their social implications. </p>
<p>Victoria Hannan, whose 2020 novel <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/victoria-hannan/kokomo">Kokomo</a> also has a critical scene set at the pool, told me that she did so as a “direct tribute” to Monkey Grip – the scene in the novel where Nora tells Clive, “No-one will understand but this is a paradise.”</p>
<p>I wanted to spend this time with the plot of Monkey Grip because I wanted to try to see, if I could, the thing itself. By the end of the movie, what’s obvious is that the thing itself extends beyond the characters and past the movie’s frame, into the rich shine of the sunshine, the blue soak of the pool. </p>
<p>There are fabulous clothes (Nora wears everything from a fuzzy tangerine sweater to a pair of pedal-pushers in animal print; even Martin, at one point, wears a denim jacket and rope-net shirt). It’s the yeahs, give-it-a-burls, fair-dinkums, I-think-it’s-beauts; a song done well at band practice is described as “very tasty”. It’s the slowness, the detail, the gossip, the repetition. Everyone’s always smoking in front of louvres that are always smudgy, and though the men may look unfathomable, they’re also always there.</p>
<p>At the pool, Nora gossips with another old housemate. Gracie gossips at the water’s edge with the old housemate’s kid. Javo is at the pool, under the AQUA PROFONDA sign. Nora approaches him in possibly the best outfit of the film, a red cap and lemon bomber over a one-piece bathing suit. It makes her happy that Javo’s doing well, but it’s bloody painful, too. It’s like watching a kid grow up and take off. She liked him needing her.</p>
<p>“Mate,” Javo says. “Our relationship’s permanent. Maybe we could go out tonight or something.” But she’s seeing a movie with Gracie. She remembers him the summer before, and it makes her reflect on their world, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>how we thrashed about, swapping and changing partners, like a complicated dance to which the steps hadn’t quite been learned, all of us somehow trying to move gracefully, in spite of our ignorance. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A beautiful score rises, quite heavy with strings. Everything is blue. The credits rise. The movie ends.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This essay is extracted from <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/melbourne-film">Melbourne on Film: Cinema That Defines Our City</a> (RRP:$34.99), which is published by Melbourne International Film Festival and Black Inc.</em></p>
<p><em>Monkey Grip will screen at MIFF on <a href="https://miff.com.au/program/film/monkey-grip">Sunday 14 August</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187625/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ronnie Scott does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ken Cameron’s film of Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip is dark, yearning, weird – and incredibly sexy – writes Ronnie Scott.Ronnie Scott, Senior Lecturer, Creative Writing, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1754402022-01-25T19:02:36Z2022-01-25T19:02:36ZMakeshift screens, censored films and ASIO: how the Melbourne International Film Festival began 70 years ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442111/original/file-20220123-13-1a2u3hs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C13%2C2295%2C3153&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On the Australia Day weekend in 1952, a group of die-hard film buffs put on a film festival. They had selected the leafy hills of Olinda in Victoria’s Dandenong Ranges for the event. They expected 80 people – but more than 600 turned up!</p>
<p>In the 1950s, very few Australian films were being made. Those that were produced were largely documentaries, with narrative features extremely rare. Despite this, an avid film culture flourished through local film societies. </p>
<p>Australian film buffs were thirsty to see international films from Europe and Asia, but local cinemas only screened Hollywood fare. Australian authorities would, however, allow international films to enter the country for exhibition at a film festival. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442077/original/file-20220123-15-r37jwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A crowd outside a mechanic's institute." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442077/original/file-20220123-15-r37jwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442077/original/file-20220123-15-r37jwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442077/original/file-20220123-15-r37jwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442077/original/file-20220123-15-r37jwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442077/original/file-20220123-15-r37jwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442077/original/file-20220123-15-r37jwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442077/original/file-20220123-15-r37jwu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">80 film fans were expected. More than 600 showed up.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So a festival in Melbourne was excitedly planned.</p>
<p>That first event, as ambitious as it was popular, is now celebrating its 70th anniversary. It grew into the internationally renowned Melbourne International Film Festival, which will commemorate its 70th anniversary in August this year, making it one of the world’s oldest film festivals.</p>
<h2>Sleeping in a church hall</h2>
<p>The Australian Council of Film Societies, who convened the festival, chose Olinda because it was a popular tourist destination with plenty of accommodation. </p>
<p>Due to the numbers of film buffs who flocked there, the guest houses were fully booked. Many locals threw open their doors to accommodate the influx, but it was not enough. </p>
<p>My mother was one of many who went along and had to bed down in a church hall.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442076/original/file-20220123-15-1ca9hcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A crowd outside a country church." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442076/original/file-20220123-15-1ca9hcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442076/original/file-20220123-15-1ca9hcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442076/original/file-20220123-15-1ca9hcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442076/original/file-20220123-15-1ca9hcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442076/original/file-20220123-15-1ca9hcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442076/original/file-20220123-15-1ca9hcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442076/original/file-20220123-15-1ca9hcj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1012&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The town accommodation was so booked up, some had to sleep in the church.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The appeal of the film festival was so great that some people travelled back and forth from Melbourne daily. </p>
<p>Among the attendees were many who would become prominent Australian filmmakers, like <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/film-director-tim-burstall-dies-20040419-gdirr2.html">Tim Burstall</a>, <a href="https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/filmmaker-john-heyer-went-to-the-back-of-beyond-to-put-real-australia-on-the-world-screen/news-story/5a08aece8a11d33ea300cecb455d1450">John Heyer</a> and <a href="https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/stanley-hawes-and-moral-responsibility-filmmakers">Stanley Hawes</a>.</p>
<p>Interviewed in the documentary Birth of a Film Festival, Burstall remembered making the journey to Olinda with artist Arthur Boyd. They packed their families into Boyd’s 1929 Dodge and headed for the hills. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442112/original/file-20220123-27-1wzbg6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man stands in front of a screen, talking to a crowd" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442112/original/file-20220123-27-1wzbg6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442112/original/file-20220123-27-1wzbg6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442112/original/file-20220123-27-1wzbg6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442112/original/file-20220123-27-1wzbg6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442112/original/file-20220123-27-1wzbg6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442112/original/file-20220123-27-1wzbg6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442112/original/file-20220123-27-1wzbg6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=571&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many of Australia’s future filmmakers attended the event.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The large attendance forced the organisers to arrange additional screening venues. They set up a makeshift screen under the stars, and borrowed another hall in a neighbouring town. </p>
<p>Frank Nicholls, who was president of the Australian Council of Film Societies, had to rush reels from the hall in Olinda to another in Sassafras by car, causing a delay mid-screening if he was late with the next reel.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442073/original/file-20220123-15-3vtwul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442073/original/file-20220123-15-3vtwul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442073/original/file-20220123-15-3vtwul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442073/original/file-20220123-15-3vtwul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442073/original/file-20220123-15-3vtwul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442073/original/file-20220123-15-3vtwul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1031&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442073/original/file-20220123-15-3vtwul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1031&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442073/original/file-20220123-15-3vtwul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1031&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The festival was so popular, extra screens needed to be set up – including an outdoor cinema.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Organisers invited national and international luminaries including Australian filmmaker <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Chauvel_(filmmaker)">Charles Chauvel</a>. Although Chauvel did not attend, his telegram was included in the “programme alterations”: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>My best wishes to all and my regrets not being able to be present.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Prime Minister Robert Menzies was invited but in a letter to Nicholls (kept in a scrapbook by volunteer Mary Heintz), he delegated the invitation to the Minister for the Interior, Mr W.S. Kent Hughes.</p>
<p>Hughes presented the Juilee Awards for films made in Australia. He gave a speech outlining government plans to support documentary and independent producers, and stayed to watch the opening night under a canopy of stars.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-cinema-for-australia-day-71884">Australian cinema for Australia Day</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The first film festival program</h2>
<p>Jean Cocteau’s famous 1946 film Beauty and the Beast opened the festival to great acclaim. Others screened included Robert J. Flaherty’s Louisiana Story (1948), as well as many Australian documentaries, clips from early Australian films, and some historic French short works by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_M%C3%A9li%C3%A8s">Georges Méliès</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442075/original/file-20220123-21-ilv69b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442075/original/file-20220123-21-ilv69b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442075/original/file-20220123-21-ilv69b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442075/original/file-20220123-21-ilv69b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442075/original/file-20220123-21-ilv69b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442075/original/file-20220123-21-ilv69b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442075/original/file-20220123-21-ilv69b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442075/original/file-20220123-21-ilv69b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An exhibition of film stills was set up at the local school.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the local highlights was a film made for the Department of Immigration titled Mike and Stefani (1952), directed by Ron Maslyn Williams. It won a prize for its depiction of two war-broken refugees granted visas to come to Australia. </p>
<p>The festival weekend also included talks and an exhibition of film stills at the local school. </p>
<p>The press picked up on the vigorous debate swirling around the festival that weekend. On January 31, the Adelaide News reported attendees expressed dismay at censors banning films like Roberto Rossellini’s The Miracle (1948), which was deemed sacrilegious.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-great-movie-scenes-rome-open-city-fascism-tragedy-and-the-birth-of-italian-neo-realism-110771">The great movie scenes: Rome, Open City - fascism, tragedy and the birth of Italian neo-realism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Success – and suspicion</h2>
<p>The Olinda Film Festival was a huge success. </p>
<p>Nicholls described Olinda in The Sun of January 29 1952 as “the most comprehensive” film festival ever held in Australia, screening “hundreds of Continental, English, Australian and Oriential films and even a Russian propaganda production”. </p>
<p>But not everyone celebrated the festival’s success. Even with Menzies’ support, it was discovered after the event that, while cinema enthusiasts were enjoying the event, ASIO was watching. Evidently the Australian government regarded the film festival as a prime draw-card for subversive characters intent on overthrowing authority.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442108/original/file-20220123-17-e7x3yy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C2968%2C2179&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man and a woman read a program" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442108/original/file-20220123-17-e7x3yy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C2968%2C2179&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442108/original/file-20220123-17-e7x3yy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442108/original/file-20220123-17-e7x3yy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442108/original/file-20220123-17-e7x3yy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442108/original/file-20220123-17-e7x3yy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442108/original/file-20220123-17-e7x3yy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442108/original/file-20220123-17-e7x3yy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The festival screened hundreds of films from around the globe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Still, the success of Olinda – far greater than anyone could have foreseen – earned the festival a permanent place in Australian and international screen culture. It demonstrated that non-commercial films could interest large audiences, and Australian films could do the same. </p>
<p>Nicholls went on to become the first chairperson of the Melbourne Film Festival and later of The Australian Film Institute. At the 50th celebration of the 1952 event, Nicholls said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The festival was a goer, and it’s still going strong. But there was never quite one like Olinda.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p><em>Material in this article was sourced in interviews and research for Birth of a Film Festival (directed by Mark Poole and produced by Lisa French in 2003), about the first festival and it’s 50th anniversary celebrations.</em></p>
<figure>
<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/668519970" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175440/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa French is the producer of the film mentioned in this article 'Birth of a Film Festival' 2003.</span></em></p>Held in the leafy hills of Olinda, organisers expected 80 people – but more than 800 showed up to watch Australian and international films.Lisa French, Professor & Dean, School of Media and Communication, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1658702021-08-16T19:52:21Z2021-08-16T19:52:21ZAblaze review: a powerful, personal portrait of Aboriginal activist and filmmaker Bill Onus<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416224/original/file-20210816-19-1oztpl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C1%2C1006%2C563&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">MIFF</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Ablaze, directed by Alec Morgan and Tiriki Onus</em> </p>
<p>Opera singer Tiriki Onus comes across a dusty, aged suitcase stowed away in the basement. It belonged to his grandfather, Bill Onus, and contains lots of still images — including young men painted up for Corroboree. Not long after, a reel of film surfaces from another archive. It has no notation or audio, but is believed to be linked to Bill Onus. </p>
<p>Tiriki’s interest is sparked, and he begins a quest to better understand his grandfather’s life: a man who had passed before he was born, but who loomed large.</p>
<p>The film Ablaze, directed by Tiriki with Alec Morgan, is the culmination of Tiriki’s quest to understand the history of the lost footage, the contents of this suitcase archive, and the grandfather he never knew.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416227/original/file-20210816-25-ytupz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Old black and white photo. A man and a child hold signs reading 'vote yes for Aboriginal rights.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416227/original/file-20210816-25-ytupz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416227/original/file-20210816-25-ytupz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416227/original/file-20210816-25-ytupz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416227/original/file-20210816-25-ytupz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416227/original/file-20210816-25-ytupz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1075&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416227/original/file-20210816-25-ytupz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1075&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416227/original/file-20210816-25-ytupz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1075&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bill Onus was a strong campaigner for Aboriginal rights.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MIFF</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Born in 1906, Bill Onus was a civil rights activist, artist, performer and entrepreneur. He was a leading figure in his Yorta Yorta and Cummeragunja community and later at the Aboriginal epicentre of Fitzroy, Melbourne, where he lived as an adult. </p>
<p>As a child, Onus and his people in south eastern Australia experienced the escalating power of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/capturing-the-lived-history-of-the-aborigines-protection-board-while-we-still-can-46259">NSW Aborigines Protection Board</a> to control everyday lives and movement. Having your children removed was a constant threat. Exercising culture was prohibited. The government appointed mission managers exercised their power in cruel and inhumane ways, withholding food and quashing any objections with violence.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/capturing-the-lived-history-of-the-aborigines-protection-board-while-we-still-can-46259">Capturing the lived history of the Aborigines Protection Board while we still can</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>As an adult, Onus was inspired by the <a href="https://www.historyofaboriginalsydney.edu.au/south-coastal/joe-anderson-%E2%80%98king-burraga%E2%80%99">1933 recording of Joe Anderson</a> (King Burraga) speaking back to this authority, and he would speak out himself through film, photography and theatre. </p>
<p>Across his lifetime, he created a platform for many Aboriginal artists, directed plays and curated extravagant shows to tell the stories of Aboriginal lives and culture, military service and survival.</p>
<p>In a nation blighted by incomprehension of Aboriginal rights, Onus’ storytelling attempted to bring to wider attention the plight of his people and the call for equality.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wHD4Ji5WuDM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Film and advocacy</h2>
<p>From a young age, Onus combined his advocacy for Aboriginal rights and passion for film. </p>
<p>In the 1930s, he was invited to work on Charles Chauvel’s <a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/features/uncivilised/notes/">Uncivilised</a> (1936), a cliche-ridden, Tarzan-inspired “white chief among the dangerous savages” story. </p>
<p>In the 1940s he worked — this time with an apparently enhanced advisory role — on Harry Watt’s <a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/features/the-overlanders/notes/">The Overlanders</a> (1946), a feature film about drovers driving a large herd of cattle some 2,500 kilometres across northern Australia. </p>
<p>Working on these films exposed Onus to poverty, violence and wage labour exploitation on pastoral stations beyond the south east.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416228/original/file-20210816-59076-1glzuy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Onus prepares to throw a Boomerang." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416228/original/file-20210816-59076-1glzuy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416228/original/file-20210816-59076-1glzuy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416228/original/file-20210816-59076-1glzuy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416228/original/file-20210816-59076-1glzuy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416228/original/file-20210816-59076-1glzuy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416228/original/file-20210816-59076-1glzuy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416228/original/file-20210816-59076-1glzuy7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Working on films and as an entertainer – including his champion Boomerang skills – Onus travelled across Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MIFF</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Both Onus’ own experiences and his observations from the north fuelled his fight for Aboriginal equality and the desire to make films of his own. </p>
<p>As Ablaze shows, these ambitions were achieved in his documentary of the stage production White Justice in 1946. Performed at Melbourne’s New Theatre in conjunction with the Australian Aborigines league, White Justice referenced the Aboriginal strike in the Pilbara at that time. </p>
<p>This strike, over a vast territory of pastoral lands, saw Aboriginal workers seek independence from oppression and tyranny at the hands of the pastoralists. The now familiar images of chained Aboriginal men come from this time, a punishment in retaliation for their insubordination.</p>
<p>The family believes he made many more films, but they were all lost in a fire in the 1950s. Tiriki Onus’ discovery of the lost footage, including footage of the stage play, of returned Aboriginal servicemen and of Onus’ boomerang throwing prowess, finally gives an insight into the stories Bill Onus wanted to tell. </p>
<h2>Change through stories</h2>
<p>In Ablaze, Tiriki Onus interviews family, film historians and community leaders to understand his grandfather and the contents of the lost footage. He combines Bill Onus’ footage with other archival sources, including the expansive and now very useful files from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).</p>
<p>Ablaze is a very personal journal, as Tiriki works to better understand what shaped his grandfather’s life and how his grandfather shaped him.</p>
<p>The lost footage takes us on a biographical journey that stretches out across a range of themes now familiar in the Aboriginal civil rights movement. One of the more interesting themes to emerge is Bill Onus’ comprehension of performance: how grand shows were necessary to achieve political change. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416229/original/file-20210816-22-1hpuzpc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Tiriki stands in an open desert, wearing a cloak." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416229/original/file-20210816-22-1hpuzpc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/416229/original/file-20210816-22-1hpuzpc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416229/original/file-20210816-22-1hpuzpc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416229/original/file-20210816-22-1hpuzpc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416229/original/file-20210816-22-1hpuzpc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416229/original/file-20210816-22-1hpuzpc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/416229/original/file-20210816-22-1hpuzpc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tiriki Onus is now following in his grandfather’s footsteps.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MIFF</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like his grandson, Bill Onus knew storytelling: on film, the stage and in lavish theatre halls. He knew stories could be used as a vehicle for change and reach wide audiences. </p>
<p>Onus’ films never screened nor reached those wider audiences; the stage shows never toured nationally or internationally. But the power of First Nations film and extraordinary creative practice today finds rich lineage in his now revealed work. </p>
<p><em>Ablaze is <a href="https://miff.com.au/program/film/ablaze">streaming</a> at MIFF now.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165870/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heidi Norman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bill Onus was a civil rights activist, artist, performer and entrepreneur. A new documentary from his grandson shares his remarkable story.Heidi Norman, Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1440622020-08-12T05:06:35Z2020-08-12T05:06:35ZBoundary-pushing films are more than their clickbait headlines<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352391/original/file-20200812-18-10tfa34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1777%2C997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Trouble With Being Born/Panama Film</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Melbourne International Film Festival is currently running online, but one movie announced at their program launch won’t be streaming. </p>
<p>At the end of July, Sandra Wollner’s The Trouble With Being Born was <a href="https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/film/melbourne-international-film-festival-pulls-the-trouble-with-being-born-from-virtual-program-2718966">withdrawn</a> after the festival received “expert advice and following further community consultation”. </p>
<p>The festival cited concerns over the “<a href="https://twitter.com/MIFFofficial/status/1288942442918682625">safety and wellbeing</a>” of the public. Undoubtedly, the Austrian film was a controversial choice to begin with – it portrays (albeit not explicitly) a man’s sexual abuse of a robot child. </p>
<p>Its premiere in Berlin earlier this year was divisive, earning both audience <a href="https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/a-german-film-about-a-man-and-his-robot-daughters-sexual-relationship/">walk-outs</a> and a <a href="https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-trouble-with-being-born-berlin-review/5148160.article">Jury Prize</a>. </p>
<p>This film is the latest in a long line to push audiences to extreme discomfort. So how far is too far for cinematic representation? </p>
<h2>‘Rivers of viscera’</h2>
<p>Historically, moral outrage about boundary pushing movies has proven an endlessly renewable resource. Thomas Edison’s 1896 recording of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUyTcpvTPu0">a kiss</a> in close up was termed “absolutely disgusting” by the painter John Sloan, <a href="http://www.artandpopularculture.com/The_Kiss_%281896_film%29">who wrote that</a> “police interference” was warranted. </p>
<p>Racy films of Hollywood’s <a href="https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/lists/10-great-pre-code-hollywood-films">pre-Code era</a> of the early 1930s, right through to the late 1970s were often given a “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/03/03/469041022/c-is-for-condemned-a-nun-looks-back-on-47-years-of-unholy-filmmaking">condemned</a>” rating by America’s Catholic Legion of Decency, implying “see this movie and go to Hell”.</p>
<p>Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971) and David Cronenberg’s Crash (1996) sparked <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/543594.stm">fierce media backlash</a> upon their release in Britain.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Film still" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352396/original/file-20200812-16-wxfiv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352396/original/file-20200812-16-wxfiv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352396/original/file-20200812-16-wxfiv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352396/original/file-20200812-16-wxfiv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352396/original/file-20200812-16-wxfiv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352396/original/file-20200812-16-wxfiv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352396/original/file-20200812-16-wxfiv0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Clockwork Orange didn’t legitimately screen in the UK until 2000.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Warner Bros</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Films including Claire Denis’s Trouble Every Day (2001) and Bruno Dumont’s Twentynine Palms (2003) prompted Artforum critic James Quandt’s fierce invective against “<a href="http://www.artforum.com/inprint/id=6199">New French Extremity</a>” in cinema in 2004. </p>
<p>Exasperated, Quandt lamented:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a cinema suddenly determined to break every taboo, to wade in rivers of viscera and spumes of sperm, to fill each frame with flesh, nubile or gnarled, and subject it to all manner of penetration, mutilation, and defilement.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Inciting outrage</h2>
<p>The way society engages with films whose subject matter alone makes us uncomfortable is problematic. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/movies/melbourne-international-film-festival-dumps-android-child-sex-film-20200725-p55fdr.html">Clickbait headlines</a> reduce challenging or offensive films to one-line synopses that incite outrage or disavowal. Similarly, reviews tend to zero in on a film’s shock factor, and so these extreme factors become the film’s broader cultural touchpoints.</p>
<p>Gaspar Noé’s <a href="https://filmdaily.co/obsessions/irreversible-shocking-15-years-later/">Irreversible</a> (2001) is known as the ten-minute rape scene film; Larry Clark’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/kidsnrkempley_c029f5.htm">Kids</a> (1995) is the adolescent promiscuity movie; Pier Paolo Pasolini’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1977/10/01/archives/film-festival-salo-is-disturbing.html">Salò</a> (1975) the shit-eating torture flick. </p>
<p>It’s not that these descriptors are inaccurate, it’s that they are hopelessly reductive and prime knee-jerk disgust rather than critical engagement. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Film still" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352398/original/file-20200812-23-omsqye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352398/original/file-20200812-23-omsqye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352398/original/file-20200812-23-omsqye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352398/original/file-20200812-23-omsqye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352398/original/file-20200812-23-omsqye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352398/original/file-20200812-23-omsqye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352398/original/file-20200812-23-omsqye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Salò is remembered for its scenes about defecation over its critique of fascism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Produzioni Europee Associati</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As Variety critic Jessica Kiang observes in <a href="https://variety.com/2020/film/reviews/the-trouble-with-being-born-review-1203516473/">her review</a> of Wollner’s film, it is unavoidable that the depraved aspects overshadow the nuance: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>it will be a hard task to get people to mull over ancillary issues in a film destined to be shorthanded to ‘the child sex-robot movie’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the fact that the film departs from its paedophile storyline to explore other, less salacious forms of exploitation – such as an old woman using the android to alleviate grief – is lost. </p>
<p>Walking away from Salò, one is far more likely to recall the visceral horror of torture than the characters’ protracted ruminations on power, or that the film opens with an “Essential Bibliography” including works by Blanchot and Beauvoir. But these elements of the film matter, and should not be brushed aside for the sake of outrage.</p>
<h2>Balanced distinctions</h2>
<p>How far is too far? Legally, in Australia, this comes down to the <a href="https://www.alrc.gov.au/publication/national-classification-scheme-review-ip-40/issues-paper/the-current-classification-system/">Classification Act</a>. Considerations when classifying include community standards, the impact of a film’s content, and the context in which this content is presented. </p>
<p>Classification boards look beyond a film’s synopsis to try to strike a balance between the freedom and protection of individuals. This depth of consideration is crucial: it aids a distinction between gratuity and purpose. </p>
<p>(While The Trouble of Being Born is yet to be classified in Australia, <a href="https://twitter.com/MIFFofficial/status/1288942442918682625">it was approved to be shown at MIFF</a> under a cultural exemption.)</p>
<p>Consider the British Board of Film Classification’s ruling on the explicit sexual imagery in Lars von Trier’s Antichrist (2009). Trier’s film was <a href="https://www.cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/109071/">deemed permissible</a> for audiences 18+ based on a determination that the film’s purpose was not arousal. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Film still" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352401/original/file-20200812-14-yt2e8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352401/original/file-20200812-14-yt2e8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352401/original/file-20200812-14-yt2e8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352401/original/file-20200812-14-yt2e8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352401/original/file-20200812-14-yt2e8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352401/original/file-20200812-14-yt2e8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/352401/original/file-20200812-14-yt2e8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Antichrist was allowed to screen uncut in the UK when it was determined the sex scenes were not about arousal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zentropa Entertainments</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rather, the board deemed Antichrist was “a serious drama exploring issues such as grief, loss, guilt and fear” and therefore the imagery, in context, was “exceptionally justified” for contributing to the film’s themes and characters. </p>
<h2>Considered viewing</h2>
<p>If the words “child android sex film” or “shit-eating torture flick” make your skin crawl that is a good thing. It would be more worrying if they didn’t. </p>
<p>Fear of confronting cinema is often linked to an assumption that movies exist only for entertainment and pleasure. Enjoyment is one response we might seek in cinema, but it is hardly the medium’s sole purpose. </p>
<p>Extreme films are intended to confront, disturb and provoke – and they’re certainly not for everyone. </p>
<p>But to censor or dismiss them outright based on our discomfort with their very premise is to preclude considered appraisal, not only of the films themselves, but also of one’s own stance on the limits of good taste or the boundaries of artistic expression. </p>
<p>Provided a film has been cleared legally, the question of how far is too far should be a question for individual viewers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144062/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Taylor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Trouble With Being Born has been withdrawn from Melbourne International Film Festival – but individual viewers should be able to decide what films they want to see.Alison Taylor, Teaching Fellow, Bond UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1440532020-08-10T03:16:21Z2020-08-10T03:16:21ZDeepfake technology unlocks real stories of LGBTQ persecution in Welcome to Chechnya<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351861/original/file-20200810-14-rzl6ac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=28%2C22%2C1876%2C1040&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Welcome to Chechnya</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">MIFF</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Welcome to Chechnya, screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival</em></p>
<p>Welcome to Chechnya, screening online as part of MIFF 68½, is a bracing documentary. This film is part of a queer trilogy of sorts for filmmaker and investigative reporter <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0289800/?ref_=tt_ov_dr">David France</a>, who also directed 2012’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2124803/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_lk1">How to Survive a Plague</a> (for which he received an Oscar nomination) and 2017’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5233558/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_lk3">The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson</a>. </p>
<p>This third film is a distressing look at the torture and murder of LGBTQ people in Chechnya and the inspiring work of activists who fight to help them escape.</p>
<p>The “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46871801">gay purge</a>” of Chechnya is a political extermination, with Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, laughing in one interview as he describes LGBTQ people as subhuman:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We don’t have any gays … to purify our blood; if they are here, take them.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/suicide-of-egyptian-activist-sarah-hegazi-exposes-the-freedom-and-violence-of-lgbtq-muslims-in-exile-141268">Suicide of Egyptian activist Sarah Hegazi exposes the 'freedom and violence' of LGBTQ Muslims in exile</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Different paths, the same fate</h2>
<p>The torture of men and women is very different in Chechnya. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351860/original/file-20200810-24-1i4oqio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Movie poster: Young man's face on red background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351860/original/file-20200810-24-1i4oqio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351860/original/file-20200810-24-1i4oqio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351860/original/file-20200810-24-1i4oqio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351860/original/file-20200810-24-1i4oqio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351860/original/file-20200810-24-1i4oqio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351860/original/file-20200810-24-1i4oqio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351860/original/file-20200810-24-1i4oqio.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOGMxODYwOGEtNmNkMi00MmM1LWI2ZTItOTFhNDdkZWE1M2E5XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjYzNTk1NTE@._V1_SX675_CR0,0,675,999_AL_.jpg">IMDB</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For men, they are rounded up and sent to concentration camps where they are abused and murdered. One scene features “Grisha” slowly telling his boyfriend “Bogdan” of how he was abused. </p>
<p>For Chechen women, they are returned to their families, where their abuse and murder is more silent. The plight of “Anya”, whose father is an influential figure in the Chechen government, is included here. Her uncle has discovered that she is a lesbian and is threatening to tell her father if she doesn’t sleep with him. If her father discovers Anya’s secret, the result would most certainly be murder. </p>
<p>In one particularly intense moment, the hidden cameras film the activists going undercover in two teams to Grozny to sneak her out across the Russian border. We see Anya get quizzed by border officials and pace up and down in her new shelter while she awaits news of her asylum application.</p>
<p>The film depicts just how tenuous this political situation is. When a fugitive attempts suicide, the group are unable to call an ambulance as they need to keep their shelter hidden from authorities. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GlKkj_aHMXk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘We don’t have such people here,’ says Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov in the film.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fake identities</h2>
<p>Rather than using traditional filmmaking techniques, such as pixilation or darkness, to keep those escaping anonymous, France employs <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/13/what-are-deepfakes-and-how-can-you-spot-them">deepfake technology</a> to digitally transplant the faces of New York-based queer activists onto the Chechen fugitives. </p>
<p>The result lends a smoothness to the faces that reminds me of the age-defying work done in Scorsese’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1302006/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">The Irishman</a>. Yet, it is made clear when the technology is being employed and when it is not during Welcome to Chechnya.</p>
<p>The edges of the “replaced” faces are blurry, which allows the viewer to identify which participants, like coordinators David Isteev and Olga Baranova, are sharing their real faces. The very presence of France’s camera puts many of these activists at risk. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351865/original/file-20200810-20-1mk6i50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men embrace at airport" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351865/original/file-20200810-20-1mk6i50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351865/original/file-20200810-20-1mk6i50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351865/original/file-20200810-20-1mk6i50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351865/original/file-20200810-20-1mk6i50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351865/original/file-20200810-20-1mk6i50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351865/original/file-20200810-20-1mk6i50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351865/original/file-20200810-20-1mk6i50.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Deepfake technology is used in the film to facilitate real stories.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MIFF</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lgbtq-caravan-migrants-may-have-to-prove-their-gender-or-sexual-identity-at-us-border-107868">LGBTQ caravan migrants may have to 'prove' their gender or sexual identity at US border</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This digital technology adds an interesting element to the documentary’s aesthetic – flipping between slick and rough elements. Both the deepfake faces and the shaky cell phone footage are a reminder of the constant peril these people face. </p>
<p>While deepfake technology is intrinsically associated with a lack of authenticity, here it allows imperilled fugitives to participate to tell their story. As Grisha reveals his torture, Bogdan’s emotional response is evocative as he tenderly strokes his partner’s hands. The digitally transplanted face does not change or take away from this moment.</p>
<p>There are a number of videos interspersed throughout the documentary that were uncovered by LGBTQ activists in the region. These grainy images, often handheld and, in one instance CCTV footage, feature the abuse, murder and rape of queer Chechens. </p>
<p>It’s a confronting reminder of just how violent the homophobic and misogynistic values of the Chechen government and its operatives are. Some will find the more violent imagery upsetting. But it adds context and justification to the palpable rage that drives this film.</p>
<p>Like all great political documentaries, Welcome to Chechnya is a call to action. It’s a call for justice for the tortured and murdered in Chechnya, and a stark reminder of the realities many queer asylum seekers are facing. </p>
<p>As activist David Isteev states, if there is no punishment for those that treat LGBTQ people as subhuman, “anyone can find themselves in the shoes of gay Chechens”.</p>
<p><em>MIFF is <a href="https://miff.com.au/">online</a> until 23 August 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144053/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Richards does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Documentary film Welcome to Chechnya looks at the government-sanctioned torture and murder of LGBTQ people in Chechnya – and the activists trying to help them escape.Stuart Richards, Lecturer in Screen Studies, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1440542020-08-07T03:42:55Z2020-08-07T03:42:55ZIn The Meddler, we join a creeping nightcrawler as he chronicles death<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351700/original/file-20200807-14-85q7y8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C8%2C1888%2C1051&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">MIFF</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: The Meddler, screening at the Melbourne International Film Festival</em></p>
<p>For movie scholars and enthusiasts, one of the worst things about the COVID-19 pandemic has been the shutting down of cinemas. It’s a fundamentally different experience watching a film on a small screen with friends and family – or by yourself – from watching a movie on a massive screen in a dark room surrounded by strangers. This is why people have historically continued to go to the movies, despite the challenges posed first by the introduction of television, then by home video, and now by streaming services. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351699/original/file-20200807-22-71n6ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="El Metido title with camera on red background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351699/original/file-20200807-22-71n6ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351699/original/file-20200807-22-71n6ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351699/original/file-20200807-22-71n6ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351699/original/file-20200807-22-71n6ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351699/original/file-20200807-22-71n6ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351699/original/file-20200807-22-71n6ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351699/original/file-20200807-22-71n6ny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8995262/mediaviewer/rm3843275265">IMDB</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Festivals like the <a href="https://www.sff.org.au/">Sydney Film Festival</a> have attempted to adjust to the emergency context by operating as reduced online-only festivals. But watching a premiere in a packed State Theatre is not the same as watching the same film hunched over your laptop. </p>
<p>At the same time, it’s nice to have access to good films beyond the limited offerings from online services. </p>
<p>The Meddler (or <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8995262/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1"><em>El Metido</em></a>), the recent documentary from Australian filmmakers Daniel Leclair and Alex Roberts now playing online as part of the <a href="https://miff.com.au/">Melbourne International Film Festival</a>, is, indeed, a good film. </p>
<h2>An addiction</h2>
<p>It’s also quietly but profoundly unsettling. The documentarians follow German Cabrera, an unassuming mechanic in Guatemala City. Night after night he prowls the streets with a camera, trying to capture footage of crimes, accidents, and, mainly, dead bodies.</p>
<p>Occasionally we cut to Cabrera’s footage, but mostly the camera observes him. Through the filmmakers apparent refusal to intervene in the world, a careful irony slowly develops: a split between Cabrera’s self-perception and what we are watching as viewers. </p>
<p>Cabrera believes he does this because he’s a truth and justice warrior – and he does provide the footage for free to local news networks – but the film suggests there is more to it. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JI8F1dvf9Rw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">They call me ‘The Meddler’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We see a man obsessed, in his own words “addicted”, to capturing these gruesome images. This leads, through the course of the film, to the disintegration of his marriage. </p>
<p>The reasons for his obsession remain enigmatic, and the film avoids the kind of psychologising that a bigger budget documentary may have been compelled to offer. This benefits the film; it is much eerier because of its lack of exposition. </p>
<p>At times it plays like a less strident (and less funny) <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001348/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm">Werner Herzog</a> character study. </p>
<p>Like Herzog’s Timothy Treadwell from <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427312/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Grizzly Man</a> – a self-proclaimed naturalist and environmental warrior who ends up being killed by a bear – Cabrera is a self-appointed investigative journalist-come-superhero. As with Herzog’s film, we gradually realise that Cabrera, with his mute, reactionary stance on what he perceives to be limitless crime is, simply, a really weird guy. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/neverending-stories-why-we-still-love-unsolved-mysteries-141046">Neverending stories – why we still love Unsolved Mysteries</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Nightcrawlers all</h2>
<p>Known as “the night watcher” on local news, Cabrera is a kind of real life version of Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), the stringer from Dan Gilroy’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2872718/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Nightcrawler</a>. It is, perhaps, more disturbing that this is a kind of hobby for Cabrera, rather than work as it is for Lou. </p>
<p>This is starkly realised in a moment midway through the film when Cabrera captures a bereaved teenager screaming, “I want my dad!” The film cuts from Cabrera’s footage to him watching the teenager through his camera, totally unmoved by what he is filming.</p>
<p>This moment is subtle, and flips back on us too. As the viewers of the documentary we are also drawn to these horrific images. We are suckers for sensation and the stimulation of the extreme. Are we, too, meddlers as we watch, for example, injured and bloody people in the back of an ambulance? </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351701/original/file-20200807-18-1rvwexy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Man photographs dead body at nighttime." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351701/original/file-20200807-18-1rvwexy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351701/original/file-20200807-18-1rvwexy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351701/original/file-20200807-18-1rvwexy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351701/original/file-20200807-18-1rvwexy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351701/original/file-20200807-18-1rvwexy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351701/original/file-20200807-18-1rvwexy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351701/original/file-20200807-18-1rvwexy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Documentary subject German Cabrera is close to a real life Lou Bloom from Nightcrawler.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MIFF</span></span>
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<p>In another scene, we are confronted with disturbing footage of a dead boy, his mother crying over him in the street. He has died during the day because of a medical condition. Cabrera’s narration tells us he was driving down the street and saw the boy and mum in the street so he stopped and filmed them. </p>
<p>As we wade with him through the blood and guts filled streets, we begin to realise how awful the whole thing is, and how profoundly deluded Cabrera is about the value of what he is doing. </p>
<p>We don’t buy his justification. Often he simply films, in an incredibly invasive fashion, people who have nothing to do with organised crime or gangs – people suffering mental illness, drug addicts, drunks. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/true-crime-its-time-to-start-questioning-the-ethics-of-tuning-in-125324">True crime: it's time to start questioning the ethics of tuning in</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Memorable, creepy</h2>
<p>And yet the film cryptically oscillates between contrasting responses to Cabrera, at times legitimising his urban vigilante-survivalist viewpoint. At the end of the film, the music becomes triumphant as we listen to Cabrera (sounding like televsion hero <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2193021/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Arrow</a>) talking about people needing to fight to save the city from criminals. </p>
<p>The Meddler is a minor but memorable film, beautifully shot, capturing its subject in a clinical, creepy fashion. Its one notable technical problem concerns the sound, which seems thin and poorly mixed in places, and the music, which is underdone and cliched. </p>
<p>For a low budget documentary, though, this is a minor criticism. We may not be able to watch it in cinemas – and this is one film whose impact would be amplified in that collective context – but at least we can watch it. </p>
<p><em>MIFF is <a href="https://miff.com.au/">online</a> until 23 August 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144054/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ari Mattes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In The Meddler, Australian documentarians follow an unassuming mechanic in Guatemala City as he prowls the streets with a camera trying to capture footage of crimes and dead bodies.Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/813212017-08-21T19:21:10Z2017-08-21T19:21:10ZThe 2017 Melbourne International Film Festival: films to watch out for<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182718/original/file-20170821-17172-xwafct.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer in Call Me By Your Name: an erotic romance imbued with the effervescence of a European summer.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Frenesy</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The theme of this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival was to “explore new worlds”, which saw matters of social justice, empathy and connection examined in many films. Between us, we saw 34 films this year. These are our highlights.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/top-of-the-lake-china-girl-is-defiant-adventurous-tv-81273">Top of the Lake: China Girl is defiant, adventurous TV</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Sacred deer and sacred music</h2>
<p><strong>Felicity Ford</strong></p>
<p>It seems peculiar to name <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5715874/">The Killing of a Sacred Deer</a> as my favourite film of the festival as I spent most of the screening oscillating between anxiously gripping the edge of my seat and nervously laughing. But it is always an illuminating experience to step into the mind of director Yorgos Lanthimos (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1379182/">Dogtooth</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3464902/">The Lobster</a>) and this fascinating study of a family under threat is his best yet. Ruben Östlund’s beautifully constructed, darkly funny, and perfectly timed satire <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4995790/">The Square</a> was a very close second favourite. </p>
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<p>However, in the wake of the Charlottesville Nazi riot, the film that remains firmly imprinted in my mind is Raoul Peck’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5804038/">I Am Not Your Negro</a>. The documentary explores the civil rights movement of the 1960s through the work of queer writer and civil rights activist, James Baldwin. Using found footage from the time and anchored by an unfinished manuscript by Baldwin, the film draws uncomfortable parallels with the present day. It is a stirring and pertinent documentary that is as much an ode to the key figures of the movement as it is a call to arms. </p>
<p>The tragic death of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-dr-g-yunupinu-took-yolnu-culture-to-the-world-81676">Dr. G Yunupingu</a> a week before the festival brought into question whether Paul William’s documentary on the most commercially successful Aboriginal musician would be screened at all. However with the support of Gumatj elder David Djunga Djunga Yunupingu and his community, the film was presented at the Closing Night Gala to a standing ovation. It is a powerful and insightful film into the life of a very private and principled man. While it is unclear when the documentary will be released in keeping with the traditions of Dr. G Yunupingu’s community, I would strongly recommend the film as a beautiful exploration of Australia’s “top end” and the strong familial bonds that keep this community going strong. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-dr-g-yunupinu-took-yolnu-culture-to-the-world-81676">How Dr G.Yunupiŋu took Yolŋu culture to the world</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Also in the realm of music, audiences flocked to Hamer Hall for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s haunting live score of Paul Thomas Anderson’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469494/">There Will Be Blood</a> and composer/filmmaker Michel Chion’s lecture and concert were sold out almost immediately. Hear My Eyes - events that marry a film with live interpretation of its score - once again delivered with René Laloux’s psychedelic romp <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070544/">Fantastic Planet</a> soundtracked from the balcony of the Comedy Theatre by Melbourne’s own Krakatau. </p>
<p>While Denis Côté’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt7133648/">A Skin So Soft</a> didn’t garner much interest from punters, it was definitely one of the standouts for me: an intimate portrayal of strength and muscle building practices. </p>
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<p>Audiences also laughed and squirmed in equal measure for Michael Haneke’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5304464/">Happy End</a> and were charmed by Agnès Varda and JR’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5598102/">Faces, Places</a> and Olivier Babinet’s excellent doco about French teens, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5535406/">Swagger</a>. </p>
<h2>Storks, swan songs and sexual tension</h2>
<p><strong>Stuart Richards</strong></p>
<p>Co-curated by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and presented in association with the National Film and Sound Archive, the festival’s Pioneering Women retrospective offered a triumphant selection of important films directed by women in the 1980s and 1990s, including Ann Turner’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094849/">Celia</a> and Laurie McInnes’ <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106487/">Broken Highway</a>. </p>
<p>I was very pleased to see João Pedro Rodrigues’ <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4929038/">The Ornithologist</a>, which sees a young ornithologist researching black storks get lost in an enchanted forest in northern Portugal. I have been following his career since <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1424361/">To Die Like a Man</a> and he is one of the more interesting queer filmmakers working today. </p>
<p>Michael Haneke’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5304464/">Happy End</a> offered a self-aware critique of familial alienation that, while intellectually interesting, was a quite an unenjoyable experience. Abbas Kiarostami’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6777170/">24 Frames</a>, was sadly the low point of the festival for me. The exploration of “cinema’s bare essentials: image and time” presented 24 tableaux, which grew increasingly more tiresome. Kiarostami was known for preferring films that put audiences to sleep. In this regard, he would have been very pleased with my response to 24 Frames.</p>
<p>In Agnes Varda’s unlikely collaboration with artist JR, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5598102/">Places, Faces</a> (Visages Villages) takes us on a joyous wander through rural France. Many are saying that this is to be Varda’s last film and, if so, this will be the most perfect of swan songs. It’s wonderful and has the right amount of whimsy. The two drive their mobile photo booth from village to village, where they take portraits of people they meet on their way, pasting their results on buildings the subjects either call home or work. The chemistry between the two is real and a pleasure to watch. There is never any condescension with the subjects they meet, whether it is the the dock workers’ wives or Pony, the toothless poet. They are trying to capture the “human through art” in their collaboration with these subjects.</p>
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<p>In Luca Guadagnino’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5726616/">Call me by your name</a>, Timothée Chalamet plays Elio, a young Italian-American who is enamoured by Oliver, a student, played by the enchanting Armie Hammer. Oliver comes to study and live with his family in northern Italy during summer. The film follows the mounting sexual tension between the two and their erotic romance, which is imbued with the effervescence of a European summer. Chalemet’s quiet performance is a joyous exploration of the anguish and euphoria of first love. Elio’s conversation with his father in the last act, followed by an utterly raw credit sequence, is a powerful refusal to disavow one’s emotions. If the #MIFF2017 tag is anything to go by, Call my by your name was the clear audience favourite this year. Oh, and, for better or for worse, you will never look at peaches the same way.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6135348/">120 Beats Per Minute</a> (120 Battements par minute) highlights the unbreakable bonds at the heart of the queer community, which was especially affective for me given the already toxic nature of the marriage equality postal survey. With the AIDS crisis already having claimed countless lives by the early 1990s, the film follows several members of ACT UP Paris, who fight corporate greed and general indifference. New to the group, Nathan is enamoured by Sean, a more militant member of the group who is throwing every last ounce of energy he has into the struggle. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182714/original/file-20170821-17162-1w1q4z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182714/original/file-20170821-17162-1w1q4z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182714/original/file-20170821-17162-1w1q4z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182714/original/file-20170821-17162-1w1q4z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182714/original/file-20170821-17162-1w1q4z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182714/original/file-20170821-17162-1w1q4z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182714/original/file-20170821-17162-1w1q4z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182714/original/file-20170821-17162-1w1q4z0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robin Campillo’s 120 BPM depicts queer activism in 1990s France.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">France 3</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Director Robin Campillo has a talent for presenting a group discussion, where many participants are individualised and seen as valued characters in the narrative. These increasingly tense meetings never feel tiresome or unwelcome. The film also depicts serodiscordant sex (in which one partner is HIV positive) in a highly erotic way. </p>
<p>The group’s protest actions, such as the invasion of the offices of a pharmaceutical giant, are energetic and thrilling. The highlights of the film, however, are the poetic dances sequences that cut to blood cells. Bronski Beat’s gay anthem <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xuz94ZIPfJk">Smalltown Boy</a> features in the film, as it does in many films depicting this era. Here though it is used in a powerful protest sequence, recalling the tune’s cultural resonance from the ACT UP era.</p>
<p>I second Felicity’s enthusiasm on The Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Square and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s brilliant performance of Jonny Greenwood’s score from Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood. The closing night celebration of Dr. G Yunupingu’s was an immensely affective experience. The audience gave a standing ovation for the entirety of the credits and it was a privilege to be able to attend the screening. I Am Not Negro is a timely film that cuts together the past and present giving a searing indictment on racial inequality today. </p>
<p>Now it’s time to slowly recover from the dreaded MIFF flu, a fortnight of dark theatres, and a diet of popcorn, shiraz, and, above all else, exciting cinema.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81321/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>MIFF 2017 made good on its promise to explore new worlds, with timely films on American civil rights, Indigenous music, and queer activism. Here’s our pick of the ones to see.Stuart Richards, Researcher and Lecturer in Screen and Cultural Studies, The University of MelbourneFelicity Ford, Researcher and Sessional Tutor in Screen and Cultural Studies; Project Coordinator for the Graduate Researcher Peer Networking Program at the Graduate Student Association (GSA), The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/812732017-08-07T20:10:39Z2017-08-07T20:10:39ZTop of the Lake: China Girl is defiant, adventurous TV<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181136/original/file-20170807-11203-1mz5ycs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nicole Kidman as Julie in Top of the Lake: China Girl: a control freak brought to her knees.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">See-Saw Films for BBC First and Foxtel</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“I want it to go for six hours, and I want it to be about a group of postmenopausal women. Unfuckables,” said Jane Campion of her vision for the television show <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2103085/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Top of the Lake</a>. </p>
<p>In the first episode of its second season, a turquoise suitcase containing a woman’s body washes up on the shore of Bondi Beach, pulled out of the water by a lifeguard too late to save her. A fragile-looking, almost birdlike female detective with iceberg-blue eyes pries open the case and sees its gruesome contents. True to Campion’s original vision, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5024708/?ref_=tt_eps_cu_n">Top of the Lake: China Girl</a> dwells resolutely in the land of the unfuckable.</p>
<p>Co-written by frequent collaborator Gerard Lee and co-directed by Ariel Kleiman, Top of the Lake: China Girl is set four-ish years after season one’s Queenstown paedophile-ring bust. A few weeks after an aborted marriage, the singular Elizabeth Moss is back as Detective Robin Griffin (now a Detective Senior Constable). She has returned to Sydney to reconnect with the daughter she gave up for adoption and get her life back on track by training new police recruits on the Walsh Bay wharf.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181135/original/file-20170807-11203-1c81loa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181135/original/file-20170807-11203-1c81loa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181135/original/file-20170807-11203-1c81loa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181135/original/file-20170807-11203-1c81loa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181135/original/file-20170807-11203-1c81loa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181135/original/file-20170807-11203-1c81loa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181135/original/file-20170807-11203-1c81loa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181135/original/file-20170807-11203-1c81loa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Elisabeth Moss as Detective Robin Griffin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">See-Saw Films for and Foxtel</span></span>
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<p>Taking on the risky business of migrant sex work, Campion has spoken of basing the new series on extensive <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/jul/18/jane-campion-my-top-of-the-lake-research-involved-sneaking-into-brothels">research</a> conducted in a stretch of brothels in the south-eastern Sydney suburb of Mascot. “Silk 41”, the fictional centrepoint for much of the series’ drama, functions as a red-lit replica of the establishments Campion has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/jul/18/jane-campion-my-top-of-the-lake-research-involved-sneaking-into-brothels">reported</a> frequenting.</p>
<p>A sassy Prada-wearing escort serves, perhaps, to include the perspectives of the sex workers in the advocacy group Scarlet Alliance who also worked with Campion in an advisory capacity. These moments of meta-fiction, though sometimes a little clumsily integrated, highlight Campion’s intent in not only making good use of her vast research, but also acknowledging and respecting voices so often ignored.</p>
<p>Campion sets herself apart from the run of the mill crime drama tropes by de-eroticising Cinnamon, the “shop name” of the woman found in the suitcase, whose image and life are interrogated throughout the series. Cinnamon’s waterlogged body is shown decomposing and distorted beyond recognition, an honest depiction reminiscent of Lynda La Plante’s landmark crime drama series Prime Suspect.</p>
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<p>Though there have been critics who feel Campion’s signposting of feminist issues is heavy-handed, in a Q & A after the Sydney premiere of the show’s first two episodes, Campion declared </p>
<blockquote>
<p>China Girl is beyond feminism … it’s ovarian, know what I mean? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Indeed everything is focused around pregnancies, even morgue scenes. As Robin (Moss) and the coroner, Ray (Geoff Morrell), dig around in the body of Cinnamon to discover a tiny male foetus that turns out to be an irregular DNA surrogate implant, Campion is not-so-subtlety reminding us that not all sex-work takes place in a brothel. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181138/original/file-20170807-18968-157rwhv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181138/original/file-20170807-18968-157rwhv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181138/original/file-20170807-18968-157rwhv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181138/original/file-20170807-18968-157rwhv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181138/original/file-20170807-18968-157rwhv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181138/original/file-20170807-18968-157rwhv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181138/original/file-20170807-18968-157rwhv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181138/original/file-20170807-18968-157rwhv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gwendoline Christie: her character plays off Moss’s wonderfully in the show.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">See-Saw Films for BBC First and Foxtel</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the suitcase discovery, Robin is teamed up with rookie cop Miranda (played by Gwendoline Christie of Game of Thrones fame), who serves as an open and very enthusiastic offset to Robin’s stand-offishness. Moss and Christie play off each other wonderfully, as do Alice Englert and Nicole Kidman, who play Robin’s daughter Mary, and her adoptive mother Julie, who Campion has <a href="http://miff.com.au/program/film/miff-talks-top-of-the-lake-china-girl-in-conversation">described</a> as “a suburban queen; a control freak brought to her knees.”</p>
<p>Mary and Julie clash – horribly – and in a typical adolescent act of rebellion Mary brings home series villain Puss (David Dencik), a brothel owner and faux-intellectual more than 20 years her senior.</p>
<p>Puss (soft spoken and aptly named) waxes lyrical about feminism and quotes Dostoevsky whilst toting a copy of the Socialist Alternative rag Red Flag and lighting a skinny, half-smoked cigarette. Living above Silk 41, he claims to be a product of rape, similar to Mary. He seems aloof from the violence and death surrounding him, yet there is something infuriatingly condescending about his gap-toothed smile when he faces off against Julia in a disastrous dinner scene. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181139/original/file-20170807-19219-18477ag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181139/original/file-20170807-19219-18477ag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181139/original/file-20170807-19219-18477ag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181139/original/file-20170807-19219-18477ag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181139/original/file-20170807-19219-18477ag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181139/original/file-20170807-19219-18477ag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181139/original/file-20170807-19219-18477ag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181139/original/file-20170807-19219-18477ag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">David Dencik as Puss: brothel owner and faux-intellectual.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">See-Saw Films for BBC First and Foxtel</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>He’s an insidious version of the other machismo collective of the series, a café-bound ring of men who run “Hooker Rater,” a fairly self-explanatory porn website. The show’s redeeming male presence is, however, Mary’s adoring adoptive father, Pyke (played by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2091880/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Dead Europe</a>’s Ewen Leslie), who functions as a welcome lynchpin for much of the drama’s underlying tensions. Apart from Pyke, it would be difficult to find any character in the series who isn’t inherently flawed or unlikeable. Likeable simply isn’t Campion’s shtick.</p>
<h2>Ominous visual beauty</h2>
<p>The somehow ominous visual beauty of Top of the Lake: China Girl, which <a href="http://miff.com.au/program/film/top-of-the-lake-china-girl">aired in full</a> at MIFF at the weekend, is truly something to behold. Harking back to her earlier work (in films like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0199626/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">In the Cut</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107822/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Piano</a>), poetic images - a burning wedding dress held above a bonfire by two cackling men on a ute, a suitcase drifting peacefully across the sea floor - are poised against gorgeous vistas: New Zealand mountain ranges or a Sydney seascape.</p>
<p>There is definitely a sense of Campion being more adventurous in this second season, in both the defiant subject matter and images that crystallise it. In one dream sequence, for instance, fluorescent babies surround a chuckling Robin before she is shown thrashing and screaming in her sleep.</p>
<p>The wide-angle shots of Walsh Bay as police jog by in lapis uniforms - in a rippling reflection of the surrounding sea - offset what would otherwise be an over-reliance on mid-shot interior dialogue scenes, which threaten to turn the series into a boring police procedural. (I’m looking at you <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294189/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Fall</a>.) </p>
<p>The red-lit group scenes shot at Silk 41 are catapulted straight out of Lina Wertmüller’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070061/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Love and Anarchy</a>, all arms and freshly-shaved legs jumbled and draped in a sleepy, feminine sculpture. Piano filters through the series elegantly, turning the otherwise abject image of the submerged suitcase containing a dead body into an astonishingly elegant ballet of oceanic wilderness. </p>
<p>This being said – not all experimentations pay off. A dubious film-within-a-film, meta-fictional subplot to set up an end-of-series reveal about South-East Asian surrogacy is an unconvincing dalliance that probably could have been left on the cutting room floor.</p>
<p>At a recent talk on Top of the Lake at MIFF, Lee admitted: “There isn’t a lot of [real] police work that happens [in the show], instead things are solved by someone simply calling and leaving a tip.” This rather convenient occurrence does lead to slight plot inconsistencies and stretch one’s suspension of disbelief at points too far. Lee and Campion, preferring to focus on microagressions, gender politics and interpersonal relationships in lieu of detailing crime drama’s usual nitty-gritty police work, do endanger the series’ otherwise watertight persuasiveness. </p>
<p>This ambiguous relationship to convention however, has not so much dogged as inspired much of Campion’s career, as the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/scarletalliance.org.au/posts/1555010941216632">tensions of sexual and racial politics</a> have been channelled through her mythical personal vision.</p>
<p><em>Top of the Lake: China Girl, will premiere on Foxtel’s BBC First on August 20.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81273/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Blythe Worthy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Jane Campion’s second series of Top of the Lake, which premiered in Melbourne at the weekend, is an ominous, lyrical, genre-bending exploration of the sex trade.Blythe Worthy, PhD Candidate, The University of Sydney, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/628192016-08-01T05:00:25Z2016-08-01T05:00:25ZJanis Joplin and Sharon Jones add a feminist beat to the Melbourne Film Festival<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132566/original/image-20160801-25627-1ezj6cy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Janis Joplin in a new documentary, Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015). </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disarming Films</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two of the twelve music documentaries featured in the Melbourne International Film Festival’s <a href="http://miff.com.au/program/streams/backbeat">Backbeat program</a> this year are about iconic female blues singers: Janis Joplin and Sharon Jones. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3707114/">Janis: Little Girl Blue</a> (2015) is a posthumous look at arguably, the world’s <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=hXW80rEd-HgC&pg=PA69&lpg=PA69&dq=is+joplin,+worlds+first+female+rock+icon?&source=bl&ots=3vC9kptQWw&sig=NQNAR3CKUFs30SxSkkumTB3mhns&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiWu77FrJ3OAhUBuJQKHaXvD08Q6AEIRjAH#v=onepage&q&f=false">first female rock icon</a> while <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3707114/">Miss Sharon Jones!</a> (2015), the “<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/sharon-jones-fights-on-i-have-cancer-cancer-dont-have-me-w431601">female James Brown</a>” is battling to keep her music alive after a pancreatic cancer diagnosis in 2013. </p>
<p>The films, which had their Australian premiers at MIFF, challenge the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/girls-to-the-front/7223798">misrepresentation and marginalisation</a> of women in the music industry. They are also directed by award-winning women, <a href="http://variety.com/exec/amy-berg-ii/">Amy Berg</a> and <a href="http://www.cabincreekfilms.com/barbara_kopple.html">Barbara Kopple</a>, in another industry where women <a href="http://variety.com/2015/film/news/women-hollywood-inequality-directors-behind-the-camera-1201626691/">struggle to get ahead</a>. </p>
<p>Janis: Little Girl Blue is a nostalgic musical journey based on rare archive footage. It is laced with interviews with her younger siblings (Laura and Michael), but largely features members of her boy bands: firstly Big Brother and the Holding Company, and her later backing bands, Kozmic Blues Band, and the Full Tilt Boogie Band.</p>
<p>We follow Joplin’s upbringing in the small, conservative mining town of Port Arthur, Texas in the 1940s, leading to her student days at the University of Texas in the early 60s, and her debut in Austin’s burgeoning folksy blues college music scene. </p>
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<span class="caption">Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disarming Films</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The images of Joplin’s involvement in the development of the San Francisco psychedelic sound during the mid-60s are a highlight of the film; while the scenes associated with her lonesome demise in Hollywood in 1970 are melancholic. </p>
<p>Joplin emerged as the premier blues vocalist of the 1960s. As Sheila Whiteley wrote in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/298232.Women_and_Popular_Music">Women and Popular Music: Sexuality, Identity and Subjectivity</a> (2000), Joplin’s recording of Little Girl Blue (1969) offered “a new delicate and compassionate insight into blueness”.</p>
<p>Nicknamed the Mother of the Blues, Joplin sang to her own Southern acoustic beat and inspired other female musicians, such as Sharon Jones, to combine rhythm and blues with extraordinary soul. </p>
<p>Miss Sharon Jones! is a medical mix tape of the 60-year-old singer’s struggle with cancer since 2013, her loyalty to her Brooklyn-based indie label, <a href="http://daptonerecords.com/sharon-jones-and-the-dap-kings/">Daptone Records</a> and life on the road with the Dap Kings, where – like Joplin – Jones was The Girl in the band. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Miss Sharon Jones!</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cabin Creek Films</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jones learnt her craft as a gospel singer in church, and worked in various jobs (for example, as a prison warden), before a mid-life career break as a session backup singer for soul and funk legend, Lee Fields in 1996. Her band the Dap Kings, which formed in 2002, helped to rekindle a <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/keeping-up-with-the-jones-sharon-jones-and-the-dap-kings-return">renaissance in funk and soul music</a>. </p>
<p>Understandably, both documentaries differ in tone. Janis, Little Girl Blue laments the loss of a great talent at <a href="http://theconversation.com/the-27-club-the-one-you-dont-want-to-join-2494">age 27</a>. Joplin’s fourth (and most famous) album, Pearl, was released three months after her death from an accidental heroin overdose. It delivered a Number 1 Billboard hit with Me and Bobby McGee. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jK3rPSO55KY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>In contrast, Miss Sharon Jones! celebrates Jones as a soul survivor, who has cancer but is using music as a remedy. </p>
<p>Both stress that Joplin and Jones experienced marginalisation in the music industry, not only because of their gender, but also because of their appearance. </p>
<p>When the plain looking, slightly overweight and acne-scarred Joplin strutted her musical talent at University of Texas, she was nominated as the “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Texas-rhythm-rhyme-pictorial-history/dp/0932012736">Ugliest Man on campus</a>”. </p>
<p>Later Joplin was criticised by feminists for <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=hXW80rEd-HgC&pg=PA69&lpg=PA69&dq=is+joplin,+worlds+first+female+rock+icon?&source=bl&ots=3vC9kptQWw&sig=NQNAR3CKUFs30SxSkkumTB3mhns&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiWu77FrJ3OAhUBuJQKHaXvD08Q6AEIRjAH#v=onepage&q&f=false">exploiting her bisexuality</a> at a time when popular culture was grappling with “the problems of image and the representation” of women. In her brief eight year career, Whitely argues, Joplin had “the balls to succeed in the brotherhood of rock”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Miss Sharon Jones! (2015)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cabin Creek Films,</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a similar vein, Sharon Jones, who released her first record at age 40, was told she was “<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/sharon-jones-fights-on-i-have-cancer-cancer-dont-have-me-w431601">too old, too fat, too short, too black</a>” to make it in the industry. </p>
<p>Yet both films hit high emotional notes. The highlight of Miss Sharon Jones! is watching her sixth album with the Dap Kings, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmLl21gZjfM">Give The People What They Want</a>, be nominated for the band’s first Grammy in the <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/keeping-up-with-the-jones-sharon-jones-and-the-dap-kings-return">Best R&B album section</a>. </p>
<p>Both these singers’ train-rattling, emotionally powerful voices became trademarks in an industry that prides itself on radicalism, yet silences woman from serious discussion and participation. </p>
<p><br></p>
<hr>
<p><em>Radio RRR is hosting a talk on <a href="http://www.rrr.org.au/whats-going-on/rrr-presents/live-to-airs/">Monday 1 August from 4pm to 7pm</a> at the Forum about Janis: Little Girl Blue and Miss Sharon Jones.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="http://miff.com.au/program/film/miss-sharon-jones">Miss Sharon Jones!</a> is showing at the Melbourne International Film Festival on August 12. <a href="http://miff.com.au/program/film/janis-little-girl-blue">Janis: Little Girl Blue</a> is showing on August 13.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62819/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Jean Baker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Janis Joplin was once voted the ‘Ugliest Man on Campus’. Sharon Jones was told she was ‘too old, too fat, too short, too black’ to succeed in music. Two documentaries chart the lives of these extraordinary women.Andrea Jean Baker, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/632592016-07-29T05:35:51Z2016-07-29T05:35:51ZThe tragi-comedy Down Under appropriates Cronulla rather than offering insight<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132455/original/image-20160729-24648-1ehnur1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the Melbourne International Film Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Abe Forsythe’s black comedy <a href="http://tix4.miff.com.au/session.asp?sn=CENTREPIECE+GALA+-+DOWN+UNDER&s=2037&plbsrc=g_f#_ga=1.12111735.2145922839.1463115282">Down Under</a> is set the day after the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/cronulla-rioters-10-years-later-speak-of-pride-regret-death-im-not-ashamed-20151127-gl9mrh.html">2005 Christmas Cronulla Riots</a> and undertakes a re-processing of these events. It starts with newsreel footage that brings back this raw, racist national wound of running mob fights, the derisive calls, the cars, the drinking, the police batons, the flags and the arrests. </p>
<p>A group of “Leb” and a group of “Skip” men plan retaliations for this event. They are destined to meet in an inevitable car crash that tragically unravels on a dark suburban street. </p>
<p>“Skip” is an inventive piece of Australian slang that simultaneously delivers both the image of the kangaroo and the idea of “white trash”. The film’s archetypal characters promise the in-your-face irrational gestural and verbal violence that Paul Fenech has effectively delivered to our television screens with <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2103538/">Housos</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244357/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Pizza</a>.</p>
<p>Jason (Damon Herriman) brings together the locals, the movie store employee Shit-Stick (Alexander England), Shit-Stick’s Down’s Syndrome cousin Evan (Chris Bunton) and Ditch (Justin Rosniak), a Ned Kelly admirer. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132456/original/image-20160729-24679-x0nuy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132456/original/image-20160729-24679-x0nuy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132456/original/image-20160729-24679-x0nuy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132456/original/image-20160729-24679-x0nuy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132456/original/image-20160729-24679-x0nuy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132456/original/image-20160729-24679-x0nuy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132456/original/image-20160729-24679-x0nuy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132456/original/image-20160729-24679-x0nuy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alexander England, Chris Bunton, Damon Herriman and Justin Rosniak in Down Under (2016).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Ditch, whose head is wrapped in bandages to nurse his new tattoo, is reminiscent of those blurred heads that bring anonymity to some criminal activity in newsreel footage. (Interestingly, this is a news gatherers’ technique that was glaringly missing in the original footage of the riots.)</p>
<p>Lakemba’s Nick (Rahel Romahn) gathers rapper D-Mac (Fayssal Bazzi), the studious Hassim (Lincoln Younes) and the devout Ibrahim (Michael Denkha) to his group for a raid. Guns are involved, each group obtaining theirs by comical means. One is an operational family heirloom from the first world war, the other obtained through a surreal drug underworld situation. </p>
<p>Unlike Fenech’s concoctions, Forsythe uses the Evan and Ibrahim characters to slip in a moral voice, that somehow blunts the “irrational” violence rather than explains it. Trauma is experienced viscerally in the heat of the moment. It is not explained but felt, to be re-processed later, a struggle to bring meaning, story and context. </p>
<p>Yet rather than closing the wound, the film further dumbfounds it. Down Under is entertainment, after all, that appropriates these historic events to its service. It does not deliver any insights into the racism at their core.</p>
<p>Though entertaining, with strong acting performances, Forsythe’s characters lack the unpredictable edge of Fenech’s “working class” characters, who, with their staccato voices and body gestures, affect us before reason kicks in.</p>
<p>In this film we are not inside the storm, but witness an aftermath from both sides of a suburban fence. Both group’s stories are uncannily similar. The perfect storm has subsided, and these are its echoes treated through reason, morality and the “foolishness of male youth” trope of storytelling.</p>
<p>The inherent repetition of the title “Down Under” reminds one of the Australian preference for double negatives like “not bad” rather than “good” and “never say never” for unbridled hope.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132457/original/image-20160729-24653-1yl7j11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132457/original/image-20160729-24653-1yl7j11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132457/original/image-20160729-24653-1yl7j11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132457/original/image-20160729-24653-1yl7j11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132457/original/image-20160729-24653-1yl7j11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132457/original/image-20160729-24653-1yl7j11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132457/original/image-20160729-24653-1yl7j11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/132457/original/image-20160729-24653-1yl7j11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Down Under (2016).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The crossover between Australian entertainment, comedy and politics has an uneven history. There were Norman Gunston’s gesticulations on the steps of Parliament as Gough Whitlam addressed the crowd during his dismissal and Bob Hawke’s brush-off of Gunston that this was too serious for send-up.</p>
<p>There was the underdog humour of Nick Giannopoulos’s 1980’s Wogs Out of Work and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122333/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Acropolis Now</a>, which reconfigured the word <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0216417/?ref_=tt_rec_tt">wog</a> as a badge of honour. This was comedy that sourced and transformed the real-life experiences of its writers and their audience. Even earlier, Paul Hogan had re-branded the Australian Ocker from the inside, to later transform it into the heroics of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090555/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Crocodile Dundee</a>.</p>
<p>Today, we’ve got to the point where a significant amount of our current affairs news and commentary is actually dished up by comedians on shows like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2115160/">The Project</a>.</p>
<p>Down Under also brings to mind a 60s and 70s Melbourne radio news program on 3UZ called <a href="https://soundcloud.com/alex-hehr/3uz-newsbeat-dec1964">Newsbeat</a>. Every Sunday morning Newsbeat documented the road accidents of the night before, with on-the-spot reportage and interviews, harvesting the impulsive “Strine” lingo of the misguided youth at the heart of many of its incidents. These documents provided a source for the raw violence expressed through Mad Max’s road culture. Indeed, Down Under’s story would not have been out of place on Newsbeat.</p>
<p>The power of Down Under lies most clearly as a tragic commentary on impulsive male youth car culture, where the inept behaviour of the group visits irreversible consequences on its participants. </p>
<p>Forsythe’s tragi-comedy effectively addresses those switches between the emotional ride and its consequent carnage. As an engaging, deftly-structured male coming of age film it forgets Cronulla, rather than understands it.</p>
<p>Mischievously, I’d make the point that this is our tradition. Forgetting lies at the core of our national identity. After all, “our” foundation event was that Terra Nullius moment when the Union Jack was raised on these shores with the understanding that there was nothing here.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63259/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dirk de Bruyn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The male coming of age tale Down Under is set in the aftermath of the 2005 Cronulla riots. But while entertaining, the film doesn’t help us understand the racism at the heart of these traumatic events.Dirk de Bruyn, Associate Professor of Screen, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.