The Children Act

Rated: MThe Children Act

Directed by: Richard Eyre

Produced by: Duncan Kenworthy

Screenplay based on his Novel by: Ian McEwan

Starring: Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci, Fionn Whitehead, Ben Chaplin, Jason Watkins, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Anthony Calf, Rosie Cavaliero, Eileen Walsh, Nicholas Jones and Rupert Vansittart.

The Children Act is based on the novel written by Ian Ewan – he also writes the screenplay stating he started writing after spending time with ‘a handful of judges’ who were ‘Talking shop’.

A Sir Alan Ward (an appeal court judge) left the table to consult a bound volume of his own judgments to settle a disagreement.  Ian found himself with the book, reading the judgments and finding the cases written like short stories; those involved captured in broad strokes; the dilemma written with sympathy for the ones who inevitably lose.

Several years later, The Children Act was written.

The film opens with the sound of a gentle heartbeat, blood reaching through arteries like the branches of trees the film revolving around a case where a seventeen-year-old Jehovah Witness’ boy, Adam (Fionn Whitehead) who has leukemia, refuses a blood transfusion because of his faith.

To the Jehovah Witness, the soul, like life itself, lives in the blood, therefore, it belongs to God.  To allow another person’s blood or soul enter his veins would be blasphemous.

The hospital moves to force the transfusion under the instruction of The Children Act, 1989:

“When a court determines any question with respect to … the upbringing of a child … the child’s welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration.”

The case lands on the desk of eminent High Court judge Fiona Maye (Emma Thompson), who now childless and struggling in the relationship with her husband Jack (Stanley Tucci) because of her commitment to her career, finds her emotions breaking through her usual cold rational as she decides the fate of Adam’s life – to allow him to die for his faith, or force him to live at the cost of his beliefs.

She decides to hear from Adam himself, to see that he understands the painful death that awaits at the refusal of the transfusion.

A highly unusual circumstance, she sits by his hospital bed and ends up singing with him as he plays his guitar.

This is a practical, concise and highly intelligent woman who has sworn not to allow her emotion to enter her decision-making process – all very believable from the performance of Emma Thompson.  Her place is to make decisions based on law not morals.

All the while imagining her husband having an affair, writing a text, ‘Having fun?’ Then having to delete when work and making life-and-death decisions for other people and their families once again become the priority.

When Adam survives, when his life is more important than his dignity, he chases the only one who understands: the woman who decided to save his life.

This is a film about the characters who are making serious decisions all day, every day.  Emma Thompson shows clarity of mind when making a judgment in court balanced against the confusion and overflow of hurt when her husband explains his unhappiness in their marriage: ‘Do you remember the last time we made love?’ he asks.

‘No idea!’ she states while pouring over the arguments for and against the separation of conjoined twins.

Then we see this fascinating case of Adam playout in court, from the medical side to the point of view of his parents, to the clear mind of a judge entangled in emotion from her personal life, to still be able to make concise decisions; the consequences of her decision shown in this strange and precocious boy who lives.  Who wants to know more about the life he feels he owes to her.

The film asks the question – if you save a life, are you responsible for that life?

Not in the court of law.

The Children Act is a quietly emotive film that gives a deeper understanding of those stories we’ve all read in the papers.

It’s a thought-provoking film about how the court has more power over life than religion.  And the cost it takes from those who make the judgment and the ones who have to live with a decision not their own.

I Used To Be Normal: A Boyband Fangirl Story

Rated: PGI Used To Be Normal: A Boyband Fangirl Story

Directed by: Jessica Leski

Produced by: Jessica Leski, Rita Walsh

Featuring: Elif Cam, Sadia, Dara Donelly, Susan Bower.

Designed as a glimpse into a teenage girl’s sparkly, heart-studded, secret diary, this engaging documentary opens with black and white footage of girls who have flocked en masse for the smallest glimpse of The Beatles during their 1964 world tour. Like some curious kind of behaviour that David Attenborough might explain in a nature program, this knot of screaming, crying, hair-tearing, swooning girls is a phenomenon that had begun to sweep the globe, leaving many a parent and those not caught up in the frenzy utterly bemused.

But. Who are these girls and what has become of them?

In this cross-continental exploration, these questions are addressed through the lives of four very different women, from Susan Bower an Australian television producer, one of the original fangirls captured in the archival footage of the Beatles tour, to Elif Cam, a schoolgirl living in Long Island, New York whose obsession with One Direction has paralleled the five years it has taken the filmmakers to produce their own labour of love.

According to Elif, when One Direction perform ‘It’s like they’re singing to me, “You’re beautiful”.’ And, what young girl could resist a really cute boy looking deeply into her eyes and whispering her all of her heart’s desires, even before she is really aware she has them? While, Dara the more technically-minded Australian brand strategist couldn’t resist the allure of, ‘Five guys in the rain dancing in slow motion’.

Analysing her own longstanding and unshakeable attachment, Dara sets out a chart on an office-grade whiteboard to examine ‘Boyband Basics’.  There’s: ‘The mysterious one, the cute one, the sensible dad/older brother, the sexy one—shirt off—and the forgotten one.’ And, there are definitely, ‘No girlfriends, no brothers and no beards.’

In some quarters, boybands are seen as manufactured, manipulative and relatively unskilled. Given that only one boy in the band might even be able to play the guitar, it can be social suicide for the girls to reveal their secret passion. But, that is precisely the allure. It’s about the perfect boy. And, in a boyband, there’s a boy to match the dreams of every girl.

For Elif, the girl on a video that went viral when she cried uncontrollably at the thought of seeing One Direction, ‘They’re not even like human beings. Nobody can be that perfect’. And, it seems that for all of the girls, the most perfect thing about the perfect boy is that he is unattainable.

At a time in their lives when girls are starting to feel the first flutterings of interest in boys, when their emotions are wayward with wild crushes galore, and at a time when real boys ‘are jerks’, boybands offer unconditional love. They sing of love and tantalise with hints of sex, but it is never overt. They are the boys who will never break your heart.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Rated: MFantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Directed by: David Yates

Screenplay by: J. K. Rowling

Produced by: David Heyman, J. K. Rowling, Steve Kloves and Lionel Wigram

Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Zoë Kravitz, Callum Turner, Claudia Kim, William Nadylam, Kevin Guthrie, Carmen Ejogo, Poppy Corby-Tuech, with Jude Law and Johnny Depp.

The second of five in the Fantastic Beasts series, The Crimes of Grindelwald continues in the days before Harry Potter, back to the 1920s following Magizoologist Newt (Eddie Redmayne) and his beasts (his book now published) and the powerful dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp), who was captured in the previous instalment (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) and is now held by the MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America).

After six months it’s time to bring the dark wizard to court to face his crimes but during the transfer, Grindelwald explodes onto the screen, making his escape.  His mission to gather the pure bloods, to take back their freedom, for wizards to be who they really are, to rule the world and dominate the remaining No-Maj.

Grindelwald explains he doesn’t plan to kill all the No-Maj, ‘The beasts of burden will always be necessary’.

He’s mean but he makes an argument that some wizards find hard to resist.  They don’t want to hide in the shadows any longer.  They want to rule the world.

The running theme through-out the film is, It’s time to pick a side.

Which is difficult for Newt as he states, ‘I don’t pick sides.’

Professor Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law), unable to fight Grindelwald for mysterious reasons revealed in the film, calls upon Newt to find Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller), the Obscurial (a born wizard whose powers were suppressed to the point of becoming an Obscurus, a parasitical force deadly to its host, usually at a very young age) introduced in the first film.

Dumbledore knows Credence is in Paris looking for his birth mother, to find the love he desperately needs and to find his place in the world.  He needs to be found before the silver-tongued charm of Grindelwald captures his power to wield against humanity.

We see the return of Queenie (Alison Sudol) who just wants to love the No-Maj Jacob (Dan Fogler).  Tina (Katherine Waterston) returns to the MACUSA as an Auror after reading the news Newt is engaged to his old flame Leta Lestrange (Zoë Kravitz), a misprint in the gossip pages when she’s in fact engaged to his older brother Theseus (Callum Turner) – awkward!

There’s more development of characters in this instalment with some complicated entanglements as each fight for the cause, or not.

But Dumbledore knows no matter what, Newt will do what is right.

We travel from America to London to Paris, back to Hogwarts, where we see echoes of familiar characters in their younger years.

And now, in this second instalment, we start to solve some mysteries like how the Maledictus named Nagini (Claudia Kim) (now Credence’s companion) becomes the giant snake.

Rowling clarifies, “A Maledictus is someone who carries a blood curse that, over time, turns them into a beast.  They can’t stop it, they can’t turn back.  They will lose themselves…they will become the beast with everything that implies.”

And there are other, ‘Aha’ moments that I admit are starting to draw me in.

Director David Yates and screenplay writer J. K. Rowling have reunited along with the creative team so the tone and look of the film is the same with explosive moments and the amazing effects of cavernous spaces and intricate pieces falling into place and locks turning and statues moving, the bright colours of circus and blue fire to the wonderful beasts including the mischievous Niffler who now has a litter of babies.

Although I adored the critters in the first instalment, I wasn’t as drawn into the story of the film as it was more setting the foundation for the series.

Here, we see more of the mystery revealed.

I’m finding the Fantastic Beasts series more about what comes next, what piece of the puzzle is going to make that character into who they eventually become.  And slowly, I can see the story coming together.

Roma

Rated: MA15+Roma

Directed and Written by: Alfonso Cuarón

Cinematography: Alfonso Cuarón

Produced by: Nicolás Celis, Alfonso Cuarón

Starring: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Fernando Grediaga, Jorge Antonio Guerrero, Marco Graf, Daniela Demesa, Carlos Peralta, Nancy Garcia, Diego Di Cort and Verónica Garcia.

The 75th Venice International Film Festival, Golden Lion winner

Based on the semi-autobiographical upbringing of writer and Academy Award winning director Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men (2006); Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2010); Gravity (2013)) in Mexico during the 1970s, Roma feels like a legacy left as a gift that we all get to share.

It’s not often I see a film that speaks to the heart of things with perfect balance; a sigh at the end because there’s a kind of sadness it’s finishing but also a happy sigh because it all feels complete.

From the opening scene, Roma slows everything down with the flow and splash of water used for cleaning the concrete squares of a courtyard with the reflected image of an aeroplane flying overhead.

Here, we’re introduced to the family: wife, Sofia (Marina de Tavira) and husband Antonio (Fernando Grediaga) and the children, Paco (Carlos Peralta), Pepe (Marco Graf), Sofi (Daniela Demesa), grandma Teresa (Veronica Garcia).  And the two nannies, Adela (Nancy Garcia Garcia) and Chloe (Yalitza Aparicio).   But really, the two young nannies are part of the family.  As is the ever-pooing on the courtyard squares, Borras the dog.  And the galaxy car that fits into the courtyard-come-garage by a mere centimetre each side…

I love the humour of the film, mounted heads of previous pet dogs included.

And the love and tragedy of the characters is perfectly captured in black and white moments so although a quiet film about life and family, I was mesmerised by a story shown by an observer with a particularly knowing eye; from the heart of a wise and old soul like young Pepe talking to Chloe about his past life as a pilot, ‘back when I was old’.

The film is just full of wonderful treats like the hills that look like they have skirts and the rubbing of vinegar on sunburnt shoulders so the children smell like salads.

We’re shown this deeply personal story of a family that managers to subtly open a door on the rarity of life captured that goes deeper than an emotional level.  There something spiritual here as Chloe is shown with the love of a young boy who sees her soul so clearly.

Even with the tragedy of heart break, there’s strength; even through earthquakes and government seizing land, the Indigenous population living in slums, and fathers leaving their children, there’s an ever evolving resilience where keeping close helps get through all the scary; where scenes of baby bottles amongst the wine and ashtrays are a sign of the times and forest fires alight on New Year’s Eve: there’s always the slow drone of an aeroplane overhead.

I loved this film, the quiet, the sad, the love, the beauty, the simplicity of people living their lives shown with amusement and a rare honesty that fills you up.  Now that’s film making.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp_i7cnOgbQ

Boy Erased

Rated: MA15+Boy Erased

Directed and Written by: Joel Edgerton

Based on the Novel by: Garrard Conley

Produced by: Steve Golin, Kerry Kohansky-Roberts, Joel Edgerton

Starring: Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Joel Edgerton, Cherry Jones, Michael “Flea” Balzary, Xavier Dolan, Troye Sivan, Joe Alwyn, Emily Hinkler, Jesse LaTourette, David Joseph Craig, Théodore Pellerin, Madelyn Cline and Britton Sear.

‘Say it, I am using sex and homosexuality to fill a God-shaped hole in my life.  Say it!’ demands Victor Sykes (Joel Edgerton) head therapist of a conversion program.

It’s a mantra he uses to cure the ‘afflicted’ and confused brought to Love In Action (LIA) to be cured of their homosexuality; a program Jared (Lucas Hedges) finds himself trapped in after admitting his homosexuality in a world built on Christian values: his Christian mother Nancy (Nicole Kidman) and his father, Marsahll Eamons (Russell Crowe) a Baptist pastor.

There are a lot of LBGTQAI films around (recently, ‘The Miseducation of Cameron Post’ and ‘Disobedience’), and I admit, I groaned at reviewing another drama that didn’t hold my interest – Australia has just been through a referendum to make gay marriage legal; the topic, shall I say, has been well discussed.

But I also admit to my ignorance, the bubble I inhabit where I don’t have to confront my Christian parents with an admission I know they would struggle to accept.

Director, screenwriter and actor, Joel Edgerton read Gerrard Conley’s memoir, ‘Boy Erased: A Memoir of Identity, Faith and Family’ in what felt like seconds; relating more to the concept of feeling trapped than the confession of homosexuality.

And this view brings a different tone to the film – the suffocation and trauma of good people doing bad because of misunderstanding rather than politics or even religious perspective.

Boy Erased is more the unveiling of psychological trauma experienced by innocent, good kids who are genuinely confused (or not) about their sexuality; who are willing to go into a program, for the sake of their parents and family, that tells them God won’t love them if they’re gay (and think about it, bringing a group of conflicted young people together to stop them being gay?  Talk about forbidden fruit!).

So when church and family, the foundation of your upbringing tells you you’re sick and wrong, the psychological damage is soul destroying.

Instead of being hit over the head with a, for want of a better metaphor, good versus evil (the evil being the religious, anti-gay) there’s a more complicated dynamic shown here, shown from the perspective of a son who wants to do the right thing, and parents who love their God and their son.

There are very different roles for some big names in film here – Nicole Kidman as the bleached, rhinestone encrusted pastor’s wife, the pastor himself played by Russell Crowe: a powerfully conflicted man whose faith tells him to disown his son, yet a loving man who continues to try to understand.  Love is love is easy to say until it’s your own.  Jared’s father admits to his struggle to accept and his disappointment of never having biological grandchildren.

Joel Edgerton plays the surprisingly believable charismatic lead counsellor – who would have thought the Aussie larrikin had the cult leader in him?!

And the restraint shown by young Jared is endearing.  I can’t think of another term because he managed to strike a maternal chord.

Edgerton has handled this complicated suffering that exists quietly yet extensively in the world with delicate sensitivity, allowing the integrity of Jared to continue to echo beyond his novel, and perhaps even this film.

Fahrenheit 11/9

Rated: MFahrenheit 11/9

Directed by: Michael Moore

Written by: Michael Moore

Produced by: Carl Deal, Meghan O’Hara, Michael Moore

Starring: Michael Moore and a host of sympathisers and suspects.

No one is safe and nothing is sacred, at least nothing that the big end of town wants to sweep under the carpet when Michael Moore throws back the rug to expose the outrageous chicanery that gets them what they want.

With a Michael Moore documentary you can expect to be appalled by the issues at stake and riveted by the oblique angles from which they are viewed. In this instance, Moore’s thought provoking compilation of theatre, confrontation and shenanigans charts the alternative history of Donald Trump’s rise to the presidency, and beyond. If anyone in America could be described as Trump’s arch-nemesis, it would most likely be Moore. Where the one with extravagant comb-over and the unusually long necktie famously evades questions, his shaggy nemesis in the baseball cap is equally invested in finding the answers. Even if those findings might not be the ones you expect.

While I have been continually gobsmacked by the audacious commentary aimed at the Trump administration, so much has already been said and written that I had wondered whether I might be in line for a lengthy rehash. Not so. From the opening scenes, the little voice in my mind kept asking in a stunned whisper, ‘Can he really say that?’ And that was before one word had even been uttered. The choice of music implied something that words could not say (at least, not without being sued or locked up).

Just when I thought I knew everything there was to know about Trump’s ascendancy—social media, Russian interference, the ill-timed FBI investigation—there was one factor that we had all overlooked. According to Moore’s deep investigative research, Gwen Stefanie was responsible for the Trump phenomenon.

Even so, Trump’s Stefani inspired tilt for office was merely the prelude, with Moore zeroing in on Trump’s plan to run the country as a business. In 2010, Rick Snyder, former chairman of Gateway Computers, had already delivered a full-dress rehearsal in the state of Michigan when he was elected governor. Invoking a state of emergency, Snyder privatised the public services in the city of Flint. With capitalism and unbridled greed running amok, the result was a water crisis that has decimated the city’s economy and poisoned its citizens. As Moore notes, ‘No terrorist organisation has figured out how to poison an entire American city’.

Flint alone would be a resounding indictment on the state of things in America today, but Moore takes aim at a constellation of culprits. Democrats, Republicans, the United States Electoral College, even the general public are implicated. Moore spares no one when he asks:

How the #*!@*# did it happen?

America has long proclaimed itself to be the champion of democracy, but Moore’s wide-ranging think piece reveals an America sleepwalking toward the destruction of the American dream (not the one with the house and two cars), but the dream of a ‘one person one vote’ democracy. For many Americans it is still only an aspiration and whatever freedoms they have won are in imminent peril.

Hunter Killer

Rated: MA15+Hunter Killer

Directed by: Donovan Marsh

Screenplay by: Arne L. Schmidt and Jamie Moss

Based on: The Novel “Firing Point” written by George Wallace and Don Keith

Produced by: Neal H. Moritz and Toby Jaffe, Gerard Butler, Alan Siegel, Tucker Tooley, Mark Gill, John Thompson, Matt O’Toole, Les Weldon

Starring: Gerard Butler, Gary Oldman, Common, Linda Cardellini, Michael Nyqvist and Toby Stephens.

HUNTER KILLER ( hən(t)ərˈkilər ): a naval vessel, especially a submarine, equipped to locate and destroy enemy vessels, especially other submarines.

Based on the book, “Firing Point” written by George Wallace (retired commander of the nuclear attack submarine, USS Houston), and award-winning journalist, Don Keith, Hunter Killer has action above and below the water.

Russian and American submarines play cat and mouse under the heaving Barents Sea; the Americans ghosting a Russian sub when they watch it being blown to pieces.

The Cold War may have ceased above ground, but below the surface of the ocean, torpedos are incoming.

When the American sub goes off-radar, the Brass above ground, trigger-happy Admiral Charles Donnegan, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Gary Oldman) and the more cautious Rear Admiral John Fisk (Common) along with senior National Security Agency analyst Jayne Norquist (Linda Cardellini), send the only Hunter Killer they have nearby, the USS Arkansas: enter ‘pride runs deep’ Captain Joe Glass (Gerard Butler).

When the USS Arkansas crew discover they’ve just sailed into a coup with Russian President Zakarin (Alexander Diachenko) held captive by Admiral Dmitri Durov (Michael Gor) gone rogue, it’s a high-stakes play to extract the president from Russian soil without starting WWIII.

Riding the helm, director, Donovan Marsh (iNumber, Number (2017)) uses three threads to tell the story: the convert battle from the sub, the Black Ops team on the ground and the tension in the War Room; a successful technique condensing a complicated military novel into a comprehensive film.

Yet unable to resist that action military cheese that dominates this genre, the screenwriters throw in lines like, ‘We’re not enemies, we’re brothers’, from Glass.

And you can just see it, the Gary Oldman character Admiral Charles Donnegan stating, ‘When someone makes a move on a chessboard, you respond.’

So, there’s that.

And the shifting of the Russians speaking their native language to then speak English, to each other when really, they’d be speaking Russian, constantly jolted me out of that suspension of reality.

Sticking to Russian with English subtitles would have given the film more authenticity and impact.  A shame because there’s so much effort with the detail of the sub, Marsh placing the film’s entire submarine set on a massive hydraulic gimbal to forge realistic movement.  And the U.S. Navy contributing and advising through-out to get the details as close to the real deal as possible.  To have all that effect taken away by a few pieces of dialogue was disappointing.

I will say that although there were cheesy moments with the brothers-in-arms rhetoric, Gerard Butler brings it in a role more subdued, yet quietly still the man of action Captain.  And Michael Nyqvist as the Russian counter-part, Captain Andropov, added to the tone of brave men making life and death decisions.

Rest In Peace Michael Nyqvist who passed away in June 2017.

And wow, the action and suspense really ramps-up as the story of the film builds.

Overall, not the best I’ve seen in the genre but the suspense and action make Hunter Killer worth a watch.

Charming

Rated: GCharming

Written and directed by: Ross Venokur

Produced by: John H. Williams

Music by: Tom Howe

Starring: Demi Lovato, Wilmer Valderrama, Sia, Ashley Tisdale, Avril Lavigne, G. E. M., Nia Vardalos, with Chris Harrison and John Cleese.

While writer and director Ross Venokur read fairy tales to his three daughters over the years, they came to realise Prince Charming gets around.  Think about it: Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty… They’re all saved by the same guy.  They all fall for, Prince Charming.

In Charming, Venokur has turned the fairy tale around so it’s the Prince who’s cursed: there is such as thing as being too charming.  How is Prince Philippe Charming (Wilmer Valderrama) supposed to know whether it’s the curse or true love when all women are charmed by him?

Cursed by Nemeny Neverwish (Nia Vardalos), a scorned woman turned witch, Prince Charming must find true love before his twenty-first birthday to lift the curse of his charm.  If he doesn’t then all love will disappear from the kingdom.

Like his father and his grandfather, Prince Charming must complete the gauntlet; a journey of self-discovery and manhood while besting the unbeatable beast, escaping giant women cannibals, and most importantly taking a leap of faith to find his true love.

It’s only with the help of a rouge thief, Lenny while disguised as a man of the world but really Lenore Quinone (Demi Lovato), a girl who grew up on the seas, who has locked her heart away for good.  It’s only with her survival skills at the price of three fortunes in gold that the pampered, never-had-to-lift-his-charmed-finger-to-do-anything, has Charming any chance of completing the gauntlet.  Let alone find true love.

It’s lucky Lenore is immune to his charms, otherwise the quest would never have had a chance.  Nor the story.

Not that I was charmed by this film.

It was all a little pre-teen for me.  Complete with girl-band music for the soundtrack that I found difficult to believe the characters were singing.

And the story was stretched beyond believability, even for a fairy tale animation with Lenore jailed for her thievery to suddenly be offered three fortunes to get Prince Charming through the gauntlet!?

And Lenore putting on a baker’s hat was enough of a disguise to be mistaken for the short and fat baker?

And fake moustache and hat makes you look like a boy?

Well, yeah, I guess.  But not really.

I was however, charmed by details like the kingdom billboard advertising a lawnmower with a picture of a sheep and Charming offering Lenore’s partner-in-crime AKA a chirpy red bird a roasted pigeon leg.

And the animation was fluid with colours, my favourite scene when the two explorers enter an enchanted forest with vines reaching out with hands.

But the soundtrack and taking the leap-of-faith romance was directed at a younger audience who may be able to look past those stretches of narrative that made me roll my eyes because, as if!

Backtrack Boys

Rated: MA15+Backtrack Boys

Directed, Produced and Written by: Catherine Scott

Consultant Producer: Madeleine Hetherton

Cinematographer: Catherine Scott

Composers: Kristin Rule, Jonathan Zwartz.

Audience Award for Best Documentary, Sydney Film Festival

Audience Award for Best Documentary, Melbourne International Film Festival

Filmed over two years, Backtrack Boys is an observational documentary about Founder and CEO, Bernie Shakeshaft and his unique outreach program to help young kids to:

Stay alive

Stay out of jail

And to chase their hopes and dreams.

I was thoroughly charmed by this film – writer, director and cinematographer Catherine Scott allowing the story to speak for itself.

Growing up in the Northern Territory, Bernie was taught how to track dingos by Indigenous trackers from Tennent Creek.

Rather than tracking dingos from behind, chasing them, they taught Bernie to backtrack, to observe their behaviour to see where they’d been to see where they’d be tomorrow.

Bernie reckons they weren’t teaching him how to catch wild dogs but how to catch wild kids.

His outreach program is unique in that it’s all about giving board to young people, who’ve had trouble with the law and at home, to stay and train the many dogs on his property to become dog jumpers.  Each kid is given a dog to train, or rather, the dog picks them: dogs don’t judge, they just keep coming back again and again.

I would have thought the group of mischievous kids would have hammed it up for the camera, unable to handle being filmed.  But there’s a genuine insight captured here that tells of a level of comfort and openness with film maker, Catherine Scott, that allows us to see into this fragile world of rehabilitation as the kids open their hearts to Bernie and the volunteers; to struggle with anger and hurt and disappointments, and the consequences of lashing out.

Although the film could be used for teaching youth workers, I didn’t feel like I was under instruction – it was all about meeting the kids: Zac, Russell, Alfie, Sindi.  And to be taken on a journey as they figure out their path in life.

Gentle and matter-of-fact Bernie, who states, ‘I’ve spent so much time with dogs that I think more like a dog than I think like a person’, is able to calm the kids to see reason so we’re shown moments like Zac sharing as they’re sitting around the camp fire that he wants to leave the world with no regrets; no hate in his heart.

We’re taken from the out-skirts of Armidale in New South Wales where Backtrack Boys is set-up surrounded by green paddocks with grazing sheep and horses, to country shows including the Wellington show where the boys show off the dogs’ jumping skills, and their own.  To the detention centre where Tyrson’s waiting to get out and back on track again; to parliament and putting on a show at Government House; to Russell’s fear of going to court to face charges and the uncertainty of whether he’ll walk out again.

Seemingly simple, the film is a series of moments, as we’re shown what the quiet observer sees – the rewards of Bernie’s hard work with Rusty, wild and swearing and chewing gum in the morning to him later organising the bathroom and noting the need for more toothpaste after brushing his teeth.

It’s a sad and realistic documentary, making any break-through and win all the more sweet.

Halloween

Rated: MA15+Halloween

Directed by: David Gordon Green

Written by: David Gordon Green, Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley

Based on Characters Created by: John Carpenter and Debra Hill

Produced by: Jason Blum, Malek Akkad, Bill Block

Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Will Patton, Nick Castle, Andi Matichak, Omar J. Dorsey.

A continuation of the first Halloween (1978), serial killer Michael Myers (Nick Castle), the boogie man, remains behind the walls of Smith Grove Sanatorium.

He doesn’t speak; he’s The Shape.  Without reason he is the ultimate human monster.

And forty years after her last encounter, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), now a grandmother (to Allyson (Andi Matichak)), knows he’s a monster.  She has sacrificed her life, losing her daughter (Karen (Judy Greer)) to social services because of her obsession to prepare as she waits and hopes for his release… so she can kill him.

There’s not much more to the story: the monster, the victim turned heroin, the mask.

Director and co-writer David Gordon Green isn’t known for working in horror.  Yet he’s successfully kept the re-boot of this thriller simple yet effective in the telling.

There’s an echo from the original Halloween that gives that 70s tone with the same synth soundtrack and font for title and credits.  It feels like the same film but brought forward in time with a story-line with details giving the film a surprising sharp edge (ha, ha): it’s violent and bloody without getting over cheesy with too much gore.

There’s clever editing and careful shooting never slowing the monster; and a sometime focus on the eyes of the stalked without too much drama.  Just some good old fashion knife-in-the-neck, head stomping, hanging-from-a-wrought-iron-fence-by-the-head horror.

John Carpenter states, ‘I’m excited for audiences to see this.  It is going to scare the shit out of you.  I guarantee it.’

The monster behind the mask is scary because his face is never shown, he’s a mystery.  I still don’t understand why he’s evil and the film doesn’t explore the depths of his psyche, just the statement that fifty clinical psychiatrists assessing Michael each reached different conclusions.

It’s the way the film is shown that’s interesting and the intensity is relieved with some good humour like Michael’s current and long-term psychiatrist Dr. Sartain (Haluk Bilginer) being told to sit still after his patient escapes, ‘I am sitting still, what are you saying?’

And the little dude, Julian (Jibrail Nantambu) being baby-sat (of course) a classic, wanting to be the pretty babysitter’s favourite with some fun dialogue from the writers that I always appreciate in a good slasher movie.

Yet more importantly, there’s a careful piecing together of moments that gives the film a solid driving undercurrent with the relentless pursuit of the masked monster and the equally resilient Laurie Strode determined to exterminate what she can see is pure evil.

Nothing really new with a simple story, yet the blunt and bold telling made me feel like I was re-watching a classic made new.

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