Sweet Country

Seen at Castlemaine's wonderful Theatre Royal

Bea says: About half an hour in, I had an urge to run away from this film.  I had a sense of foreboding an absolutely nothing, nothing good was going to happen, I knew it.  But I told myself, I had to sit it out, and see it through.  It is my country's history, and it's shame.

So I stayed with it, and watched it, and it was bad (in terms of my sense of foreboding, not the film), but not all bad.  Sam and his wife evade the party hunting them down, and could have continued to if circumstances had been different.  Justice is served, and Sam is found to have been acting in self defence, with no case to answer.  I won't say any more about the plot as even this spoils enough.

Sam Neill is back to getting some good parts these days, and is fantastic as the good egg religious landowner.  Bryan Brown plays a complex character (the sergeant) well.  Great performances from all others; and the "Western" style filming and beautiful country are well done.  I am not enough of a student of the Western genre (although I have seen many of them) to have picked all the references.  The Johny Cash song over the closing credits I am sure is one of them. 

A  must-see.  The closing line from Sam Neill gives pause for thought.

****

Cecil says: Not a film I'd recommend if you need your spirits lifting. The sense of foreboding doesn't take long to take hold; in fact already in the opening scene, which just shows us some boiling water on a campfire, and a guy adding coffee (?) and sugar, while in the background you hear the noise of someone being beaten up by a nasty racist.

Sam Neill and Bryan Brown, those old stalwarts of Australian cinema, are brilliant as ever: Neill as the gentle, religious farmer who treats Aboriginals as equals; Brown as the obsessive sergeant determined to track down the fugitive Sam Kelly, who has shot the awful March.

It's something of a relief when March does get his comeuppance fairly early in the film, though by then the viewer has been put through some of the horrifying deeds and attitudes of 'white fellahs' that must have been so common back then.

Sam Neill's last line in the film does make you reflect on where Australia is at today. The judge is clearly a new generation urban type, probably up from Sydney or Melbourne. And to some extent Australia is still divided between city and country, though the country town we have chosen to live in is probably among the more progressive in Australia. But those attitudes we see from the white fellahs through most of 'Sweet Country' have probably not changed that much in some of the more remote outback towns even today.

Hamilton Morris as Sam Kelly shows great wisdom throughout plus a fantastic ability to survive in the tough outback. Archie reminded me of those Native American trackers who helped the whites in America catch up with Injuns. And Philomac is an interesting character: I quickly suspected that he might be Kennedy's son, but his survival instinct is also extraordinary, with a scary last line from him at the end of the movie. (clever casting, too, with maybe two brothers playing him as he gets older, or in flashback scenes?)

Funny coincidence that Philomac might be the son of someone called Kennedy. Because the shooting at the end, with the blood spurting over the wife in the carriage, is surely a reminder of what happened to JFK some 50 years later (though it's also a bit hard to know when the film was set, or which British Army action March and the Sergeant are supposed to have fought in).

Beautifully filmed, you could almost touch the sand and dust, and I almost began waving those flies away from my face even though there were none in the lovely old Theatre Royal in Castlemaine.

***

The 15:17 to Paris

Seen at the beautiful Regent Theatre in Ballarat, VIC

Bea says: I enjoyed this much more than I thought I would - Cecil and I often have a (long) short-list of current films we want to see, and as our free time is limited, if we have time to see a film we see whatever we can from the list. 

Going in, I feared an action film but I have to say, I found it very, very interesting.  Partly this was because the film spends a long time on the backstory, and as I am narrative-driven in films, I preferred this to lots of time on the action sequence of the actual event on the train.  Others may not enjoy the focus on the backstory as much as I did. 

The backstory takes us right back to the middle school/early high school years of the three friends who end up on the Paris train, playing war games in the open country around where they grew up, and military fatigues to school.  Later, high school separated them, and they all ended up trying to find their individual paths; our hero Spencer Stone is actually a bit lost, not making it in the military into the role he wants, and not excelling in the role he ended up in. 

They all take a bit of time out and holiday in Europe, backpacking the familiar trail of Venice, to Amsterdam, to Paris (I think I did almost exactly the same route 25 years ago).  Amsterdam was a wild night for them (I heard the older couple near us whisper to each other "we didn't do that in Amsterdam!") and hung over, they board the Paris train the next day. 

In fact, they only go ahead because Spencer feels he must; and that is a loop in the film's plot I found really interesting, and which Cecil also refers to - Spencer feels like he was born to do something important, of value to others.  Many years ago I read the John Irving book A Prayer for Owen Meany, and was put in mind of that book when watching this film - "the shot"; although in Owen Meany's case, he knew what it was he would be doing, many years later.  But like Stone, he had to convince friends  that there was something important to come, and to practise and prepare. 

Irving's novel was written years before this event (I read the book in the 1990s) - a case of life imitating art....If you enjoyed this film, I would definitely recommend reading it, and in fact I might re-read it again now.

My research post-film, in a relaxed lunch spot in Ballarat was interesting, as Cecil mentions - Stone had left the military, his main aim in life as a child/young person, now he had done the thing he always felt he had to do, perhaps there was no reason to be in it anymore, but was studying.  His two friends did not seem to be progressing quite so well; relying a little bit on their fame...I couldn't quite tell.

Nice direction from Clint Eastwood.
***1/2

Cecil says: I hadn't realised Clint Eastwood directed this film until I watched the credits roll at the end. And the interesting thing he chose to do was to cast the actual people involved in the Thalys incident to play the parts as themselves through most of the movie.

Actually they did pretty well, considering they are not actors. It's probably easier to play yourself, if you are not a trained actor, but still even playing yourself can become really wooden when you try too hard to act, so congrats to them for carrying this off.

The only weakness for me in this portrayal of three 'ordinary' American dudes acting the heroes when a terrorist tries to massacre passengers on an Amsterdam to Paris train was in the black character (Sal). As a child, he is portrayed as quirky, questioning and cheeky; as an adult, he seems to have lost all of that curiosity and lateral thinking spirit his school boy character showed. I don't honesty believe such a creative child would end up as 'ordinary' as an adult, but who knows.

The main character of the three, Spencer Stone, is interesting. It's all very well, both for dramatic licence or for some sort of higher-level spiritual reason, to have a youngster say he senses he is on the path to do something extraordinary. But what happens if you are barely 20 and you have done your extraordinary act? What do you do for the rest of your life?

And it was interesting when Bea did some delving to find out that Spencer Stone is now studying International Relations at uni. What a fantastic next chapter for a guy like this. Good luck to him as he finds the next direction to take, and hopefully channels his passion and curiosity further. \

I was struck at the end how they had footage of the French President pinning the Legion d'Honneur onto these guys' lapels (I thought at first it was clever CGI work to have Pres Hollande footage and to have superimposed the actors we had seen into the scene - though at that stage I didn't realise Eastwood had used the actual characters). I wondered how they could possibly know just what an enormous thing that was for a French president to give three Americans that honour - and maybe doing an international relations degree might just help Spencer realise what a massive moment that was.

Bea and I discussed briefly the 'what would we have done?' question after the film. I know for sure I'd have been one of the passengers cowering behind a seat. I have acted in the past in minor incidents on London streets, but I know I don't have the skills necessary to prevent something as major as this. But these guys knew they did have the training, and hats off to them for acting.

Nobody actually knows how they'll act until confronted with a scenario for real. And for me such questions were first raised when I read a Simone de Beauvoir novel set during the Nazi occupation of Paris. That somehow would be a harder dilemma: dealing with 4 years of constant occupation would be very different from a sudden mad terror incident.\

The film itself was pretty slow-paced.

We spend far too long at the gelato stand in Venice, I'm not sure the point of the German exchange student interlude, and we have long moments lingering on minutiae of life, which made me wonder what else Eastwood could have done with his film time? Surely taking the story on beyond the incident might have been interesting, though possibly challenging also?

It was a delight to have our first time at the beautiful 1920s Regent Theatre in Ballarat, and the movie was fairly well-attended for a Sunday morning slot. Not a bad way to spend a quiet Sunday

***

I, Tonya

Seen at the beautiful Midland Theatre or Astor Theatre, Ararat, VIC

Cecil says:  I only vaguely remember the Tonya Harding ‘incident’. I

think at that time, I was in a kind of anti-American bubble

where an apparent squabble between two US ice skaters didn’t much matter to

me, and I was pleased neither of them got gold at the Winter Olympics. So it was

quite interesting to see the story told 20 odd years later. 

Harding is a self-confessed redneck (spoken via the

contemporary ‘interviews’ which flick on and off as the

story from the 1990s unfolds), and at one point we are shown a bedroom poster of

Ronald Reagan, suggesting these were working class Republicans. So it felt

like no coincidence that this is precisely the kind of family that would have

voted in Trump in 2016, which felt like the reason anyone would make this film

now.

None of the characters we focus on are attractive or evoke

sympathy in any way, really. The only mitigating theme

running through the film, and certainly Harding’s obsession (understandably), was that of the

snobby judges in US ice-skating preferring the middle class

clean-cut girls Harding was competing against, however talented Harding

herself was. Again, this is the kind of ‘rigged’ system, that led to Trump

being elected,

The domestic violence was graphic, and continued on from

maternal violence in Harding’s youth. It was hardly a

comfy upbringing, and no doubt made her the creature she was.Right at

the end, there is footage of the real people being

interviewed, and you can see how well cast this film was,

with Allyson Janney especially good as Harding’s Mum (I loved the gasps from

the mainly middle-aged audience in our country cinema when Janney first utters the ‘C’ word…).

Funnily enough, having also seen a documentary on Tonya

Harding just a day after seeing the film (again, no coincidence surely), I

would say if anybody was badly-cast it was *** in the role

of Harding herself. In real footage of Harding at the time, she comes across

much more as a little teenage brat than in the film. ** is almost too well-built

and robust in face and body to match the real Harding.

But overall, this was an interesting film to see in the

context of 2018 America. Not a film to enjoy as such or to feel much

identification with the characters – not for me, anyway– but worth seeing

nonetheless.

***

Bea says:  

Coming from a family of keen ice skating watchers (my mother was a fan of Peggy Fleming and at home we always watched any kind of ice skating, both on TV and when we could get to them, live events), I do remember the Tonya Harding incident; and both Tonya and Nancy are about my age, so I was vaguely interested, at the time and now, as they are my contemporaries.  Tonya didn't come out of this very well at the time, and the film doesn't really change that perspective, other than the insight that she didn't really fit the mould of the perfect, middle class, well behaved, thin, (white) girl who wins figure skating championships; although the film shies away from using this as an excuse; Nancy Kerrigan was, after all, from working class stock herself.

More of an insight into Tonya's behaviour is (if true) the abuse she suffered at the hand of her mother and then her boyfriend/husband, although again the film shies away from portraying either of them as all bad.  The real poignancy is the talent Tonya possessed; the excitement of her triple is palpable in the film - what a shame she (allegedly) threw it all away.  Her talent and commitment - that she trains hard and well is in no doubt - was well presented in the film; as was the fact that this particular sport does not place a visible value on this and instead values presentation.  

The film is a great example of the docu-drama genre; I enjoyed the interview/events sequences, and particularly the "real" footage at the end.  Allyson Janney did a star turn as Harding's mother, showing her own talent, and versatility - Cecil and I have been a fan of her for a long time now (since our West Wing viewing days).  Without her though, I am not sure how strong the cast would have been.  The costume designer also did a very good job of recreating the kinds of styles (both clothes and hair) actually worn by ordinary people in the 1980s/90s, and avoided my pet hate - stylised (rather than real life) 80s or 90s clothes with hair and makeup clearly of the current time.

An interesting watch, particularly if you like documentary style films, family drama, Allyson Janney - you don't necessarily need to like (or be interested in) ice skating to take something from this film.

***1/2

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