Penguin Bloom

 Seen at the Capitol Cinema, Warrnambool, VIC

Bea says: One positive about the corona virus situation is that it might have helped more Australian film make it to major release in the absence of larger international studio releases through 2020-21. Penguin Bloom is one such film, although with quite an international cast it is likely destined for greater things anyway.

The film chronicles the story of the Bloom family - a middle class, slightly Bohemian, busy and chaotic Sydney family who experience a life changing event when mother Sam (Naomi Watts) falls from a balcony lookout while on holiday in Thailand. Sam experiences a spinal cord injury, and the film explores the family's grief, guilt and adjustment to their new life. Key to the adjustment are an adopted baby magpie called Penguin, and a wise Kiwi kayaking coach, Gaye (Rachel House).

Based on a true story, it's a lovely film and overall quite uplifting in a gentle way (not in a traditional wheelie, or moralistic way). It gave me pause for thought as to how I would cope in a similar situation.  One minor professional point though, which I am sure Cecil will raise too – Sam’s wheelchair and home assistive technology appeared to be dated circa about 1950, and it is extremely unusual not to need any home modifications in that situation - but perhaps these and similar details were glossed over as unimportant.
***1/2

Cecil says: I love Australian magpies (obviously not when they swoop me, but their song is one of the wonders of living in this country, and a delight in the early morning especially). But the idea of a film where a family adopts an injured magpie didn’t immediately appeal to me. The thing is sometimes we choose the cinema not the film, an on this day in Warrnambool, Penguin Bloom was the only option that looked like it might suit us.

In the end, I was glad we did.

There was a lot to relate to for us as a couple.

I have always loved Sydney’s northern beaches, and I truly love swimming in their amazing rock pools – it is probably the thing I miss most about living within reach of Sydney, but interestingly, given the subject matter of the film (basically about dealing with life-changing injury and working out how to move on to a different life), I can watch films set there these days and not be hankering after a life that has now passed. They are fond memories but there is no tug of the heart anymore.

The injury suffered by Sam, the main character in this film – played by Naomi Watts – leads to reassessment not only of Sam’s day-to-day life, but also her relationships and her family. I think COVID must have done this to many couples across the world, and for many it has seen the end of relationships that couldn’t survive the scrutiny, but for Bea and I it has actually led us to reflect on our lives and brought us closer if anything. Adversity and challenges have a habit of doing that, I find; they can make or break.

Cameron (played by Andrew Lincoln – I remember him mostly as playing the northern English lawyer in This Life so so long ago) does his best to deal with the anger and frustrations going through Sam’s mind and body. And then there is the main child, the one who feels that it is his fault that his Mum fell off the balcony, and the trauma he goes through, and how he tried to deal with it via video diaries – fortunately I never had a trauma like that as a child, but I can well imagine my younger self taking a similar approach.

There were a few odd things that made me question why certain directions weren’t taken (and this is based on a true story, don’t forget). If this was a Northern Beaches family, living fairly comfortably by the look of things, why did they not seek professional help for Sam in the form of counselling or psychotherapy? They could surely afford it? Or has that become less of a go-to in middle-class Australia?

And then Sam’s past career in nursing. Fairly glossed over, apart from one old photograph, and I know it’s easier to be on the other side of the treatment table, but I couldn’t help wondering why she didn’t turn to alternative life-style activities earlier. Surely it’s the very thing as a nurse she’d have been encouraging patients to do, so there would have been one moment surely, where she’d think of people she had helped in hospital in that earlier life of hers.

It all ends up OK, of course, and the real Sam ends up competing in the Olympics for Australia, so it is a wonderful portrayal of how to come back from adversity in your life.

Interesting choices to cast the two main characters with English actors, though. I’m not sure who else I’d have gone for, and they did a good job, plus Naomi Watts looks as if she actually belongs totally in both countries (so a bit like me, really), but it did feel slightly strange once I’d worked out where I’d seen them both before.

***

High Ground

 Seen at the Paramount Theatre, Maryborough, VIC

Cecil says: Beautifully-filmed in Northern Territory, much of it in the fantastic Kakadu National Park, which I haven’t visited for almost 30 years, but which holds a fascination as somehow at the heart and soul of the true Australia. After watching 90 minutes of bloodshed as white settlers battle with local communities about 100 years ago, my overall feeling was: “What the fuck are we doing here?” Why don’t we whites just quit the red centre and the Northern Territory and let the indigenous peoples have their land back, and develop their own culture?

I don’t want to write a spoiler review, but like in the settler novel I just read (“The Secret River” by Kate Grenville), nearly everyone gets killed in ‘High Ground’, so if you’re wary of gory killings or of gunfire, you’ll need to be looking away a fair bit as you watch on the big screen.

But the panoramic filming, the extraordinary wildlife, and the observation of Aboriginal rituals and practices make this an epic experience. The soundtrack, whether the Aboriginal music, the birds screeching, or the cracks and rustles of the undergrowth, is captivating without much, if any, scored orchestrated pieces to it.

Wityana Marika was majestic as the family elder; Jacob Junior Nayinggul superb as the main character Gutjuk (interesting to see that the Nayinggul family are so central to this film in all the credits, and I noticed also that there seem to be no photos of Jacob in any of the cast lists for ‘High Ground’ – I wonder if he’ll be back on our screens any time in the future?).

Among the white characters, Simon Baker does a great job as the attempted conciliator Travis; Jack Thompson is gritty as ever as the chief white personage; and Caren Pistorius has a good go at the missionary’s sister, though she didn’t age much in the 12 or so years of the film and she came through it all pretty unscathed for such a rough, outdoor life as she must have led.

Although both Australian films we have seen this month don’t make me feel great about living here, I did enjoy High Ground a lot more than The Dry. There is hope if the indigenous culture can be allowed to flourish again; if we do listen to the wind, the sky and the earth, to paraphrase what the elder says at one point.

****

 

Bea says:  One benefit of Covid seems to be that the Australian film industry has been able to continue, and so the last two films we have seen are both locally made.  High Ground is one of them. 

 The film has been compared to the John Ford-style Westerns, and having seen it I agree; with a white settler vs Indigenous population theme, and lots of riding though canyons (albeit canyons with lots of tropical plant as the film takes place in Kakadu) with eerie feelings of being watched. 

 The title of the film is taken from this; taking the high ground is important - it gives a view of all oncomers and incomers.  Possibly it also operates at a metaphorical level (before I saw the film I thought it would refer more to this - taking the high ground morally and all the contradictions that entails) but actually that is not explicit in the film, though it was perhaps something they were trying to do; perhaps with the missionary characters who instead are portrayed quite sympathetically.

 To some degree I was disappointed with the Western aspect of the film.  That bit of it felt quite derivative, exclusively male, and not very contemporary.  The Indigenous people in the film do have a fairly strong role and are relatively well explored in terms of the knowledge of tradition, language, customs, food and medicine (although perhaps there could have been more of this). 

 Massacres are a key part of the action, but the more insidious erosion of culture through missionary work, settlement and government policy is really only lightly touched upon.  The missionary sister Claire looks far too modern, and doesn't age at all over a 20-30 year period (very hard to believe when living in a wooden shed in a harsh, hot and very remote tropical climate, particularly as she is rarely shot wearing any kind of hat or sun protection). 

 It is not a feel-good film at all, although worth seeing as there are just so few films that give any airspace at all to Australia's Indigenous people and their stories.  I just wish it hadn't tried to be a Western - that is such a problematic genre in terms of Indigenous relations and portrayals. 

** .5