The Daughter

Seen at the lovely Roxy Cinema in Nowra, NSW

Bea says: It was a great pleasure to see a film out of NSW, featuring Sam Neill and Geoffrey Rush.  It took me back to a time when Australian cinema was doing very well in the 1970s, 1980s and into the early 1990s, and seeing local films was a regular occurence; it is more of rarity now, sadly.

The Daughter was a gripping film with a strong plotline and character development.  It is dark, in mood, story and cinematography and the ending is unresolved.  I didn't know, until the final credits rolled, that it is based on Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck (which I have not read, although I have read other Ibsen works).  It made sense - the dark, wintry settings, the family dramas and self-destructiveness.

The film is shot around the NSW Highlands, and unlike a lot of Australian film, features a cool climate and I enjoyed that aspect of its difference to the usual cultural fodder of Australian life in the media (beach or outback).  Performances were strong, but I particularly enjoyed Sam Neill's perfectly low key portrayal of the daughter's grandfather.

The film explores the impact of social issues and class, and the meaning of family deeply, with much to discuss and reflect upon afterwards - it owes the depth to Ibsen probably, but has been very well translated into contemporary Australian life, so that has been well done by the producing, writing, directing and acting team.  The director, or writer, I believe was also responsible for Lantana, which Cecil and I saw on one of our first ever dates - also a fairly dark film!

Highly recommended, as both an experience and to support our film industry.
****

Cecil says: It's not the kind of film I'd usually choose to see on a warm Sunday Monday. As Bea says, it's not the cheeriest film, but it is a really good production.

It says a lot that my favourite pieces of acting actually came from two very powerful portrayals of grief at different points in the film's story: one from Geoffrey Rush and the other from the rather good teenage actress Odessa Young, who plays Hedvig rather marvellously.

Christian (played by Paul Schneider) is the most destructive character in the film. Everything he does seems to cause more turmoil and upset, and you are left at the end with the feeling that although he is the instigator of so many battles and traumas between various members of the family, he is the one who comes out of it unhealed, still angry and traumatised by the death of his mother many years ago.

The friendly usher on the way out of the cinema asked if we'd enjoyed the film, 'Enjoy' isn't really what you do with a film like this, but it was certainly thought-provoking and gave us lots to talk about on our 45 minute drive home afterwards.

I'm certainly glad I saw The Daughter but somehow it's a film that lends itself to coming out in the dark. The bright midday sun of an Australian autumn day just didn't feel right.

***.5

The Book Thief (Die Buecherdiebin)

Seen at the Northallerton Forum

Bea says:  From the opening scenes of this film I was entranced and spellbound.  It is beautifully shot throughout, and as a steam train puffs its way through a snow-bound landscape we begin to follow the story of Liesl (Sophie Nelisse) - at the time about 12 years old - and the people who experience WW2 with her in a German town.

I related strongly to this film, as my own German grandmother was probably only slightly older than Liesl when war broke out, and the details in the film (the kitchens, the laundry work, the food, or lack of it) were all very reminiscent of the stories she used to tell me.  And my family were, like these people, in the most part ordinary Germans who got through the war by keeping their heads down.  They neither spoke out (and I am not excusing that) nor absolutely supported what was going on, except by silence.

Like the family in the film they - until the horrors of WW2 began - lived alongside Jewish people, had them as friends and neighbours, used the shops and services they ran.  But the family in the film do more than this - they take in a Jewish man (Max, played by Ben Schnetzer) and hide him in their house for two years.  Hans Hubermann, Liesl's adopted father (ably played by Geoffrey Rush) speaks out when a Jewish neighbour is arrested - and the crippling fear that results after his name is taken by the Nazi officer is a terrible reminder of what those times were like.

This is a film adaptation from a novel, and all the characters are well developed.  When Liesl goes to live with her new family, my heart sank as Rosa Hubermann, her new "mother" (brilliantly played by Emily Watson) initially seemed to be a cliched wicked stepmother type. However, we see many sides to Rosa's character as the film progresses, and come to understand her more deeply.

There is a great deal of sorrow and death in this film, as befits the times it is set in, sadly.  But it is a film about the things that connect people beyond race and religion - a love of books, and a promise made in the trenches of WW1, and it does have some hope.  Absolutely wonderful.  Not quite perfect - as sad as it is to say, it is very unlikely indeed that Max would have survived after leaving the Hubermann's house.  While that reunion scene was very lovely after all Liesl had lost, it was the only bit of the film that did not quite ring true for me.  There were a few other points, but I know that Cecil will  mention them so I will not.
****

Cecil says: There isn't much I can add to Bea's thoughts this time. This was a totally absorbing film, which made me realise how few films we see - at least in the English-speaking world - dealing with World War Two from behind a German family's front door. We've seen films about French and Danish resistance lately but never much to look at how it was to be an ordinary German family through those years.

I was just not sure about the accents.

I mean, why cast a film full of Aussies, Brits and other English speakers if you are then going to get them to speak in a strong German accent and throw in the odd fragment of German language?

I can almost picture the auditions now, with Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson (both brilliant, as Bea says) struggling to master their comic-book caricature of zee cherman aksent vee orll used to mimic at school.

There must have been some logic for it, but I couldn't fathom it. Having said that, it did kind of work, though I wonder how a German audience would react to it (except that they won't hear it because in Germany they dub nearly all their films).

And there were smatterings of German dialogue through the film, along with the opening credits referring to the film in both its English and German title.

I also wasn't sure about the Voice of God (or the Grim Reaper), who introduces the film and draws it to a close. There's a little bit of Wenders (Himmel ueber Berlin) or Von Trier (Europa) here, but I preferred those and again wondered what the narrative voice added.

Liesl was great, though, and enchantingly played throughout.

****