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

Youth

Seen at the Roxy Cinema in Nowra, NSW

Cecil says: I don't really like films with lots of weird, surreal dream sequences and I really can't stand films with a plot line that has lots of self-referential bits about the turmoil of what it means to make a film. Youth had lots of both running throughout, but just enough of a plot line to wake me up every now and then and keep me involved. 

A couple next to us left half way through and one of the group in front of us said at the end: 'well, that was the weirdest film I've ever seen.' They clearly never saw any Bresson films in the 1970s and 80s, though...

The couple who left missed the last scene, which was so moving and engrossing that it more than made up for the previous 90 minutes.

Michael Caine was brilliant throughout. Sure, he's aged, but he holds a part fantastically still, and portrayed the ageing process beautifully. He kept the film together, much more than Harvey Keitel ( though HK's role suffered in my eyes because his was the agonising film-maker part ). Jane Fonda gets a bit-part towards the end and performs it superbly, though without the impact someone like Vanessa Redgrave or Judy Dench can achieve in a couple of screen scenes.

The setting was weird: an exclusive spa that actually resembled at times a 19th century lunatic asylum; and I guess the idle and fading rich characters who stayed there are based on real people, but it's not really a world I can relate to.

 No, this film is worth seeing just for the final scene, and you probably can't shortcut straight to the last five minutes because clearly Youth does succeed in getting across how it feels to be retired maestro Berenger. Without that build up, the last sequence wouldn't have had the same impact. And wow, it was quite a finale, with heart-rendingly beautiful music, composed just for this film. Now to find the soundtrack...

Overall **.5

Final scene *****

Bea says: I liked this more than Cecil, but perhaps that was because it caught me in a more introspective frame of mind and the film matched my mood well - in addition it was very beautifully shot in Switzerland (or what was a good copy for Switzerland if filmed somewhere else), and as a long term music lover I absolutely loved the soundtrack (the responsibility of David Lang, who also did Requiem for a Dream).  

In that respect Youth reminded me of the film Elizabethtown, where the music had been so carefully and perfectly chosen for every moment, message and passing mood of the story.  It also made me really listen to the lyrics of the 90s hit You Got the Love (the opening track, performed by Swing Band as the Retrosettes) for the first time ever. 

The music added nostalgia to my mood, and that fitted for this film which was not really at all about youth, but instead about ageing, mortality and dying.  I guess that as the babyboomers age we are going to see more material like this.

Cecil, who despite not liking the film also liked the soundtrack, did a bit of research and told me a very interesting story about the film's award-winning original song Simple Song #3 - the lyrics were composed by what google offered as frequently searched items...a great example of how we place our own meanings onto song lyrics.

Caine was of course excellent. Despite his advancing age his delivery and timing were perfect.  I also really enjoyed Paul Dano's (Little Miss Sunshine) performance as the actor Jimmy Tree.

IMdB bills this film as a comedy - well, sort of, but I had tears in my eyes on more than one occasion, so a rather bittersweet one I'd say.

Things I didn't like?  Some of it was written from a rather stereotypical male perspective (Miss Universe getting into the spa naked in front of the ageing Caine and Keitel?  Perhaps supposed to be funny, but it was just rather bad taste and ogling to me).  Some of it is a bit self-indulgent (films about films and the rarified lives of those who make them; in this I agree with Cecil).

But worth a watch, perhaps best seen on a contemplative, rainy Sunday afternoon (ha - I think I said the same thing about Carol, the last film we saw).

***

Carol

Seen at the lovely 1930s Empire cinema in Bowral, NSW

Cecil says: Lesbian love in the 1950s. Starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. With its slow build-up and sense of forbidden feelings about it, this film had as much the feel of Brief Encounter as anything else more recent.

I actually liked it less than I thought I would. There was something about the relationship that didn't ring true for me, and it was more to do with social class than gender or sexuality. How likely was it that women from such different social backgrounds would be attracted? What actually attracted them to each other? From the way the characters developed (or didn't), you'd be excused for thinking the attraction was based purely on lust or physical attraction, though perhaps I'm being unfair and wouldn't judge a film portraying a heterosexual relationship in the same way. I'm not sure.

Cate Blanchett's character Carol was not attractive, that's for sure: very much the lead in the relationship with the come-ons and not so subtle hints about where they might go next. But she was also the person with more to lose, in a conventional way of looking at life, as she had the lady-of-leisure, kept woman lifestyle. Was it well acted by Blanchett, so we are not supposed to like her, or was it actually mis-cast?

Therese was the one who started with nothing, serving on the counter in a department store, wearing bohemian clothes with great style. But we didn't really learn much about her background, her family, her loves (except that she had played with train sets as a little girl).

I did like the 1950s setting, though: the cars, the clothes, the shops. And this was early 1950s so really not far into the great consumer society and the 'never had it so good' world.

***

Bea says: 

I liked this more than Cecil did, unexpectedly so, as after reading a couple of reviews and seeing some trailers of it I felt ambivalent about the older woman/younger woman relationship and, like Cecil, could immediately see in those trailers that the Carol character was rather unlikeable.

What I didn't expect, and what really made me enjoy the film, was relating so much to Therese - the younger character.  Therese's young life in the city reminded me - nostalgically - of my own young life in my early years of living in London.  The first few years I was there I lived alone in a staff accommodation bedsit-type set up, and it seems the mid 1990s was remarkably not unlike the 1950s.

I too made and received emotionally laden phone calls from the corridor phone.  I too had young men calling, both on the phone and in person (although unlike Therese I didn't have older women calling - however, for me this film was rather more about first "love" than it was a lesbian relationship).  I too have had the experience of spending a Sunday (which can be a long, lonely and quiet day when you have no family and only new, not well-established friends in a big city) with a new love, and having all go rather wrong and have ended up crying all the way home to my depressing, empty bedsit and the prospect of a working week to come.

I did not like the character of Carol - and like Cecil am not sure if this was an intentional device from the director or not.  Not liking the main character of a film can make it difficult to care what happens as the plot progresses.  Blanchett seemed to play Carol in a removed way, as if observing from a distance, so it was hard to get under the skin of the character.  As a result, I enjoyed Mara's performance much more, and like Cecil loved the costuming and styling, although I thought the stylist borrowed much too heavily from Audrey Hepburn in their styling of Therese - at least one of the outfits (the tartan pinafore), if I am not wrong, is a dead ringer for something Hepburn wears in one of her films.

And, if I'm not mistaken, one of the final scenes in which Mara walks through New York on a misty evening and hails a taxi is quite a lot like the one of the final scenes of Breakfast at Tiffany's.  Not a bad thing to do, just derivative.  Now, I haven't read the book nor checked to see if Breakfast at Tiffany's is an influence or reference-point for the book, or whether it was just that the plotline of the young ingénue in the city reminded the styling and directorial team of the film.

If you like Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, vintage styling or if you've ever lived alone in a city as a young person and made your way in the world from there, you might enjoy this film.

***

The Dressmaker

Seen at the beautiful old movie theatre in Roseville on Sydney's North Shore

Cecil says: Great opening shot, looking down on a coach heading straight up a dry road alongside the striated lines of dry fields. You can tell a film’s going to be good when it catches the attention so immediately. And don’t miss Kate Winslet’s fantastic opening line about a minute in…

I loved this film, which we saw in the wonderful old Roseville Cinema on Sydney’s North Shore. I want to see it again, it was that good and had so many layers to it. One person we went with thought it reminded her of Unforgiven, but for me it was more Strictly Ballroom, with its period piece setting and its tragi-comic story.

The audience was 95% women, which rather surprised me. Sure the costumes were mostly aimed at making the women in small country town Australia look glamorous, and dress-making was a major theme of the film, but there was so much more to it than that.

I loved some of the icons of 1950s Australia. The Golden Fleece petrol sign was still a feature on Australian roads when I was a little kid here in 1967 so that was a nice memory jolt for me (when did Golden Fleece disappear?); the ‘elixirs’ people used to consume were still around too when I was small, though they were on their last legs in the way Almanacs and hand wringers were.

Kate Winslet is brilliant in the main role. The ever-present Hugo Weaving looked to be enjoying himself as the cross-dressing copper, though maybe taken a little bit OTT by Jocelyn Moorhouse, who wrote the screenplay and directed.

Sarah Snook was wonderfully disguised as Gertrude Pratt at first and it took me a few scenes to realise she was the same actress as the one playing Anna in the excellent ABC drama on TV at the moment The Beautiful Lie.

Schools are probably just as cruel places today to be different from the crowd as they were back then, and the film does a good job with black & white to take us back to Tilly’s school days 25 years earlier. But the film shows how school playground cruelty extends out into the community too, so the people of Dungatar are an evil bunch, upon whom Tilly slowly takes out her revenge.

****.5

Bea says:  

I went in expecting a gentle period drama, and was very surprised to find myself watching a quirky, rather dark, fairytale-style story of revenge, sorrow, laughs, and laying the past to rest. 

Kate Winslett as Tilly (with an excellent Australian accent) returns to the home town in the country she left years before under a cloud, moving back in with her elderly, feisty mother (fantastic to see Judy Davis in fine form again), who at first appears to be demented but as the film develops shows herself to be in full possession of her faculties.  

As the story unravels in layers we meet the characters of the town, and find out what really happened to send Tilly away all those years ago.  A romance is kindled, but ends tragically, and Tilly's return acts as something of a catalyst in the lives of many of the women and men of the town with all sorts of unexpected consequences.  Once all the ghosts are laid to rest, Tilly leaves again in spectacular fashion.  

This is a great Australian film in the tradition of Baz Luhrmann and all those quirky, slightly dark tales (like Cecil I was reminded of Strictly Ballroom and Muriel's Wedding) - and like Luhrmann and those films, it won't be for everyone (there were definitely mixed views in our group!.  It was perhaps in danger of  being too lurid at times, and the town definitely looked like a set to me, which rather detracted from entering into the suspension of belief.  Still if you like dark and interesting, it's a great watch.

***1/2

Everest

Seen at the Roxy Cinema, Nowra, NSW

Cecil says: I saw a TV documentary of this story a year or so ago, though it took me a few minutes into the film to realise that this film was based on the same ‘true-story’.

I have always held a fascination for Everest climbers, though actually less so since the whole experience became so commercialised and opened up to every Jack or Jill who fancies doing it. And that is really what this film is all about: the disaster struck because there were just too many organised groups attempting to reach the summit at the same time.

We focus mainly on the group led by experienced New Zealander Rob, who has climbed Everest lots of times and earns a living from taking groups up every year.

He is portrayed as the most professional of the group leaders on the mountain that year, and yet as the group hits bad weather and disaster strikes, he makes decisions that are based on emotion and sentimentality rather than professionalism. That is what is left over for me at the end of the film – sure, in many ways the group was unlucky, but – without wanting to do a spoiler on the film – why did Rob make one decision in particular that would cost him so fundamentally?

What I didn’t like about the film was the boring formulaic way all American films of this type – see Apollo 13, for example – have to go domestic, and while our heroes are in difficulty up in space or up a mountain, we are shown the everyday life (why does it always involve pouring cereal???) of his (always he, isn’t it?) family back home. It’s no doubt supposed to trigger the emotional empathy in us, but it’s just such a cliché now, it simply annoyed me.

Emily Watson was good in a very Emily-Watson-style (I really must one day go to see Wish You Were Here, the film in the 1980s that launched her – surely there she can’t have played the same sort of Mumsy character); Keira Knightly had a relatively small role for Keira Knightly.

I did enjoy the mountain scenes. They seem to have been filmed partly in Nepal and partly in Italy (too dangerous and costly to go up Everest to film, though the mountaineer friends we went with did say there were genuine images of Everest in the film).

But, actually, I’d far rather see a film about the two climbers who first got me interested in Everest: Murray and Irvine. These are the guys who got way up high in 1924 without oxygen and may even have made it to the summit, but died on their way down. Now that would make a great film, and I’m sure we’d get no kids back home eating cereal with them! But because it’s not a story in the public eye nowadays, nobody would put the money up to make it. Such a shame.

***

Bea says: :  I also enjoyed the mountain scenes, and the fleeting views of Kathmandu, and I enjoyed watching the struggle for survival – in terms of enjoying the drama, and imagining myself in that situation and what I would have done.  Like Cecil, I hope I would have stuck much more strongly to the time schedule, and paid attention to weather reports.

In reality although I don’t mind either cold or altitude, I have a horror of heights so I don’t think I’d be ideally suited to go up Everest, and what the film of course brings home is that actually, very few people are really experienced enough to climb the mountain, and all they do is endanger everyone else of they do, experienced guide or no.

I did however say to Cecil that if he had been stuck above the ice flow, I also would have sent in a helicopter for him… so he could come home and pour his cereal in the morning with me.

Action packed, might be a bit of an emotional one if you’ve lost anyone climbing.

*** 

Last Cab to Darwin

Seen at the Roxy Cinema, Nowra NSW

Bea says: I knew very little about this one except that it was a current Australian film, which I always like to support, and that it had a good soundtrack (a recommendation from a friend) - thanks to Ed Kuepper, who did the music.  I had no idea that the film was about euthanasia.

It is also about ageing, loneliness, friendship and partnership, death and journeying through life - all themes I am interested in and relate to, so I enjoyed it.  Without giving too much away, Michael Caton plays Rex, an ageing cab driver from Broken Hill, who is diagnosed with cancer, in an advanced stage.  Rex lives alone, but has an enduring relationship with his neighbour Polly, played by Ningali Lawford, which the diagnosis makes him both explore more and run away from simultaneously, as he drives his cab to Darwin to seek out a doctor who is looking for people to pilot her new euthanasia mechanism.  I won't say any more except that the issue is presented in a relatively balanced way, and Rex is able to complete his journey fully.

I am a fan of the road trip genre, and loved this journey into the interior of Australia, quite a lot of it through my own home state of South Australia.  Rex picks up some companions on the way, and although they are rather stereotypical, in the case of Tilly, played by Mark Coles Smith, and convenient, in the case of Julie, played by Emma Hamilton, they do add interest to that section of film.  Later, Jacki Weaver's portrayal of Dr Farmer was interesting - it was difficult to entirely understand the character's motivations.

This screenplay was adapted from a stage play and it certainly had that depth to it, and left us needing to talk, and so we did, sitting on the riverside in Nowra.  It is a good film that makes that happen afterwards. The only things that did slightly clang for me were the music - I related to it, but I thought it was too young for Rex, and the rather poorly developed attempt to address race relations - Polly's character was better developed but Tilly's was very stereotypical indeed, although did enable the film to point out a number of issues in Australian society.

Recommended.
***1/2

Cecil says: Actually Bea has said it all, really. It was a very engrossing film, yet again a film about a long journey both metaphorically and physically, and those sorts of films usually set us up for a pensive and reflective conversation afterwards.

Death is really hard to deal with, both as the one involved personally (what a great line from Rex, when he says: 'It's really hard to kill yourself') and the loved ones who are about to lose somebody precious. The film really gets inside this topic that just won't go away, ever, in anyone's life.

Also a great portrayal of travelling in Australia's deepest interior. The roads I took in 1986 are all covered now, but I can well remember how hair-raising it was to travel, even in a big Greyhound bus, up the road from Adelaide to Darwin on uncovered roads, and one of the most alarming moments is when old Rex's car has its windscreen blown out by a passing truck.

I felt very moved by this film and give it a resounding ****

Keeper of the Flame

Seen at the Roxy Cinema, Nowra NSW as part of their Tuesday morning vintage series

Cecil says: I went alone to this one.

A rare chance to see a movie classic from 1942 starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracey thank to the Roxy Cinema in Nowra's weekly 'seniors' classic double-bill on a Tuesday morning.

They don't make films like this anymore! Not just because it's in black and white, but also because the film gains its strength from plot, script, lighting and great acting. No sound effects, no noise, no guns until very late on in this one, but drama and tension builds as the plot develops and we gain more and more insight into the main characters.

The plot: national political hero dies in car accident (almost Chappaquiddick, though that Kennedy escaped unharmed); journalists swarm over the area to get the 'story' but feature writer Tracey wants the real story of political hero's life. 

Trouble is, when he gets to meet hero's wife (Hepburn) and talks to some of the peripheral characters round the house, he starts to build a completely different picture of the guy who died.

There's a moment when the dialogue suddenly switches to talk of Hitler and Fascism, and it slightly jars at that point, making me wonder if the WW2 censors got involved in the screenplay at that point.

And there's something in the RP accents and stentorious tones that reminded me in some horrific nightmare way of Margaret Thatcher at her worst ('There is no Alternative'; 'No, no, no'; 'The lady's not for turning'). Almost made me wonder if he she studied the sinister tones of the more threatening actresses of her childhood to develop her voice when she became Prime Minister.

There are some great reminders of daily life in the 1940s: those were the days when men all wore hats and would stand in the pouring rain with the hat and their raincoat keeping them dry underneath (ladies had brollies, but only a few men); when journalists would bash out their copy on portable typewriters, tearing the page out when that opening line didn't read right; when television didn't yet exist so you'd sit by the fire and read a book or knit; and when telephones came in two bits, and you'd ring the operator to get a call through to New York - or wherever, and there were party lines (ah who remembers them, when you'd be frustrated by those talkative neighbours who'd never free up the line). Ah, when did operators and party lines take their final bow??

I loved this film and so wish there were more opportunities to see films of that era. Nice that there were about 25 of us in there, and a big queue to get in for the second movie (which I didn't have time to stay and watch). 

The Roxy Cinema in Nowra is doing great things here. It's a model other cinemas could usefully follow. 

****