A season of Australian films on SCTV
A season of Australian films on SCTV
By Jane Freebury
JAKARTA (JP): Beginning tonight at 9:30 a season of
contemporary Australian feature films on SCTV will be screened as
follows:
* The Man from Snowy River (George Miller, 1982) tonight
* No Worries (David Elfick, 1994) June 21
* Strictly Ballroom (Baz Luhrmann, 1992) June 28
* Young Einstein (Yahoo Serious, 1988) July 5
The Man From Snowy River. There are few images which capture
the essence of cinema quite so well as that of a lone man on a
horse. Tall in the saddle, man and horse as one, it is an image
which means 'western' to audiences everywhere. The horseman is an
icon of one of the most enduringly popular film genres in movie
history.
The Man From Snowy River, too, is a film about the man on four
legs. This is also a film which runs to the rhythms of the
galloping horse and celebrates how a frontier was won. But it
isn't a western.
It is a simple story: a young horseman, Jim Craig (played by
clean-jawed Tom Burlinson) and a young woman Jessica (played by
Sigrid Thornton), a good father-figure and a bad father-figure
against a backdrop of brumbies (the Australian wild horse) and
absolutely spectacular mountain scenery. Jim is hired by property
owner Harrison but is shunned for an ignorant mountain boy by the
community of cattlemen.
To earn respect and to progress from boyhood to manhood, he
has to accomplish a daredevil action. So to gather the horses he
has to muster, he makes a breathtaking ride across mountain crest
and along ridge and down gully - a sheer drop.
But there are no Indians, no indigenous peoples against whom
to pit himself. There are several villains - Jessica's father,
for instance - but he is not wielding tomahawk or spear. For this
film, which may look like an American western on the surface, is
not about the 'goodies' and 'baddies' of legend. It is about a
good horseman whose worth has not been recognized. It is based on
a ballad, Clancy of the Overflow , written by A.B. 'Banjo'
Patterson, and is the staging of a bush ballad about one of
Australia's bushman pioneers. But 'the Man' Jim is a cipher and
what is best about this film is the wilderness and its natural
inhabitants - the wonderful horses and the high country.
Directed by George Miller, The Man was a popular choice for
Australian audiences in the early 1980s. It retained its position
as top-grossing Australian feature film at home until Paul
Hogan's international mega-hit Crocodile Dundee ambled onto the
screen. That is, from 1982 until 1986, The Man was the top
popular choice for Australian movie audiences.
No Worries This is my pick of the crop. It begins on an
outback farm and ends in the city, bringing together two of the
main impulses in recent Australian cinema - one impulse has been
to recreate a romantic a nostalgic pioneer past and the other has
been to show 'how it is' in the multicultural present.
The former were popular period dramas of the 1970s and 1980s -
settings which located a story around the time of Australian
Federation were often popular.
No Worries is a clever combination of both of these impulses.
Things begin at a country fair in Bundooma. It is the day of the
'Cowpat Lotto' competition and 'Daisy' the cow drops hers in just
the right spot to win the day. This fun turns out to be a thin
veneer over the people's real circumstances: years of drought,
being forced to sell up, no longer supported by the bank, finally
having to give up life on the land.
A schoolgirl, Matilda Bell played by Amy Terelinck, is at the
heart of the film. Her Mum (Susan Lyons) and Dad (Geoff Morrell)
are two good folks, who would probably have to leave the land
anyway, when a hurricane sweeps across their property,
overturning truck, bending steel windmill, killing sheep stock,
tearing their home apart. It is a dramatic sequence which could
easily be overplayed, but for its restraint it is all the more
powerful.
Life on the farm ends when the Bell family departs for the
city, and drive to its very heart, Sydney's multicultural inner
west. Life begins anew in a small terrace cottage below the
flight path of international air traffic, in among the street
kids, in among the Chinese and Vietnamese shops, where you
certainly could run no cattle dog.
Gone is the past and the affectionate portrait of people
battling against the elements and it is replaced by a
contemporary suburban reality which is real-life for Australia.
Little Matilda must become street-smart straightaway, accept that
she can no longer drive herself to the school bus, and accept
that life on the land is no longer possible.
She stops speaking. Now mute, she steps out into the street at
night ... but , then she reaches the sea next morning. If there
is a frontier for contemporary Australians, this is it, the ocean
beach.
Young Einstein. The name of the
producer/director/screenwriter/editor and lead actor for this
film is a clue to this box-office success of the late 1980s.
Yahoo Serious is his name of the key creative impulse behind this
piece of whimsy - which you cannot take too seriously. It is
about young Albert who discovered his brain when an apple toppled
onto his head as he sat among the trees in his father's orchard.
Suddenly his brain began to work, well not just work, it went
straight to overdrive and Albert began to make spectacular
inventive discoveries, some useful and others potent. From the
technology for putting bubbles into beer to theoretical physics,
from rock 'n' roll to the theory of relativity.
Now, being not only clever but also bold, Albert takes off,
leaving the rural backwaters of his home and goes off to
university, not to attend as an undergraduate, but to teach. His
prodigious mind has already, of course, taken quantum leaps and
he is now ready for a public career.
Along the way he meets and falls in love with (Odile le
Clezio's) French scientist, Marie Curie. But unfortunately for
him others are not so ready to accept that he is a prodigy and he
is swept off to a lunatic asylum.
This screen romp is full of sight gags, the kind you would see
in the silent cinema, and is accompanied by the latest in
Australian pop music of the time, by some grand shots of the
Australian landscape, and all the while everything is executed
with zest and zing by the young actors, particularly the gangling
ingenue - Yahoo Serious as Albert Einstein. It is horseplay in
the best of spirits which you should enjoy.
Young Einstein did well at the box office in Australia and was
picked up by the U.S. entertainment giant Warner Bros for
international distribution. It went on to become one of the
company's biggest hits of 1989.
The last film of the season is Baz Luhrmann's Strictly
Ballroom which won Best Film at the Australian Film Institute
awards in 1992. Adapted from a stage play, it is both a comedy of
kitsch about ballroom dancing and a spirited teen romance.
As soon as we have taken a few steps onto the dance floor we
enter the world of competition ballroom dancing located in the
city (Sydney) suburbs during the 1950s. Outlandish hairstyles and
the most incredible costumes float by.
Scott Hastings (Paul Mercurio, who is actually a professional
dancer) is a hopeful competitor in the upcoming Pan Pacific Grand
Prix dancing championships. A dance novice (Tara Morice), gauche
and complete with spectacles and bad skin, falls for him.
Improbably (but then this is teenage romance) she eventually
becomes his partner-to-be for the forthcoming championships,
which means she will accompany Scott when he attempts to thwart
the system. The world of ballroom dancing was, at that time,
petty, hidebound and traditional. Its officials would only allow
certain dance styles in competition: hence the title - 'strictly
ballroom' i.e. only approved ballroom steps are permitted. Yet
Scott wants to dance his own steps.
The resistance to change is enormous and poor Scott is all but
beaten before he even steps out on the floor. But youth, energy
and commitment prevail and Strictly Ballroom develops into a
dance musical piece, all color, movement and sound. There is
little that is subtle about the characters and many of them
function as cartoon in this world of small-time dance
competition. In contrast with the lack of character development a
big investment has been made in the costuming and in the art
design on this film, so the 'look' of the film - is, as it is in
most musicals, excessive and wildly flamboyant. This is
entertainment and it is fun. Enjoy those ball gowns along with
the John Paul Young music in this celebration of youth, pitting
itself against drab traditionalists, and energy, winning the day.