“ONE NIGHT THE MOON”

Dir: Rachel Perkins Australia 2001

wonderfully atmospheric,this outback tale centres on the search for a missing girl in 1950’s South Australia.Based on a true story where the white father,played by singer Paul Kelly forbids the use of a black police tracker,Kelton Pell.

the man and his wife have previously sung a sweet lullaby to their 6 year old about the moon’s silvery light…trouble is now the child climbs out her bedroom window to follow the moon…all the way up to the hills…after many fruitless days with volunteers the wife desperately begs the Tracker to help her…he is disillusioned by all the racism but in the end helps…

now the really interesting thing is that there is hardly any dialogue…characters sing…like an outback opera…esp..powerful is the duet sung seperately by the white farmer and the black tracker called “my land”…wonderful juxtaposition that reveals character.

kooris have always sung as they travel across country…singing creation stories and passing on knowledge so this is a natural progression…ruby hunter plays the tracker’s wife who sings a haunting koori funeral song at film’s end…a sad sidenote…this wonderful singer/activist died this week…

highly recommended as a haunting,powerful idiosynchratic film that explores racism and duty…

4 1/2 **** outta 5

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“THE ROAD”

dir: John Hillcoat USA/AUST….2009

…a father and son walk through a post-apocalyptic world,grey ashen skies with no living trees or animals…scavenging food from destroyed shopping malls and farmhouses…nothing is explained apart from flashbacks of the mother who suicided out of despair…

viggo mortensen plays the desperate father and kodi smit-mcphee the son (see previous review of “Romulus,My Father”)…they share a real bond,a beautifully tender but unsentimental relationship that explores the question of humanity…when survival matters above all else can the simple act of helping a stranger be possible?…

the cinematography by javier aguirrasarobe is enthralling….every tree is blasted down or leaning and in one incredible scene toppling over themselves…he and the director shot mostly in pennsylvania where abandoned mines and towns provided the requisite atmosphere…they also filmed down in hurricane -affected new orleans…the silvery greys and blacks are continually mesmerising…scenes of harbours clogged with logs and damaged boats…

but the real heart of the film lies between father and son…viggo will not give up and yet even the boy starts to question their tough and mean-spirited life…mortensen’s haggard + bearded face conveys so much pain and love for his son…and in one incredible scene with an aged robert duvall…conveys just how much he lives for his boy….NO PLOT SPOILERS………………….

but as i sat through all this degradation-porn,safe in my upholstered chair…watching people starve and/or become cannibals,i pondered not on some bleak future but of fathers and sons making similar bleak journeys RIGHT NOW in africa,the middle east,haiti…war and famine burning off humanity…

a harrowing but truly powerful cinematic experience based on the 2006 book by Cormac McCarthy…and again as they did in Hillcoat’s “The Proposition” Nick Cave and Warren Ellis provide haunting elegiac music…

5 ***** outta 5

so what do you think?

“ROMULUS,MY FATHER”

Dir Richard Roxburgh Australia 2007

…Yeah,caught this on telly last night as it seemed fedex had murray’s measure….this powerful family drama stars eric bana as titular character,quiet,powerful immigrant farmer struggling to survive raising his son and dealing with his beautiful but unpredictable wife…the kid from THE ROAD, Kodi Smit-Mcphee is incredible,such emotion plays easily over his face…he is the sad anchor to this film as adults all around him do selfish,mean things…suffer depression+anguish..

beautifully filmed in golds and browns in the wheat lands of northern Victoria…it is a measured film beautifully handled by the actor/director Roxburgh…score is exquisite as well…story takes place in 1960 so moody soundtrack is mixed by old italian lovesongs or early rock’n'roll…lots of robust comedy as farmer tries to start egg business…lots of sadness as wife,wife’s lover,husband all go loopy________you feel so sorry for the kid…based on true story-memoirs of author/philosopher Raimond Gaita…he indeed turned out ok…with much experience to ponder on obviously…

4 1/2 **** outta 5

so what do you think?

“A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG”

dir shainee gabel USA 2004

yeah this “little southern sudser-tale o’ redemption” kinda slipped under our radar back when,may not have even got distribution in cinemas here…it’s a slow,literate tale of dark secrets,alcoholism+gothic novels…

travolta plays a washed up englishLit professor holding drunken court with his washed up protege who is supposedly writing his lifestory…they mainly drink and sit around junk sofas with lots of “forgotten” people…strumming guitars and quoting t.s.elliot,bob frost+++william faulkner…it’s a bit like cannery row with doc and the boys….all hot,oozy,alabammy,vodka+juice for breakfast and health problems ignored…

into their world comes a luminous scarlett johannsen…she’s inherited their wooden louvred bungaloh from her dead mother,a jazz singer from the french quarter…it’s so softly+sweetly filmed,all heat+ langour…
like it’s black+white cousin,jim jarmusch’s DOWN BY LAW…it just makes you wish all american cinema was filmed in new orleans….the charm+vibe…all verandahs,music and downbeat characters…

travolta doesn’t get on with johannsen and yes,you can see the ending from a mile away but he makes the journey worth it, as a totally brave and magnificent wreck of a man…think “gregory peck playing charles bukowski”…

4 1/2 **** outta 5

so what do you think?