That most people feel uneasy watching Zero Dark Thirty goes some way towards confirming Bigelow’s claim that she is presenting events as they (for the most part) occurred. It could be argued too that her presentation is successful in its ability to make the viewer feel uncomfortable, potentially questioning their responses to the methods used to locate bin Laden. But even if this were true, it assumes hunting down another human with the intent to kill is an acceptable final outcome.

Jessica Chastain plays Maya, the highly intelligent, headstrong CIA operative determined to track down Osama bin Laden. Despite her strong will and hard-line, she flinches a little during an early torture scene in the film to signal her as the character for audience alignment. Later, after initial hostility towards both male and female colleagues to prove her work ethic above her humanity, Maya begins to soften and to allow working friendships to develop. This negates accusation against her character as being void of all humanity. The conflicting character developments then attempt to create power and empathy simultaneously but prove too much for Chastain who often comes across as soft where she ought to be sympathetic.

Framed now as a woman with great power,  intelligent with a dash of empathy, Maya appeals to the viewer as moral compass. But she has no ethics, her decisions and behaviours are based on personal moral feelings, “A lot of my friends have died trying to do this – I believe I was spared so I could finish the job.”, and as such compromise the integrity of the viewers who are implicit in her political/personal/moral position.

In Washington, the many suited men advise their probable certainty of Maya’s intel being accurate, refusing to commit to their position, explaining, “We don’t deal in certainty, we deal in probability.” Maya assures the men and in so doing the audience that she is absolutely sure, “One hundred percent.” Bigelow justifies the invasion that follows. Sure, what follows is some of the best technically orchestrated filmmaking I’ve seen onscreen in years and as narrative thriller plays out with incredible tension, but preying on people’s sympathy for Western innocents killed during US and UK terrorist attacks, is a low card to draw to allow moral hysteria into the narrative where ethics ought to be present. Never once does the film allow an ethical position and never are the audience privileged to see the face of the Other.

Recently, the critical backlash against her earlier comments have forced Bigelow into honesty as her comments here reveal:

“On a practical and political level, it does seem illogical to me to make a case against torture by ignoring or denying the role it played in U.S. counter-terrorism policy and practices.

…

Bin Laden wasn’t defeated by superheroes zooming down from the sky; he was defeated by ordinary Americans who fought bravely even as they sometimes crossed moral lines, who labored greatly and intently, who gave all of themselves in both victory and defeat, in life and in death, for the defense of this nation.”

- Extract, Kathryn Bigelow, Los Angeles Times online, January 15 2013. Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.
Zero Dark Thirty is released in Australian cinemas Thursday January 31 2013.

Whilst it might be beyond accepted and indeed popular to call Tarantino an auteur, Django marks a new distinctly new direction for the writer/director. To re-examine his oeuvre is to discover a fascinating trajectory from voice to image. Rather than expressing a world-view through his work, Tarantino presents, re-invents and interpolates. From homage, to self-reflexivity, postmodernist practice, pastiche and back again, Tarantino presents images and ideas from the past, present and future together; blending aesthetics and history until it becomes a pulsating palimpsest on screen.

Or at least that is how his films feel as though they are communicating. But if viewed as myriad instead of tapestry, Tarantino ceases to be cinema’s contemporary enfant terrible, presenting instead of connecting, and perhaps someone to be seem as a type of cinematic decouper.

Tarantino details who, where and when for the audience as if context were an object to be decorated. These details are written in words rather than read through images. That cinema’s abilities to ellipse time and space has long been a central distinction between it and other art forms matters little to Tarantino. For him, these details become the permanent, unmovable object around which to create. Everything else within the picture is decoration; fluid and itself subject to semiotic ellipse.

We begin; “1858, 2 years before the Civil War, Somewhere in Texas”. Context firmly and as literally as digital can, painted onto the screen. The only thing we can be certain of in this establishing sequence is where and when we are. What happens next is decorative addition; through history, myth, legend, collective memory (and here too through the construction of popular mediums such as film, where Tarantino gives his audience a game of film reference bingo), and of course aesthetics.

In fact, it is largely in the aesthetic that Tarantino’s departure from pastiche and movement towards a more decorative mode of filmmaking can be located. Where some of his earlier films including Jackie Brown (1997) and Inglourious Basterds, but most specifically here, Death Proof (2007), went to great technical lengths to ensure they worked within historically specific aesthetic forms (rendering the form a choice rather than a given and in doing so rescued themselves from postmodernism), Django not only ignores historically specific aesthetic form but goes out of its way to show how it is not important for the film. For the most part Django‘s aesthetic is contemporary; mixing a range of styles to create a non-specific “look”, one that can simultaneously encompass the deep South and the far West. There are too flashback images to the ‘past’ (within the narrative), given a grainier quality and colour washed with a yellow hue. The tint (or taint) of the past is intensified and heightened with intent to highlight artifice and to negate any quality of aesthetic historical authenticity. Moving away from pastiche, Tarantino demonstrates a very deliberate fluidity in style, but also in story, and one that might for some achieve a disharmony between visual spectacle and the narrative imaginary.

No doubt there are moments of historical truth in Django, but mine is not to discover what is and is not subject to that o’erbearing harbinger. My questions is, if Tarantino presents himself as absent from this linear, causal narrative film, and if everything except context is added decoration, whose story is Django?

Story too changes and moves with fluidity throughout the film, passed from character to director to viewer and back again until all ethical viewing becomes sutured into the story in really a most fascinating and arresting way.

The deep South, ‘afore the Civil War, a foreigner, and a freed slave become our object, decorated by Tarantino with great effort and gusto, gorgeous and gaudy at once. The “story” then belongs to us all. Beyond pastiche, we are presented with a burden and a beauty, shared.

Django Unchained (2012) is released in Australian cinemas Thursday January 24, 2013.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

The disembodied voices whose observations are told are never seen, leaving the viewer with no association for the words that spring forth. But worse than that, there is no presentation – not even a quick title onscreen – as to who these voices belong to at all. No names or credentials are ever given which further undermines and betrays their readings by asking the viewer to take a huge leap of faith and trust the opinions given, irregardless of their origins.

There is also little innovation in the visual style with many of the clips from The Shining, and indeed other Kubrick films, shown ad nauseum when one clear example from the text ought to suffice in illustrating the point. Coupled with the fact that the quality of the footage itself is visually poor, makes it difficult to become immersed in the analysis. Interesting and provocative readings aside, Room 237 is like a first year film student attempting to give a third year lecture. Messy.

Room 237 screens as a part of the 2012 Melbourne International Film Festival with further sessions on Friday August 17th at 9pm and on Sunday August 19th at 11am. 

There are five central characters; after Joe there is Ansel, the endearing but incompetent patriarch before Joe enters and assumes the throne in their domestic domain, and Chris, Ansel’s rogue, harebrained son who comes up with central plot device of killing his own mother to collect on the life insurance. Whilst Ansel and Chris are depicted as unintelligent, foolish and are often the subject of some particularly base jokes, they are kept just barely on the right side of audience alignment by the film’s further and more persecuting jokes aimed at the female characters. Of whom there is Adele – the absent mother mostly referred to as a bitch and only shown once where we see her dead – or at least near-dead – body during the patriarch’s removal of her impotent reign. Then there is Sharla, the deceitful, scheming, unfaithful woman who represents whore. Joining these two already glowing representations of women is Dottie, the virginal, naive, slightly affected and potentially mentally challenged daughter and ultimately little more than the retainer following a contract transaction between aforementioned patriarchal figures Joe, Ansel and Chris. After the film removes the impotent, it condemns the whore and finally rapes and damages its virgin. Dottie is almost the film’s innocent charmer until the final scene where she too forgoes any previous sense of morality, ethics, empathy, compassion – heck, humanity, and callously kills the only people she supposedly loves and cares for. The final sting being that all the concern for the weak and seemingly innocent version of the feminine was still a waste of male time and energy as she, like all women, was only to turn on the males in the end.

But what’s most concerning about Killer Joe is the guise that it is a “Black Comedy”. The entire Smith family are depicted as pathetic and parasitic to society. Although the focus is never on Joe as an officer of the law, we are always aware that he represents the penal code, societal structure and of course the Name of the Law. Here, with a family that are willing and eager to turn upon themselves, leaving one another out to dry, Joe is the only character with whom the audience are even close to aligned. Are we to take then that psychopathy is preferable to those who are depicted here as the economic dregs of society?

Certainly it is possible to take controversial, uncomfortable subject matter and satirise it in a way that is bleak and comedic; depictions of depravity that leave the viewer with feelings of uncomfortable self reflection on their ability to find such material amusing or films that expose their protagonists as weak, unstable – Happiness is a great example of such an achievement; but Killer Joe does none of these things. It may well be true that Matthew McConaughey’s performance is brilliant and even that the character of Joe captures onscreen the displays of psychopathy to perfection, but enabling that character control over the audience and their responses is a curious and pivotal choice for the film’s ultimate success. The result, unfortunately, is a room full of laughter – not at the suggestion of a misogynist act – but at the humiliation of the act carried out.

There are further issues in the film and certainly this is a gloss in terms of examples but what’s problematic about Killer Joe isn’t that its lead character suffers psychopathy, nor that it employs humour in a tale of such subject matter, but that it uses the psychopathy as a tool for seduction through which it repeatedly revels in the successful delivering of dangerous ideology.

Long takes and carefully composed, often still frames, with real-time movement ensure there is no escape for the audience from the film’s steady pace or the at times painfully tedious details of the story. Surmising ‘plot’ is a fruitless exercise here as Haneke’s voices tells us that we don’t recall the reaction or the film, but the emotion, that the vehicle and response don’t matter, it is the feeling that remains. This is his own synopsis of Amour. He further lets us know that “imagination and reality have very little in common” and gives us only Eva (a minor role here for Isabelle Huppert) as a possible stand in for the failed viewer’s anticipated insolent response, “What happens now?”, a question met with simplicity, “What’s happened up until now.”

Another achievement in truly affecting and intellectual cinema, Haneke’s Amour is confronting, inescapable; devastatingly brilliant.

Amour screens as a part of the 2012 Melbourne International Film Festival with another session on Monday August 13th at 6.30pm. 

The two styles are almost polar opposites and as such compliment one another by creating an almost natural wave-like ebbing to and fro - Guerín’s videos to Mekas in black and white, perceiving the cities, people and spaces with the eye of an auteur expressing a reflective world view, filming never ‘taping’, whilst Mekas’ videos to Guerin are like home videos up from the underground blending the public and the personal with innocent ease. From revolving doors with stunning reflections in Guerín’s examination of the people he records and their supposed inability to put down roots in expansive public spaces to Mekas’ following an unaware Ken Jacobs down the street and occasionally filming his own feet in the wake of stopping to speak and smell lavendar - Correspondence is paced naturally with an intuitive rhythm that carries the viewer safely between a personal conversation and filmic endeavour from beginning to end.

The natural passing of time through recording of seasons gives the film its temporal structure effortlessly as our narrators release their perspectives on the world through honest nuggets; “I react to life”, and gentle reassurances that we are not intruding on their personal diaries; “It’s only part of a game”. An experience akin to being a very welcome guest in someone else’s home, Correspondence is a citric delight in a varied feast of a festival.

Correspondence Jonas Mekas – JL Guerin screens as a part of the 2012 Melbourne International Film Festival with another session on Saturday August 18th at 11am. 

Through a physical metamorphosis we see Tul transform from rogue individual to a modest monk. Performing the physical attributes of a monk however has no bearing on saving his ‘soul’. Just as it becomes apparent that Tul is an assassin carrying out a hit, he is shot in the head, falling into a three-month coma only to awake with a literally inverted view of the world. His now altered perspective is 180 degrees opposing his previous belief system as he views the world upside down. A series of temporal interruptions to the narrative fill in the past alongside the present preferencing neither as a true or correct path, leaving final judgement to the viewer.

Juxtaposed against one another are the presentations of intellect and physical strength; Tul reads about the conception of evil as originating from genetics and then works out whilst contemplating the merits of scholars and education. Unable to side with either  and struggling with each as the narrative unfolds – adopting again the physical life of a monk but never truly able to submit to its ideology and repeatedly theorising his life without killing whilst running, fighting and shooting at his pursuers – Tul has reached an impasse between his body and his mind. His perspective unable to shift despite the rupture to linear progression and his body constantly trying to heal despite repeated affronts upon it, Tul cannot locate ethics within the moral minefield of Bangkok’s underworld.

Interesting though the themes may well be, the film covers well trampled ground and ultimately fails to tread on anything fresh enough to be innovative or truly provocative. Its absence of ethical questioning is difficult to ignore as it contemplates morality only as far as the system’s effect on the individual is concerned without ever really contemplating the Encounter with the Other. A decent if somewhat standard crime thriller.

Headshot screens as a part of the 2012 Melbourne International Film Festival with further sessions on Sunday August 5th at 9pm and on Sunday August 12th at 11am. 

Should you however hold a grudge toward my reckless abandon and failure to commit myself to the blogosphere then you can always listen in to Melbourne radio station 3RRR 102.7FM on Thursday August 9th 7pm to hear me speaking my reviews with esteemed colleagues both Josh Nelson and Cerise Howard in our Max Headroom MIFF Special. 

At the end of Season 3 viewers were left wondering not only where the line between “good” and “evil” lay with relation to key characters but also who exactly would make it back alive for Season 4. Well, I’m not going to spoil things by answering those rather excellent questions but what I will say is that you needn’t worry because – one way or another – all your favourites will be returning and, as has been the case all along, the “plot” (I think we can just about call it that) thickens. There are important updates afoot with regard to The Guild of Calamitous Intent, The Sovereign, budding romances between certain young characters, the mental health of various other characters and of course, the very complicated, legal minefield that applies to the world of Arching.

If everything I wrote in the last paragraph means absolutely nothing to you then I suspect you are unfamiliar with the best cartoon ever made, in which case, you really ought to start with Season 1 and catch yourself up. Don’t worry, this recommendation is about as iron clad as anyone’s sanity, so if you have a sense of humour (and particularly if things that are a little bit not quite right so happen to tickle your fancy) go buy Seasons 1-4 NOW.

The only negative thing to be said about this DVD is that once you’ve finished watching the eight wonderful episodes it boasts, you’ll no doubt wish you had the next eight at the ready (sadly, they are not yet available over here). But, on the up side, you can go back and watch those eight episodes all over again which, so far as I’m concerned, is actually pretty bloody exciting because if Seasons 1-3 taught me anything, it’s that The Venture Bros. only gets better with repeat viewings.

The Venture Bros. Season 4 Part 1 was released on DVD on Thursday February 16 through Madman Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Of course, as is often the case with a director box set, there are one or two films that seem to be at slight tonal odds with the rest of the collection. However, for anyone who cares to take even a moment to reflect, these anomalies are only really bound by the confines of genre and narrative; their thematics and auteuristic world view more than consistent with their company. To this end, the Douglas Sirk: King of Hollywood Melodrama box set offers a gentle critique of American aspirations; all the way from early settlement to the at the time modern-day model of white, heteronormative, familial life. It suggests, rather boldly for its time, that defining one’s own aspirations against and attempting to achieve them within such relational societal constructs is anything but simple, anything but stark, and, never – even when the picture itself might be – black and white.

No Room for the Groom (1952)

A classic example of screw-ball comedy, No Room for the Groom sees Alvah Morrell (Tony Curtis) try desperately to consummate his too much trouble marriage to Lee Kingshead (Piper Laurie). A quality comedy that is short and to the point, No Room for the Groom plays with gender stereotypes and the pressures of marrying into a family when all you want is to be in love. Humourously acknowledging and explaining its own causal paradigm, “It’s called cause and effect”, and displaying just enough cynicism to rouse a giggle out of its audience, “marriage is keeping your mouth shut”, Sirk skillfully shows both parties in a marriage to be annoyingly and endearingly constricted by social pressure, “Should a girl have to tell a man when she wants to be kissed?” A fantasticly light-hearted start to an epic journey of melodramatic discovery.

All  I Desire (1953)

This is as close to perfect as film gets for lovers of romance. Barbara Stanwyck is simply sensational as Naomi Murdock, a woman who has left her family to fruitlessly pursue her personal dreams and to escape the scandal of an affair in a small town. One of many of Sirk’s films to show how deeply an individual can wrestle with their own complex emotions and conflicting desires, All I Desire a beautiful story that allows things to somehow work themselves out. It is also surprisingly progressive for its time, exploring the subjectivity rather than the guilt of a woman whose choices may not have always been entirely moral or selfless.

Magnificent Obsession (1954)

Helen Phillips (Jane Wyman) is model woman, wife, (step)mother, friend and professional. In fact, even when life is cruel to her, she remains poised, gracious and strong. Losing her eyesight she is lured into a love affair that she actively refused when she could see. Her ultimate lesson, and the lesson that her suitor Bob Merrick (Rock Hudson) learns too, is that true enlightenment in such a dark world can only come from shutting off your expectations of others. When you are willing, even blindly so, to let others in and to behave towards them truly selflessly, only then will you find in yourself profound peace and happiness. A moving, heartwarming tale.

Taza, Son of Cochise (1954)

Although Taza, Son of Cochise is a generic diversion for Sirk (predominantly it is a western), it doesn’t fail to reiterate his concerns for familial obligation and the complexities of love. Taking things a psychoanalytic step further, Sirk explores ideas of totem and taboo within a tribal context as they pertain to the increasingly obtrusive All-American way of life. Stars Rock Hudson as Taza and Barbara Rush as Oona.

All That Heaven Allows (1955)

Probably Sirk’s most famous melodrama and the primary inspiration for Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven (2002), All That Heaven Allows is a remarkable film that uses colour and lighting to exemplarily create mood, silhouettes and shadows to express subtle subtext and overt reference to psychoanalysis (namely Freudian) to explain character motivation and action/inaction. Heavily critical of American upper class social decorum and the sort of repression such false exclusivity necessarily harbours, All That Heaven Allows is a stunning, deeply affecting and astute cinematic work.

There’s Always Tomorrow (1956)

The mesmerizing Barbara Stanwyck returns in There’s Always Tomorrow as the spirited Norma Miller Vale  who has chosen career over family. Still in love with Clifford Groves (Fred MacMurray) who is under appreciated and somewhat unfulfilled, the two attempt to bring their disparate lives together but soon learn that the confines of morality and the boundaries of their emotions can never allow for such a union. Easily the most heartbreaking film in the box, There’s Always Tomorrow leaves a stunning air of desperation, hope, inevitable resolve and disappointment in its wake: “Darling, if life were always an adventure it’d be exhausting.”

A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958)

The second generically anomalous work in the set, A Time to Love and a Time to Die is still a melodrama, but is set against the very real backdrop of post World War II Germany. Wistfully explicating how the past absolutely permeates the present, A Time to Love and a Time to Die is as much about ethical behaviour as it is morality; always suggesting that the two are in no way necessarily linked: “Murderers are never murderers twenty-four hours a day.” Ultimately, Sirk seems to posit that love and death – natural drives and inevitable occurrences in human life – present themselves in relation always to anOther.

The Tarnished Angels (1958)

Exploring both the limits of friendship and the product of loyalty, The Tarnished Angels examines the types of social contracts individuals enter into and what happens to those contracts at the hands of the passage of time. Suggesting love is built upon so much more than just emotion and desire, The Tarnished Angels is another fine example of Sirk’s ability to produce performances of great depth and dimensionality. Stars Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Jack Carson and Dorothy Malone.

Imitation of Life (1959)

Well, if the eight fantastic films that came before it didn’t win you over (who are you and how is your heart colder than mine?) then Imitation of Life most certainly will. A story loaded with issue and inference at every turn, Imitation of Life reveals a plethora of absurdities that constitute “life” through performativity. From the overt (literally acting) to the ideological (gender, family, class, race), Imitation of Life breaks down many of the ways in which life is constructed and the “roles” each individual assumes; sometimes out of necessity, and sometimes born of personal desire. Constructing life through the dot points that are “the great events of life” such as marriage and death, Sirk shows how we “measure” abstract notions such as “achievement”, “happiness”, “fulfillment” and “success”.

Though there is infinitely more to be said about Sirk and each of these films, the very best way to discover such sound, intelligent and genuinely marvelous films is to open up your own very beautiful box set and let the melodramatic bliss wash over you like so many emotions and so much of life itself. Not just a gift for Valentine’s Day, this is an absolute must-have for cinephiles and cine-lovers alike. Darling, do yourself a favour and let Douglas enlighten you.

Douglas Sirk: King of Hollywood Melodrama is released through Madman Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

For a film about a man who gets stuck in a cave, his arm crushed under a firmly lodged boulder, it might seem a little odd that the opening credit sequence should show several images on a split screen where hoards of humans appear to heard themselves about like animals. Of course, this is a Hollywood film, so it isn’t long before these images are adequately explained as an insight into our protagonist’s view of the world. Aron Ralston (James Franco) is a man who prefers the company of the outdoors to others. Independent to the point of apparent neglect (he fails to tell anyone where it is that he’s going so that in the actual event something does happen to him, no one is able to even think about looking for him), Aron is as self-sufficient and individualist as they come. Suggesting with the split screen that our being surrounded by others does not necessarily forego fragmentation, Boyle sets up the film’s primary “message” and “concern” in a fairly standard and easily digestible manner.

After a few more establishing scenes where the stylistic choices add a sense of franticness to the film’s tonality, somewhat exploring human impact/interaction on/with natural spaces, our protagonist takes the inevitable plummet that will serve as the real life premise for the remainder of the film: with his arm crushed by a now firmly lodged boulder that came loose upon his free fall descent, Aron is condemned to the proverbial ’127 hours’ where survival and solace seem unlikely. Unfortunately, where Boyle could easily have constructed the rest of the film as a tense, even terrifyingly sublime exploration of one man’s true isolation, the use of flashback, hallucination and overwrought visual and aural additives often detract from the true severity of the focal situation. An initial panic communicated to the audience after his fateful fall, where one genuinely thinks the rest of the film could well be James Franco screaming in agony for near on a hundred minutes (something that would undoubtedly have been more terrifying and visceral to watch), Boyle employs popular music and fast paced camera movement with far too short ASLs (average shot length) to even come close to adequately communicating a sense of prolonged pain.

Though occasional lines of dialogue reconfirm the idea that stillness is an illusion and that movement is constant; “Everything is moving all the time” and “Everything just comes together”; the film itself is not so fortunate so as to benefit from the illusion of stillness which, sadly, detracts from its overall tension. And whilst the most critical sequence in the film does show how style and sound can increase visceral affect, it does so in isolation as it is the one sequence that actually builds to crescendo. Certainly the majority of the time that Ralston is onscreen would have been communicably improved by a slow build in tension and a sense of suture style claustrophobia, akin to the likes of last year’s Buried (2010) which successfully managed such a feat by never expanding upon or leaving the confines of the diegetic world.

Ending with Ralston relenting that he does in fact “need help”, the film re-confirms the idea that we all need others and that connections between humans is an imperative to every individual’s survival. Moreover, Boyle takes it a bit too far when he then goes on to end the film by pointing specifically to Ralston’s now wife and kids as if familial life were some sort of epiphanic salvation. In terms of making a truly horrific life-threatening and, no doubt life-altering, event into a piece of entertaining filmic fare, Boyle has succeeded but in terms of communicating any sense of true gravity of the situation or even the fascinating and compelling temporal dimension to his experience which even operates as the film’s title, Boyle remains dismissive and reduces the scope and terror to a mere cavalcade of visual and aural superfluouity. It’s not so much the case that Boyle preferences style over substance, rather that his use of style operates as an overwhelming distraction from audience access to substance, an active choice that I find far less palatable.

127 Hours is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday February 10 through Twentieth Century Fox.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

The tag line elusively reads: “A suburban fantasy inside a remote reality.” On first viewing it might occur to the viewer that here is a presentation of a strange, dysfunctional and, for wont of a better word, “bogan” family. Of course, they would be the reactions of a presumably middle class viewer who considers him/herself to be “well-adjusted” and “well-bred”. Reactionary responses aside, The Skellys is in fact a view of a family from their own perspectives and, instead of being a condemnation of their interaction, the film is actually pushing for the “suburban fantasy” and its “remote reality” as a sacred psychogeographical space; access to which is exclusive, closed to outsiders.

The Skellys is a short rendered as if it were a “home video”, complete with tracking issues and a lack of smooth transition between sequences. Whilst their home is semi-dilapidated and their activities “strange” – to a stranger -their dynamics are shown as “honest”. It is always inferred that behind the camera is a family member. Furthermore, although the film is set up as the young girl’s “video for class”, it is suggested that the actions and interactions of her family as shown are neither censored nor edited. Affection, anger, fantasy, fear, destruction and togetherness are all shown in equal and adequate measure.

Subtly bringing the viewer and his/her assumptions and accusations against Others into question, The Skellys is far more thoughtful than it might at first appear.

The Skellys is a Prorevolution Films production

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Opening with an incredibly beautiful shot of a diver floating through an abyss of water the film offers first a notion of disembodiment. Reflecting well the content that will follow, Sanctum suggests already that the physical human body and its connectedness to other weighted objects or entities is not a given: constancy and attachment both psychological rather than physiological constructs. Cutting to a village in Papua New Guinea (although the film was actually shot in Australia on the Gold Coast), Sanctum briefly, and I dare say too flippantly, establishes its premise and characters: a diving expedition into a system of underwater caves soon becomes a fight for survival after storm waters flood and collapse the entrance, leaving a small group of individuals, ranging from veteran to first-time divers, with the challenge of working together for the grand prize of their lives.

Like many Australian productions before it, Sanctum is somewhat concerned with the relationship between human development and the persistence or resilience of the natural world. Illustrating this with ease, our most expert diver Frank (Richard Roxburgh) is sure to explain the wonder of the natural world by visual experience in the first instance; “Let me show you.” There is also the suggestion that the natural world is itself a force to be reckoned with and that human affinity with it is far from established, the “unknown” and compelling harsh beauty it presents formidable; “This cave’s not going to beat me.” Inauspicious as it is, the natural world is also posited as sublime; the overwhelming beauty and awe in which it inspires God-like. The unexplored areas our protagonists discover become the “sanctum” in question, and several sequences reference the bible, religious undertones resonating throughout, most notably towards the film’s end when our Christ-like Son of God performs a sort of baptism as he forgives his Father.

But even with these moments where subtext and visuals come together to achieve something worthy of serious and contemplative reflection upon issues pertaining to the human condition, the film constantly falls apart due to clumsy dialogue – dialogue that jars terribly with the visuals and abrasively halts any meditative aspects the film might otherwise champion. Moreover, its crisis of generic and tonal identity mean the films flits far too often and too disjointedly between being a serious drama, a tense horror/thriller and a light-hearted blockbuster action/adventure flick.

Forgiving its pitfalls proves difficult. Disruption in the natural flow of both the narrative and the visual story leave Sanctum a film with a great deal of promise and some truly magnificent moments but, most unfortunately, too confused for its own good.

Sanctum 3D is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday February 3 through Universal Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

The film opens, confrontingly, in the middle of a session. Shot mostly in close-up or extreme close-up, it is initially unclear if the woman (Imedla Staunton) is visiting social services or a GP. As both the frame and the scene expand, it becomes clear that she has come to see a doctor in the hope that some prescribed sleeping pills might plaster over her problems and assure her with at least one decent night’s sleep. Her GP, the heavily pregnant Tanya, refers her to a counsellor to help find the root of her anxiety and depression after concluding that her insomnia is merely a symptom of a deeper issue. When Tanya asks this woman, “What is the one thing that would improve your life apart from sleep?” The woman’s only response is “A different life.” Indicating already here that what time leaves behind is so permanent that only another life could be free of its piercing effects, so begins Leigh’s examination of the determinism behind the formation of a group of individuals and their now lives.

Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen) are as absolutely middle class as they come. They live in a comfortable yet not exceptional home and spend considerable time tending to their allotment. Their relationship is strong and loving, built upon the very fabric of the time passed in their lives. Having met in college, been apart and then reunited, they have lived “shared lives” including the raising of a son, Joe (Oliver Maltman), their now existence built of age. As they quite literally reap the benefits of the time they have put in to cultivating their love – aptly mirrored through their tending to an allotment – their friends conversely suffer at the hands of time and its cruel reminder that contentedness is far from instantaneous.

Further demonstrated through the birth of Tanya’s son, Spring brings new life and with it new joy, but only through the passage of “natural time”. Gerri’s work colleague and friend Mary (Lesley Manville) understands better than anyone the results of poor cultivation, having lost her home and partner, now living a temporary existence in a rented property and without companionship. But like the woman in the opening scene, Mary is impatient and plasters over the problems brought by time with temporary relief: drinking and smoking, clumsily asking, “Everyone needs someone to talk to, don’t they?”, Gerri replying in earnest, “Yes, they do.” Mary feels time has been unkind to her and instead of attempting to understand and deal with her past – its memories too painful – she favours a quick fix, unable to accept that the permanence of her past is inescapable.

When Tom and Gerri’s other friend Ken (Peter Wight) comes to London to visit, he too is beginning to feel the weight and force and time. Another character who, like Mary, plasters over his problems with great indulgence; eating, drinking and smoking to excess, Ken’s greatest fear of all is the sprawling time he will be left with if he retires. When asked, “What would you do with your time if you retired?” He wearily answers, “Pub. Eat, drink and be merry.” Having lost someone close to him the expanse of time is merely a reminder of his now loneliness and the thought of being confronted with its scarring effects ad infinitum is too much to bear, and so, Ken breaks down at the very mention of such a reality.

The juxtaposition of Tom and Gerri with Ken and Mary is stark but it operates not to vindicate those who have found a way to share their time and to victimise those who have not. Rather, it is there to illustrate the way in which we are all a product of the effects of our own experience of time, howsoever that time may come to pass. With winter, Leigh brings death and another character, Ronnie (David Bradley), whose loss of lifetime companionship has left him as a shadow without its casting.

In the most “Mike Leigh” of all the scenes in the film, Tom begins to voice some of the misanthropic auteur’s world views, suggesting that bosses are fascist and by discussing the importance of lowering one’s carbon footprint and caring about the imminence of catastrophic climate change. Tom speaks to the issues and to himself when he says, “The older you get the more relevant it seems.” But it’s not just the exponential rate at which capitalism, its greed, exploitation and negative impact upon our environment (physical, social and psychological) are advancing that Leigh is here referring to, it is also the fact that having seen and experienced the accumulative damage of these things affords it with greater weight. To the same end, it is hardly coincidental that the film should be set in London with Northern ties: the psychogeographical palimpsest of the country’s heartbeat city contrasts starkly and effectively with the nation’s grim and neglected townships.

The myriad of conflicting emotions brought out by the cast and Leigh’s craft in this film are at times uplifting and at times depressing. Gerri’s exemplary English resolve that, “We stay cheerful. We don’t let things get us down.” contrasts beautifully with Mary’s constant feeling of being hard done by, “Life’s not always kind, is it?” It’s not so much that cognition versus fatalism here but rather that outlook results from those physical, social and psychological piercings of time passed. Examining the way in which one individual can’t not affect another if their time is shared, and the various ramifications of each person’s actions and attitudes, Another Year is an incredibly thoughtful and masterfully poignant work. Offering an examination rather than an explanation, Leigh has created a world that does in its duration for its audience exactly what its characters do for one another: traverse and effect, piercing with the very permanence of time.

Another Year was released  in Australian cinemas on Wednesday January 26 through Icon.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

At first Mattie is introduced to us as precocious. Following her father’s murder at the hand of his employee – one Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) – Mattie intends to “settle” his affairs and “attend” to his business. Armed only with the sense of justice bestowed upon her by a now dead patriarch, Mattie tries to make sense of the order of things with its pinnacle now forcibly removed. Proving herself more than capable of bargaining with grown men (notably merciless ones at that), Mattie constantly refers back to “the force of the Law” to support her gumption. But once she earns her place on the actual physical journey that makes one a man, she begins to learn that both the Law and the Name-of-the-Father associated with it can only take her so far and that to truly attend to her father’s “business” she must prove herself worthy of true grit, instead of relying on a strong male role model to provide it for her.

To this end, Mattie is told early on that “the world is vexing enough as it is” and she is later told how to fire her own gun – the phallic weapon being almost all she has left to represent her father and something she knows about only about in theory yet has no command over until the proverbial moment of truth finally dawns. Her presence is constantly challenged and there is even a sequence where an outsider questions her directly, “I’m puzzled by this. Why is she here?”

Mattie learns ultimately that the Law does not always apply outside of the town and that in the country proper she must adhere to an altered version of it deciding what is “an act that is wrong to itself” and what is “wrong according to your laws and morals.” Bit by a snake (another phallic signifier) Mattie undergoes a type of castration and we then learn that she never marries. Unable to meet either the requirements of a lady or a man, Mattie is neither assimilated into or bound by the rules of the patriarchy. She now has something infinitely more important: the grit she so desperately searched for all along. Still presenting a formal (visual) version of her gender however, Mattie is sure to chastise a man for failing to stand when she presents herself before him. Less about her role as a woman and more in condemnation of his failing to acknowledge her well-earned grit, Mattie has more than settled her father’s business, she has reclaimed it as her own. A bold and encouraging achievement.

True Grit is released in Australian cinemas on Wednesday January 26 through Paramount Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Half-brothers Dickie Ecklund (Christian Bale) and Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg) are both fighters from a poor neighbourhood in Lowell, Massachusetts. Dickie, now a washed up crack addict, is known locally as “The Pride of Lowell”, owing to his past success where he knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard (July 18, 1978) in a Welterweight championship (Welterweight being a category that sits between Lightweight and Middleweight). Boasting an unlikely “comeback” Dickie trains his younger brother Micky who shows more promise and discipline – and let’s not forget that all important quality known as “heart” – than his older brother. His manager is also a family member, mother Alice Ward (Melissa Leo) and the film is sure to emphasise the great importance of “family” from the outset. Things that have always been a certain way begin to change when Dickie finds himself incarcerated and Micky meets no-bullshit love interest Charlene Fleming (Amy Adams).

Whilst the story is centred around Micky’s rise to fame as a fighter it is just as much – if not more – Dickie’s story, and unsurprisingly Bale manages to outshine Wahlberg in just about every scene. But what is really at stake here is the believability of the characters as based on real life people and whether or not the often troubling interaction of their family dynamics is indeed authentic. To this end there is a lot “documentary style” footage and great effort goes into contrasting the aesthetic quality of both this and the “televised footage” with the slickly shot main drama in the film. As a result the documentary and televised sections add credence to the central drama, positing the stylistic differences as fragments of a whole; the “story” of these individuals and their lives.

Of course, even with such successful visual direction there are unanswered questions and, largely, these spring from the film’s scripting. Light-hearted and even comedic at times, the dialogue is often a little too witty to be entirely believable and by that I mean that the exchanges between characters are often too close to sitcom-like sparring which makes their interaction with one another subsequently less plausible. And of course, comedy can’t help but come at the cost of communicable emotion and felt empathy which arguably posits these people closer to caricatures than characters. As such, it is at times difficult to buy the story as a complete package; the visual style coming across as successful but notably deliberate even if it doesn’t feel forced.

Adding footage of the “real life” brothers during the end credit sequence gives further weight to the “truth” of the story and yet one can’t help but wonder what the story would look like if it were these two who featured onscreen for the two-hours just passed. Perhaps a little ironically even, the final thought goes to brother Dickie whose performed character in The Fighter experiences the disappointment of seeing himself (mis)represented onscreen. Could it be that Russell has knowingly indicated the distance between self-perception and what makes a good cinematic story? Either way, The Fighter is an enjoyable enough film that occasionally errs a little too heavily on the side of feel-goodery. For better or worse, The Fighter, with all its might, is sure to revise public perception of “The Pride of Lowell”.

The Fighter was released in Australian cinemas on Thursday January 20 through Roadshow Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Starting with a very personal memory, The Green Hornet establishes the imperfect father-son relationship between Green Hornet-to-be Britt Reid (Seth Rogen) and his father, local newspaper mogul James Reid (Tom Wilkinson). Britt leads a decidedly laddish lifestyle, partying hard with fast cars and loose women, much to his father’s chagrin. When James dies unexpectedly, Britt finds himself in charge of a paper he hasn’t the patience, skill or remotest desire to run. So how does he become the Green Hornet? Well, it is actually all down to one very bad cup of coffee that the film manages to advance forward in any kind of causal narrative trajectory. The absurdly bougie pivotal point from which the action then springs forth tells you just about everything you need to know about the focus of what is yet to come. Teaming up with his father’s employee, barista extraordinaire Kato (Jay Chou), the unlikely duo recklessly find themselves fighting crime after immaturely committing crime. From here, the Green Hornet and his nameless partner/sidekick unwittingly take on the city’s apparently poorly dressed, not quite menacing enough, and largely misunderstood crime lord Chudnofsky (expertly played by Christoph Waltz).

Chudnofsky is an old school gangster and the rise of Gucci-clad wannabes is beginning to get under his skin. Having already settled a few local issues it is only when the Green Hornet appears that Chudnofsky fully realises the extent to which the new generation, whose reputations rely largely upon aesthetics and public image as opposed to his own years of strategic planning, have no respect for tradition or the past. But Britt didn’t learn to be a twat without his father’s help and likewise it is affluence and class as well as his generational standing that are responsible for his appalling attitude towards life. Impressed upon him from an early age, Britt thinks “Trying doesn’t matter if you always fail.”  Concerned with results rather than effort, the destination rather than the journey and, above all else, the present irregardless of its history, Britt charges forward in a childish pursuit of fame and glory.

Far more of an anti-hero than a superhero (the closest thing he has to a superpower is the ability to be an almighty asshole), the Green Hornet is not actually a likeable figure in quite the usual way Hollywood protagonists tend to be. But, partner/sidekick Kato is. Balancing out assholery with endearment the duo work decidedly well: structure and subversion standing side by side.

Visually it is a veritable feast, and The Green Hornet takes Kristin Thompson’s theorising of cinematic excess to its farthest extreme: to the point where style actually becomes a character in the film – a mocking, self-reflexive one at that. Revealing artifice as substance for an entire class of insolent wankers, The Green Hornet is stupendously entertaining at every turn. Blatant in its depiction of bougie blasé, it is no coincidence that the costume for our wealthy dumb-ass is quite so literally the colour of money. Outstanding stuff.

The Green Hornet is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday January 20 through Sony Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Natalie Portman gives her finest onscreen performance as Nina Sayers, a young ballerina who has, until now, always been a great technical dancer with incredible dedication and discipline. Straight-laced, and having lived a sheltered life at the hands of her controlling mother, Erica (Barbara Hershey), Nina is also ambitious. Like any performer, she is driven by the desire to not only achieve but also to embody perfection. When long-standing prima ballerina Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) is to be replaced – an inevitable fate for an aging ballerina – the company’s artistic director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassell) casts Nina in the leading role, but, not without hesitation. Although he believes she absolutely embodies the White Swan; elegant, innocent, graceful; he labels her “too frigid” to play the darker side of the Swan Queen, the Black Swan. As such, Nina is, from the outset, anxious about the role and determined to achieve something in self-discovery that will prove her skeptics wrong. When the equally beautiful and certainly as talented Lily (Mila Kunis) joins the ballet Nina becomes irrationally scared of being replaced (a symptom of her guilt felt in replacing Beth) and begins to project the manifestation of all her anxieties onto Lily; slowly, and then psychotically. Whilst in reality Lily poses little threat to Nina and if anything, offers only friendship and support, this is the first of many in Nina’s erratic and delusional interpretations of events.

Though it is certainly true that Aronofsky paints with broad strokes in terms of the motifs to indicate light and dark, rigid and free, it is a very detailed and accomplished contrast that is drawn. From the pastel pinks and delicate jewellery Nina wears, right down to how tightly she secures her bun, she is always shown as a picture of aspiring perfection. Conversely, Lily wears black, adorns herself with chunky bangles, bags and an iPod, and lets her hair down even in rehearsal. But it is not so simple as Nina being “good” and Lily being “bad”. Far from it, Lily is actually a beacon for what Nina must aspire to: a freer, more natural self. In fact, even with Nina’s sexual awakening and her performative journey blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, her taking on the role of the Black Swan is a positive, emancipatory experience. Finally freeing herself from the little girl who turns to mummy for every little thing and finally engaging in something of a life outside of her own discipline and rigidity, Nina’s partial submission to her binary opposite, though difficult and even traumatic, is both healthier and liberating.

For the viewer, as it is for Nina onscreen, the certainty of what is real and what is imaginary becomes increasingly indistinct. This lack of clarity is Aronofsky’s presentation of the grey area. As Nina allows chaos into her life the previous order begins to break down. However, it is not the case that she ever truly gives in to it and ultimately the rigid version of herself, driven to perfection, still reigns. She says early on in the film, before her encounter with the opposite, “I just wanna be perfect”. Dancing the White Swan she stumbles; dancing the Black Swan she flourishes. Returning to both her real self and the White Swan, reality is restored. Nina realises that the freedom she experienced from herself existed for only a moment onstage and that she is now, as she ever was, incarcerated in a prison she built for herself. Achieving, however fleeting, the culmination of two binary opposites working at so beautifully both against and with one another, Nina reached the summit of perfection: “I felt it. I’m perfect. It was perfect.”

The last note is bittersweet: perfection is reached through destruction. The break down of hierarchy within these binary opposites creates an internal implosion whereby union can only result in the annihilation of one. The White Swan, Nina’s troubled, ill self is tragically what persists and though she is content, having reached perfection, its resonant lesson is deafening: perfection is imperfect. An engaging and visceral presentation of thoughtful thematics, Black Swan is as ambitious, and as perfect, as its lead.

Black Swan is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday January 20 through Twentieth Century Fox.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

As “Survival Guides” are dropped from helicopters with less physical but equal psychological impact upon the people and the landscape, Maria (brilliantly and effortlessly performed by Isabelle Huppert) maintains her resolve and insists that her family stay and fight to harvest their crops. The political situation is beautifully and perfectly mirrored by the volatile landscape, elucidating the idea that the white colonial inhabitants will “grow mediocre coffee that we’d [Indigenous Africans] never drink” and that “It was already too late when you [white French colonialists] built it.”

The titled “white material” is explained twice in the film and, for a land metaphorically castrated the “material” in question, it is understandably displaced (in a distinctly Freudian way) onto an object: a lighter in this instance, described as “just white material”. The second explanation comes via a radio broadcast that re-directs this earlier displacement back onto the people whose culture and objects have impressed, negatively, upon the land, “As for the white material, the party’s over. No more cocktails on shaded verandas while we sweat water and blood.” The contrast here between natural elements such as “water and blood” and constructed materials such as the lighter and then the cocktails and shaded verandas successfully communicates the way in which Indigenous culture is at odds with forced occupation and the seizing of natural resources, namely the now irrevocably altered landscape.

Furthermore, the film brilliantly weaves in an incredible exploration of melancholia (again in a Freudian understanding of the term), whereby the response to the loss of something one never really had ownership of and that hasn’t actually died, but has nonetheless been lost, produces psychosis. This psychosis is explored through the character Manuel (Maria’s son), a boy born in Africa but of French identity; his masculinity and his identity symbolically stripped.

The subtle and respectful ways in which Denis explores such explosive and complicated issues is admirable; her stylistic and narrative choices always carefully crafted with aplomb. A tonally masterful film, White Material‘s communicable affect is at once devastating and poignant. Posing a series of ethical questions yet never so arrogant as to answer them, this is an astounding piece of work that deserves both attention and acclaim.

White Material screens in Melbourne from Friday January 14 – Wednesday February 2, 2011 at ACMI.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Taking into consideration Mulvey’s theoretical exploration of how scopophilia (looking as a source of pleasure) and identification (recognition/misrecognition and the viewer’s subjective formation of the “I” predicated upon Lacanian psychoanalysis) are significant in understanding spectatorial positionings, it is curious as to how the female viewer (and here I am specifically concerned with the alignment of the heterosexual female gaze) might access a contemporary film such as Burlesque.

Following the same fame-seeking story you’ve no doubt seen before (most notably Coyote Ugly, 2000), Burlesque follows a young waitress as she escapes the boredom of a small-town and buys a one-way ticket to the magical world of glitz and glamour in L.A. Stumbling upon a struggling, independent burlesque joint she starts waiting tables, watching and learning the routines of the other young women who are already erotic objects, valued for their “to-be-looked-at-ness”. Having looked at them long enough to quite literally mimic them, she is finally allowed to audition. From here, our scrawny white girl protagonist, Ali (Christina Aguilera), wins over ice-maiden and burlesque mama, Tess (Cher), first with her watchability, then with her body, then her incredible pipes and lastly, her indomitable spirit.

Whilst the premise is both simple and formulaic it is also a little disturbing, not least because it perpetuates the current myth of celebrity culture suggesting that the female viewer align themselves with Ali because we all want to be “special”, “talented” and to achieve “fortune and fame”. It’s not that I am advocating the crushing of dreams exactly, but it ought to be said that the majority of us, by very definition, are not “special”, many of us are far from “talented”, and we most certainly will not all reach the dizzying heights of “fortune and fame”. With this statement of relatively plain fact and an understanding of how women are rendered passive for an active male gaze it is difficult to see how a female viewer might “identify” with either of the film’s female leads.

Ali, certainly an erotic object in the first instance, undeniably present for her “to-be-looked-at-ness”, described as having “a body that could stop a truck” and dressed, made-up and performing her gender at every visual opportunity, is hardly successful based on her “talent” alone. Furthermore, her “success” progresses at an equal rate to her appeal to the male characters onscreen. For a heterosexual female viewer who cannot align her gaze with that of the onscreen male characters nor identify with a character who harbours vocal and visual talents, and who has little to no interest in themselves becoming a spectacle, access to the images beyond bemusement seems impossible.

Absolutely fitting Mulvey’s critique, Burlesque is not dissimilar to early musicals of the ’40s and ’50s insofar as the role of “woman as spectacle” is concerned; “Women displayed as sexual object is the leit-motiff of erotic spectacle: from pin-ups to strip-tease, from Ziegfeld to Busby Berkeley, she holds the look, plays to and signifies male desire.” As a decidedly erotic object for screen characters and viewers alike, “the device of the show-girl allows the two looks to be unified technically without any apparent break in the diegesis.” And yet there is still nowhere for the female viewer to look during the film’s two-hour run-time.

Resultantly it stands to reason that the film hopes to capture the standard male gaze and likely too the queer gaze. But wait, isn’t this film aimed at women? As I have already alluded to, with the advent of celebrity culture, the female gaze has become displaced and so, a generation of female viewers concerned with body image and a form of success that comes from embodying the spectacle, align themselves with Ali, who looks first at the women performing their gender with envy and admiration, and who then steps into her own gaze. Thus, the intended female gaze for Burlesque is narcissistic in the first instance as the viewer is invited to desire their own gaze. This is essentially what Teresa de Lauretis theorises as a “double-identification” whereby the female viewer identifies simultaneously with the active male gaze (voyeurism, fetishistic scopophilia) and the passive female image (her “to-be-looked-at-ness”), so that they are actually “seduced” by the female image onscreen. Cruel and coercive in its seduction, it seems to me that this is precisely how celebrity culture and fame fascination work which is why Burlesque will face no obstacle in finding and seducing its target audience.

However, being myself a female viewer who is certainly and most happy to accept being average, I have no idea how to access the presentation of a series of images that intend to render me passive. A self-professed cognitivist, and with no personal desire to ever become an erotic object or spectacle for either the male or female gaze, my own viewing experience of Burlesque was one of first bemusement and second curiosity. Simultaneously fascinated and alienated by the experience, the most interesting thing this film throws up is the idea that the contemporary female gaze is narcissistic in the first instance. And whilst I still look most forward to when Hollywood find a way to capture the active female gaze, I suppose I ought to take as my consolation their admittance that it even exists.

Burlesque is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday January 13 through Sony Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

The Dilemma (2011) is one such film that parades itself as a typical Hollywood comedy, yet really is far more concerned with communicating heartfelt conservativism. That is to say that the film promotes typically conservative values through a guise of unconventional emotive integrity with the occasional bit of light comic relief thrown in – something that acts as an intermittent distraction from its, at times, questionable central politics.

The premise is straight forward: Ronny Valentine (Vince Vaughn) and Nick Brannen (Kevin James) are best friends and business partners, they are on the verge of the single greatest deal of their professional lives but, just as Ronny is about to pluck up the courage and committment to finally propose to girlfriend Beth (Jennifer Connelly), he learns that Geneva (Winona Ryder) is cheating on best friend Brannen. What to do? Tell him and risk the emotional impact of what could be the deal of a lifetime, or, stay quiet until things quieten down and hope Geneva will come clean first? Where the premise provides only a simplistic dilemma, the film’s moral project assumes the responsibility of a far more difficult one: conservativism or comedy?

Constantly reinforcing the value of honesty and the sanctity of marriage, The Dilemma is concerned with the contemporary demise of such values and the instigative motivators at play. With dialogue that confirms the significance of such institutions as, “Pop the question or you’re going to lose her” and “You’re forty years old and not married, go fix yourself”, The Dilemma surprisingly doesn’t place blame on infidelity alone, and rather takes into consideration extraneous factors such as professional pressures and personal issues.

Beginning with a conversation about how well you can ever truly know someone and exploring the idea that everyone keeps something secret from the loved ones around them, The Dilemma wants to expose the personal in favour of the public. Suggesting full disclosure is the only acceptable route for personal happiness and ultimate resolution, it seems that we are to take from the film, insofar as moralising goes, that relationships are the pinnacle of a contented life and that if you can resolve issues that disrupt those sacred bonds then you can achieve just about anything.

Disappointingly, the film goes on to normalise heterosexuality and unfortunately uses the term “gay” in a derogatory way as if it were an equivalent term for “lame”. There are also some rather uncomfortable scenes with Queen Latifah whose racial stereotyping acts as a strange allowance for the white people in the film to “understandably” be at first taken aback by her approach and finally endeared to it in an overwhelmingly patronising way; the “acceptance” of her difference ultimately provided through a sort of “tolerance”.

Finally, and this is to the film’s credit, The Dilemma allows its female characters a certain ounce of agency and the performances given by both Connelly and Ryder are both convincing and demonstrative of their exemplary talents. There are too, scenes in the film that are genuinely well executed such as the “intervention” scene where successful dialogue and strong performances come together well. These scenes however, are inconsistent within the context of the film as a whole and there are equal instances where greater editing would have saved onscreen rambling from becoming communicable awkwardness (namely the scenes where Vince Vaughn is overdoing the “Vaughn” he has so labored over the years).

An occasionally affecting and an at least thoughtful presentation of albeit conservative politics, The Dilemma thinks outside the typical buddy or bromance parameters, though it ultimately leaves little else than heteronormative propaganda in its wake.

The Dilemma is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday January 13 through Universal Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Yogi Bear (2010) follows a simple enough storyline whereby the selfish, feckless Mayor  Brown (played to great comic effect by Andrew Daly) has impoverished city funds through dodgy personal expenses and now needs to find a quick cash injection to cover his ass before the upcoming election. Deciding to sell-off the beautiful but too empty too often Jellystone Park to loggers, Ranger Smith (Tom Cavanagh), along with; nature enthusiast/documentary filmmaker and love-interest Rachel (Anna Faris), Yogi (voiced by Dan Aykroyd) and his loveable sidekick Boo Boo (voiced by Justin Timberlake); must find a way to stop them. The “message” in the film is both simple and acceptable enough as it promotes the preservation of natural wildlife, suggesting natural environments and sustainability are preferable to primarily capitalist concerned city spaces. It may not have the subtlety or nuance of a Studio Ghibli film (whose “messages” are similar) or even the technical nouse of the admittedly more adult-aimed Where the Wild Things Are (2009), expressly using CGI for the two lead bears, but, as kids’ film, it is certainly harmless and entertaining enough.

What’s most interesting however, is that the film is presented in 3D. With so many recent 3D presentations being children’s films it is evidently the case that studios are indeed serious about continued use of the technology. The only reason they would continue to pitch it at children is if they are hoping for its longevity. Whilst many adults (and critics) remain suspect about the success of the medium, an entire generation are already being trained to see in this way. It is also worth noting that they manufacture a smaller size in 3D glasses now to cater specifically for young children. Whilst my own nephews failed to keep their glasses on for the duration (it was after all their very first time in a cinema and the film itself is short and sweet with a run-time of just eighty minutes), it certainly seemed that a majority of the children in the audience did so with aplomb. And whilst a far cry from the cartoon of my own, now all but forgotten childhood, Yogi Bear, insofar as capturing its target audience is concerned, seemed to me, smarter than the average film.

Yogi Bear is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday January 13 through Roadshow Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

The opening credits combine atmospheric framing of large freight trains and slowed camera work to infer stilted time. Here, it is made clear that temporality in Unstoppable will be subject to both ellipsis and screen-time manipulation. This is probably the film’s most disappointing undoing. Trains, and “railway time”; being the literal vehicle through which the Victorians actually set social order with regard to standardising time across Britain; it is a great loss to see a film whose subject matter is primarily concerned with a race-against-the-clock premise, fail to make effective use of temporal tension. A “real-time”, or even just a better defined screen-time, explanation of the gathering momentum of the runaway train might have afforded the film with tighter, and therefore more gripping, parameters.

Whilst there is some indication that “age” and “time” are significant, illustrated through the contrasting of the “old timers” who work at the rail yard and the fresh out of training enthusiastic but wet behind the ears kids, the contrast fails to achieve much beyond a nod to existence. Similarly, a group of small school children about to enjoy a train journey scream out in unison, “What time is train time?!!” and yet, again, this is far as the inference goes. Ultimately, each time the film indicates or alludes to the importance of time it fails to operate as anything beyond acknowledgement. Subsequently, the film is very much lacking in interesting subtext and insofar as theoretical content is concerned, the film is entirely empty.

That said, there is definitely a superficial thread that is concerned with the way in which automated operating systems and corporate moguls pose a considerable danger to a physically laborious profession. This is well illustrated through juxtaposing incompetent characters against the proverbial old-timers whose years of experience and good old-fashioned know-how is the only thing that can possibly slow and stop the train. Under-appreciated and facing redundancy, the old-timers prove to be the backbone of the industry and, working with a new generation, they can apparently achieve astounding results.

Finally, it’s all a little too heartwarming and there are a couple of side narratives established to support the central characters’ back stories, but neither are engaging enough to warrant more than a mention here. Denzel Washington and Chris Pine do a decent job performing almost two-dimensional characters and Rosario Dawson deserves credit for remembering to act even in the moments where the film abandons tone. If you’re interested in trains, time or engineering this film will likely disappoint but, if you want to see a short, loud explosive journey with character depth and thematics as an optional sideline, then it absolutely reaches its planned destination.

Unstoppable is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday January 6 through 20th Century Fox.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Where audiences once went along to cinemas to see subversive content and innovative, artistic aesthetic modes of expressing that content, they now seem to go along in the hope that they can “ironically” enjoy something that is “so bad it is good”. Considering the original “midnight movies” (George A Romeo’s Night of the Living Dead 1968, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo 1970, John Waters’ Pink Flamingos 1972, Perry Henzell’s The Harder They Come 1972, Jim Sharman & Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show 1975, and David Lynch’s Eraserhead 1977) and their strong anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian, anti-segregation aesthetic and moral projects, it almost seems as though contemporary efforts at cult are closer to being subject to a universalizing neo-liberalism than they are to counter-cultural intent.

As was the case with The Room, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus (2009) is a film that has little to “say” and unlike the “bad taste” aesthetics attributed to the likes of John Waters, the “bad taste” here is bad “bad taste” and the only pleasure that an audience can derive from the viewing experience comes from derision in the first instance. Whilst low-budget aesthetics and a lack of formal sophistication might well be consistent with early forms of cult cinema it is difficult to reconcile that what was traditionally set up in opposition to the mainstream is now consumed very much in accordance with the mainstream. Certainly it is a lot harder to go along to a screening these days where you risk arrest than it was in the early 1970s and there is always in affording the resistant past with such intense nostalgia the risk of subsequently romanticising the oppression that it necessarily fought against, neither of which I am suggesting are desirable. However, what I am suggesting is that the risk only came because audiences were engaging in an actual act of subversion which is something that seems now to be entirely lost.

To return to the film at hand, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus is a low-budget, bad bad taste film that ultimately has as little subversive imagination as it has production values. And where this film has its greatest success is in itself becoming a type of ideological state apparatus. To explain that: in selling itself as a cult film that offers a contemporary version of cult cinema, the “event” of viewing this film appears to give audiences an outlet for revelry (much like Chaucer describes the annual revelry allowed to the masses during medieval times). However this outlet only further acts as an oppressant as it allows audiences to engage in the belief that they no longer need to rebel.

Now, what this means for audiences who want to attend Cinema Nova’s “Cult Cravings” remains to be seen. Certainly with enough alcohol and surrounded by good friends this can no doubt be an entertaining and enjoyable cinema experience. But as enjoyable or even as raucous as it has the potential to be, there is no doubt in my mind that without any real political or social subversion at play, it can never really satiate the true appetite of a “cult craving”.

Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus screens exclusively in Melbourne at Cinema Nova through Sharmill Films.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Whilst it is undoubtedly true that the music itself stands strong “against time” (so to speak), it is also true that The Doors are a band, and that their music is an output, that captures something significant of its own time. Perhaps the very reason it resonates still today is that what it captured was a transient and hopeful moment never fully realised; its relevancy today, therefore, permeating and immovable.

Refreshingly for a documentary about so famous a group as The Doors, Dicillo doesn’t go down the tired and frankly rather fruitless line of “talking heads” and instead uses fine filmmaking craft to find the most piercing way to start a story: “The sixties began with a shot.” Tracing from here the events and awakenings of the time, Dicillo moves from the assassination of John F. Kennedy through the Civil Rights Movement and up to the Vietnam War. Commenting upon whilst chartering these significant events, When You’re Strange is as much about historically significant values and moments of cultural change as it is the band. Dicillo doesn’t just pose history as a backdrop for their advent to fame but rather as the symbiotic, organic relationship that evolved between the two; “The establishment exists but a genuine counter-culture is growing.”

Making full use of remarkable stock footage of the band playing gigs as well of their fans and contemporaries, When You’re Strange is told simultaneously through voice-over narration and musical progression. A surprisingly rare feat for a music documentary, When You’re Strange actually considers the quality and aspects of their music and why that was not only unique but how it engaged and informed their displays of revelry and the carnivalesque in relation to the emerging counter-culture of the time. There is of course a tendency towards focus on Jim Morrison above other members of the band, but at no time does the film ignore the other three members; John Densmore, Robby Krieger,  Ray Manzarek; in preference of the notorious front man, always ensuring the focus is in relation to his effect on the group as a whole.

Contemplating violence as an American tradition and with the advent of Richard Nixon to the presidency, the film culminates in an extraordinarily moving montage set to “Riders on the Storm”. Contrasting war footage and an all-American child on the home front swinging like a monkey set perfectly to the lyric “let your children play”, When You’re Strange highlights how mimicry can lead to devastation. Revealing how political unrest ebbs and flows between counter-culture and conservatism just as artistic expression moves between its own motivating forces, When You’re Strange is never over dramatised or condescending to its audience and allows the incredible imagery and music of its subject to do so much of “the talking”. That said, the film is still scripted and operates as an “informative” documentary in the first instance, the dulcet tones of Johnny Depp narrating and guiding the experience. A fantastic documentary that reveals compelling subject matter, this is certainly one to make time for.

When You’re Strange: A Film About the Doors is screening exclusively as part of an ACMI’s long-play season from December 27 2010 to January 3 2011 and is distributed through Madman Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Grey, cold and misty, the film successfully creates a visual environment that mirrors the isolated, unfulfilled emotions of its lead. Unable to conquer his own subconscious blocks and break free from his debilitating speech impediments, King George is about ready to give up and, with the advent of his elder brother to the throne, hope for a life free from public speaking. Despite his lack of ambition and overcompensating inhibitions, wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), is far from ready to give up and has found an unconventional Australian man who thinks he can cure the future King.

Demonstrating blatant disregard for formal etiquette, calling the future King by his familiar name “Bertie” and refusing to do not only as is advised, but often as he is told, Lionel speaks audaciously but honestly, “I need total equality”, to which Bertie quite frankly replies, “If we were equal, I wouldn’t be here.” Reinforcing the formal structures the monarchy is built upon, we further learn the royals do not even consider themselves a “family” in the traditional sense most of us might understand the term; “we’re not a family, we’re a firm.”

With his brother renouncing the throne due to scandal in his personal life and in accordance with George’s increasing confidence, the film works towards not only the proverbial “King’s speech”, but the events that follow as war breaks out first across Europe and then the world. The tension in this respect builds brilliantly and culminates in an incredibly moving final sequence not because of the difficulty the King has in making the speech but because of the weight of his words and the known atrocity of what will follow.

Brilliantly paced throughout and leaving its viewer with no uncertain understanding of the prescribed order of things, The King’s Speech is an achievement in subtlety and communicable affect. Ironically and wonderfully the film indicates how those in positions of power can’t ever be considered our equals as they must, in the very least, appear stoic and strong for the social classes they appear to deny. When such inhumane horror strikes a nation, there must be someone to look to for strength and guidance, irregardless of their being a construct of ideology and semiotics. Engaging viewing with brilliant performances across the board.

The King’s Speech is released in Australian cinemas on Boxing Day, Sunday December 26 through Paramount Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Opening with a drawn-out static look at part of a race track where a black Ferrari intermittently speeds past, Somewhere establishes that location is not important and that our protagonist lives life in a quite literal “fast lane”. From here, the film follows a slow week or so in Johnny’s life (the exact period is inconsequential as Coppola is clearly interested in distilling time to mirror the listlessness of her central character), where he reveals himself to be just as uninteresting as the visual of his car repeatedly and pointlessly driving cyclically by.

Receiving occasional anonymous text messages that ask questions akin to “Why are you such an asshole?”, we are to take from this film that Johnny’s conscience, and possibly even his subconscious, are finally catching up with him. Unsurprisingly this is explored through a popular, technological medium seeing as he is – once again and all together now – detached from humanity, included in that, himself.

Whilst there are wonderful formal moments within in the film, including a sound scape so crisp that you can literally hear the embers of a cigarette catch light as it is inhaled, these moments feel artificial. And they continue to fail to pierce the viewer, resulting in an experience that provides ultimate appreciation for craft but remains unaffecting on either emotional or cognitive levels, rendering the film passive in reception.

The sadness and superficiality of the strip-teases he repeatedly pays to fall asleep whilst watching, contrasted with the warmth and natural affection of his time spent with his daughter, is all too easy and forces the viewer to “watch” rather than “engage” with the content of the film. Far from fond of Sofia Coppola’s oeuvre for its preferencing of style over, or rather in place of, substance, Somewhere is yet another film that demonstrates remarkable technical craftsmanship but leaves very little (much like her subjects) to be desired. But perhaps this is her intention and the absolute lack of engaging content is her way of demonstrating the full extent of the vacuity of her subjects. Either way, the film invites a passive rather than active cognitive viewing process and as such communicates its vapid intent far too entirely.

Somewhere is released in Australian cinemas on Boxing Day, Sunday December 26, through Universal Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

With opening credits that offered artistic vision and an interesting take on constructed images, it seemed at first glimpse as though this might actually be a film filled with charming panache. Sadly, what follows is a peculiar rendering of crass comedy mixed with odd storytelling and more pointless than poignant pop culture referencing, ad nauseam.

Gulliver (Jack Black) is an immature and pop-culture obsessed regular kinda guy who works in the mailroom at the New York Tribune. Quietly and shamefully in love with the beautiful, confident and successful Darcy (Amanda Peet), he somehow stumbles upon a three-week travel writing assignment to the Bermuda Triangle (after failing to ask her out and by applying for the job with plagiarized writing samples no less). Forgiving the set up and accepting the suspension of disbelief (if you’re able) you then find yourself transported to an alternate reality and the miniature kingdom of Liliput. Here Gulliver undergoes a series of failures and successes in a weak exploration of an uninventive and far from engaging character arc.

Leaving the particulars of the “plot” at that to focus more on the peculiarities of its execution, there is little about this film that lives up its epic title. Aside from its impressive set design, Gulliver’s Travels leaves little to be desired. From a close-up 3D vision of Jack Black’s bum crack to his pissing out a fire, this film can’t honestly be aimed at adults. Not quite a kids’ flick and not even a “dude flick”, Gulliver’s Travels is quite likely aimed at the stoner audience who enjoyed last year’s Land of the Lost (2009).

With a central relationship that neither works nor makes sense and with Emily Blunt either forgetting or not caring how to act, it is nothing short of a Christmas miracle that this film found its way to the big screen. The use of 3D starts off relatively well but somewhere along the way appears to have been abandoned like so much interest in engaging an audience. Unsure as to exactly what it was I had just watched, Gulliver’s Travels left me utterly bemused. Strange, if inconsequential, viewing.

Gulliver’s Travels is released in Australian cinemas on Boxing Day, Sunday December 26, through 20th Century Fox.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

The premise adheres to a standard rom-com paradigm whereby a beautiful, rich, young woman, Juliette Van Der Becq (Vanessa Paradis) is about to marry “the wrong man”; an equally rich and charming young man named Jonathan Alcott (played by This Life‘s Andrew Lincoln). Juliette’s father then hires our “heartbreaker” in question, Alex Lippi (Romain Duris) to put a stop to their impending nuptials. As you would expect, Lippi, who breaks up unseemly couples for a scant living with the aid of his sister and her husband, falls for sweet Juliette and a great, comic romance ensues. This all sounds decidedly standard, so why exactly did I take to this film when I so dislike other films of this ilk?

Well, that would be down to the “Frenchness” of it all. Firstly, our “wrong man” character is English and, as someone who can sort of lay claim to Englishness, I found the French dislike of this seemingly perfect, yet far too upper class, Oxbridge-humanitarian-toff-like man immensely amusing. Furthermore, Lippi’s “job” as a heartbreaker is so loaded with excessive cliché that it actually reaches the realms of self-reflexivity from time to time (an early scene involving white doves illustrates this beautifully). It is also the specific absurdities of the film that caught me pleasantly by surprise; the idea of eating Roquefort for breakfast and the incomprehensibly unkind yet still silly slapstick treatment of Juliette’s slutty best friend.

Finally, what’s best about this film is Romain Duris’ quality comic timing. Far better suited to intense, gritty roles in films such as Jacques Audiard’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped (De Battre Mon Coeur S’est Arrêté, 2005), Duris’ goofy smile is so wildly out-of-place here that it is almost impossible not to stifle at least a wee giggle if not a galant gaffaw every time he flashes his pearly whites.

Certainly not a film with too much intelligent subtext, Heartbreaker is a refreshingly funny rom-com that provides the kind of foolish entertainment any half-way decent comedy ought.

Heartbreaker is released in Australian cinemas on Boxing Day, Sunday December 26, through Hopscotch Films.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Opening with a young girl – who clearly represents innocence and honesty – screaming for her lost dog it is clear from the outset that this film is concerned with love and loss. Comforted somewhat by her father, her protector and friend, the young girl can still be shielded to some extent from the bitter truth life holds. The same however, cannot be said for the child’s mother who is the unfortunate party to later find the dog laying dead by the side of the road. With the parameters for pain and protection now set, Blue Valentine pulls its focus from the child, and even the “family unit” it has established, and sets in upon the relationship that tenuously still exists between partners and parents Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams).

Carefully and subtly looking at the unequal and uncontrollable ways in which love, romance, stability and necessity move in and out of a relationship, each alternately becoming the driving force, Blue Valentine‘s greatest achievement is in its telling of such a story from simultaneously within, and outside of, their relationship. As their love begins to break down its temporal trajectory is ruptured and the entire relationship folds in upon itself, disrupting notions of time and memory. To this end, the “flash back” sequences to the early days when they began dating are not so much there to contrast an earlier hope with their now despair but rather operate just as one’s living memory does: simultaneously and often abstractly informed, but never restricted by, the confines of linear time.

As the film progresses and the fabric of their connection deteriorates the wonderfully written dialogue echoes the complete lack of understanding that comes along with an unwanted break-up, “How do you trust your feelings when they just disappear like that?” But what really drives this film, and what is an absolute credit to the very craft of acting, are the central performances from Williams and Gosling; their connection amongst the most believable I have ever seen onscreen. Their passion – all the way from love to hate – is so affecting and even palpable that it would be impossible not to feel for the characters even if you are (arguably) fortunate enough never to have had a relationship like theirs.

From the discarding of past memories; shown beautifully through the characters’ relationships with elderly people who have to leave some of their affected belongings behind; to the bleak and depressing vision of their “future”; painfully rendered through a sequence where the pair attempt to repair their damaged love via a stay in a cheap hotel where they literally gain a glimpse of how things would continue in their stay in the aptly named “future room” – the film successfully demonstrates how a relationship, even in its demise, remains subject to “feeling”, however fleeting and returning that may be, rather than any linear construction of events. A wonderful portrayal of emotive content crafted through innovative film form, Blue Valentine is set to become the greatest contemporary love story of recent times.

Blue Valentine is released in Australian cinemas on Boxing Day – Sunday December 26 through Palace Films.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

What interests me most about IMAX 3D is its relationship to the historical real and the way in which it uses immersion to enhance the comprehension of filmic content rather than just offer an entertaining experience in the first instance. With the recent spate of 3D films including a lot of crappy 2D to 3D conversion and an inordinate number of kids flicks I’ve been concerned for some time now that the medium would be lost to gimmick and glamour forever, subsequently failing to explore its more fascinating and significant relationship with tracing the historical real. Thankfully, Tron: Legacy has, in a compelling and incredibly innovative way, restored its trajectory to thinking through the links between history and experience and how any visual representation of the former requires comprehensive formal consideration to elucidate the theoretical and narrative ideas it holds.

The original Tron (1982), in addition to being a childhood favourite for many a now adult who grew up in the ’80s, is an incredible vision, and subsequent historical document of what I like to call the “future past”. The “future past” in film is a depiction of futurism that documents a contextual comprehension of what the future might either look like or the capabilities they are expected of it, and thus, necessarily, it becomes immediately after depiction, itself a document of the past. Tron: Legacy is one film that I am absolutely certain will, like its original, come to be a document of its own contextual “future past”. However, with Tron: Legacy (and indeed even Tron to some extent) the depiction of the “future past” is not so much in theorising how we might live in the future or what technological advancements might mean to society so much as it is a continuation of the contemplation surrounding interactivity and where it is that escapism intersects with real life.

The idea that both films are predicated upon concerns sharing of or access to information. Given the technological revolution called the Internet that has arrived in homes during the time spanning the two films’ release dates, notions of sharing and access have never been more relevant concerns. The issue addressed however is mostly to do with the relational converse: control. All systems of power are built upon a relational set up and so for there even to be a question of “sharing” or “access” there must first be a structure that prevents this.

Mirroring so very many times throughout the film are the structures of the real world  - where corporations and authoritative figures are in control – and the structures of “the Grid” (itself a mirror image of the “games” played in the real world) where multiple mirror imagings occur; its own creator up against an image of himself. But perhaps most significant is his inability to return to the real world and even to any longer engage in the confines of his own creation. Set aside and decidedly “off the grid” both Kevin Flynn and his son Sam (Garrett Hedlund) occupy liminal spaces between reality and fantasy. Prior to entering the Grid, we have seen Sam as an outcast who has made a “home” for himself based upon extraction from the human world and their prescribed rules. The company in which he is the major shareholder, Encom, is nothing more than a bankrolling joke to him. In a wonderfully indicative bike chase sequence early on we see Sam ride in the real world as he will once he enters the Grid: recklessly and with enough balls and abandon to physically ride off an overpass, breaking the established barriers.

Just as Sam breaks through established barriers within the narrative; hacking into Encom’s system and posting their technology for all the world to see and passing through the boundaries between the real world and the digital one; Tron: Legacy itself repeatedly breaks cinematic boundaries, creating yet another mirror between form and content. From using the most visceral and immersive thirty or forty seconds of 3D I have ever seen in cinema as its opening shot (this honestly feels more like a simulator ride than a static viewing experience), to seven times in the film expanding the dimensions of the IMAX screen to allow for an enhanced and enlarged view of the spectacle, to seamlessly switching between 2D and 3D as and when the effects call for it yet never appearing gimmicky or clunky in doing so, Tron: Legacy is an exemplary exercise in experimenta.

But returning to the narrative of the film and its relation to an historical real, there is one character in the film, Quorra (Olivia Wilde) who represents a new phase in the human/digital (r)evolution. Her role and what she represents suggests an internal evolution within gaming and the digital world. The implications of this are astronomical, particularly as she transcends the barrier between the real world and the Grid, leaving the film with “integration” as its final frontier. What Tron: Legacy is tracing here is the fascinating move from an historical document (Tron) to its conceived progression (Tron: Legacy) which then charters the transcendence of the real to computer generating and digital enhancement, through an onscreen evolutionary event and back to the real (diegetic) world. Both spatially and temporally this is an entirely new way of viewing historical representation and yet so wonderfully is in and of itself an historical document as it suggests to us; its own vision of the future for “user interactivity”, human/digital integration and a move beyond understanding history as a series of “events” and into understanding history as a constant, evolving process that occurs across a multitude of platforms and instantaneously through communicable affect. Whilst I appreciate it can be said of any film that it is in and of itself an historical document of one form or another, Tron: Legacy is unique in that its central call for viewing and experiencing cinema is as an onscreen process of evolution in interactivity, not just technologically speaking, but also with regards to the very linear understanding we hold towards historical discourse.

“Sometimes life has a way of moving you past life and hope.” is what Kevin Flynn tells Sam towards the film’s end and I would venture that sometimes cinema has a way of moving its audiences past traditional and expected viewing experiences and the hope for what they might achieve. Tron: Legacy is not only an incredible and deeply affecting experience in immersive IMAX 3D (and it would remiss of me not to at least mention how truly awesome the Daft Punk soundtrack is at achieving a large proportion of that affect), but it is also a pioneering film for our continued understanding not only of modes of viewing experience, but also the way in which they construct contextual comprehension. Aware of itself to the last, Tron: Legacy is a signpost for what cinema can be and it is one of the most beautiful visions I have ever seen.

Tron: Legacy is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday December 16 but despite wherever else it might be playing there is only one way to see this film and that is in immersive IMAX with 3D. For Melbournian readers of LV, you can see Tron: Legacy at the Melbourne Museum IMAX in Carlton and I implore you to do so.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

• Matthew Crompton
• Martin Steers
• Sarah Ward
• Joe Kim

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Below is an excerpt from my MIFF review of Splice (you can access the full review here.)

“Two young, top of their game, and very much in love scientists, Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley), ignore the forbidding from their superiors and the “moral implications” of it all, and go ahead and splice together human and animal DNA. But motivated by more than just the science of the thing, the resultant spawn, Dren (Delphine Chaneac) becomes more like a deformed daughter to them than the subject of a scientific experiment, culminating in a whole lot more than they bargained for during her “coming of age” style awakening…. At its best a form of flattery for the likes of Peter Jackson and David Cronenberg in its comic gross-out moments … Splice (2009) is a successfully commercial, fun horror-schlock flick.”

To win one of 2 DVDs and 2 Blu-rays of this film please send an email naming your favourite David Cronenberg film to midnightmovies@live.co.uk with your full name and postal address and the word ‘Splice’ in the subject header – don’t forget to please also indicate whether you would prefer DVD or Blu-ray. Winners will be picked at random, at the author of this blog’s discretion and all decisions are final.

DVD Special features include; “The Making of Splice”, “The Director’s Playground” and an interview with acclaimed director Vincenzo Natali.

Splice will be available 15 December 2010 (on DVD $29.95RRP and Blu-ray $39.95RRP) through Madman Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

In spite of the film being formally very good; from cinematography to effects the film is highly successful in creating a cohesive “world” via aesthetic atmosphere; and whilst the idea for the story is joyously wicked, I couldn’t help but feel that the film was tonally flat. Tone, not always the easiest to describe element of a film, as it necessarily pertains to affect and experience, is probably still one of the most significant factors in terms of a film’s communicable success. The problem for Rare Exports then is that a slightly askew demographic affords the film with a bizarre dual-tonality that ultimately wrestles with itself rather than achieving the balance between its dark and heartwarming moments.

Having seen the promotional trailer and posters for the film first I admit I already had it in my head that this was a Christmas film for adult audiences. Expecting a subversive horror/thriller in the first instance, I hadn’t, until about five minutes into the screening, even considered that this might be a kids’ flick. Then, as the film progressed, I realised it wasn’t quite that either. Sitting somewhere between family friendly and mature content I spent the remainder of the film trying to align myself with one of these viewer positionings but sadly, to no avail.

Half of the time Rare Exports is a straight up comedy and during these moments it is most certainly aimed at a young audience. Moreover, its central protagonist is a young boy and in focusing on the question of who or what Santa truly is, both its thematics and identificatory standpoints further suggest a young audience. Fine. However, and conversely, the film is for the most part subtitled, includes strong language, has some full frontal male nudity and low-level violence as well as what might be considered “dark” or “sinister” themes – all of which suggest it’s probably a film for more mature audiences. The problem of course is that it flits between the two making the closest thing to a clear target audience: fifteen-year-olds – and that’s one almightily exclusive audience.

Perhaps then the film is, at least in intent, leveled at both (what I suspect to be the “truth”.) And whilst there are moments of genius in the film - hundreds of naked Santa elves running across the snowscape with their tackles dangling in the bitter Lapland breeze is one joyously shocking highlight, as is the film’s allusion to the role mythology plays in establishing collective “truths”, an element I would love to have seen elaborated on – the overall effect is neither chilling nor comforting and, like the fifteen-year-olds I suspect will constitute its greatest fan base, it’s really just that little bit awkward and underdeveloped.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday December 2 through Icon.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Writer/director Patrick Hughes’ first feature film Red Hill (2010) is all about the problematic existence of an introduced species in an Indigenous landscape. There have been reports of “phantom panthers” in Victoria, NSW and WA ever since the end of WWII when an unknown number of black panthers supposedly escaped into our enormous land mass. The panthers are supposedly further responsible for the disappearance and deaths of numerous domestic animals and livestock. In Red Hill the “phantom panther” operates in parallel to the white Europeans (now considered “Australians”) who have also been “introduced” to the land. Like the panther, they too are responsible for the disappearance and deaths of numerous Indigenous people and, also like the panther, have been held relatively unaccountable for their violent and destructive actions.

Primarily and thematically, Red Hill is a revenge thriller where a single physical embodiment of our country’s severely wronged Indigenous people comes back, very much like the Freudian “return of the repressed”. For Freud the repressed can never truly be destroyed and will always re-emerge, something we see clearly from one character’s inability to live with himself as the persistent memories of past events haunt his conscience/unconscious. Moreover, when the repressed returns for Freud it is distorted, almost unrecognisable, and our single physical embodiment of this returned repression, Jimmy Conway (Tommy Lewis), is physically disfigured (something that also operates as a literal historical scarring.) Considering Jimmy thusly provides at least a somewhat more preferable understanding as to why protagonist Shane Cooper (Ryan Kwanten) is entirely exempt from the rampage of revenge that ensues. Jimmy (as a symptom of the repressed) only takes his revenge on the men personally responsible for the rape and murder of his pregnant wife and his subsequent incarceration as it is their collective unconscious that recall him and his suffering in the first instance.

Whilst I don’t think anyone would argue that the white men gunned down in this film aren’t absolutely deserving of their ill fates, there might be some viewers who find the depiction of Jimmy to verge a little on the dangerous side insofar as he is less humanised than Cooper who, despite being an example of yet more useless white people rapidly breeding, appears to be the “hero” of the story. Cooper is characterised as the moral centre of the film and as such the audience is aligned with him as a primary point of identification. A police officer who has moved from the fast pace of city life to a small, quiet country town, he is both slightly inept as an officer – he misplaces his own firearm and is late on his first day of work; and more compassionate than his country folk – he shows ethical resistance to actually pulling the trigger on his gun when faced with a “criminal” hoping that perhaps other, more passive measures can be taken.

However, in characterising Jimmy as less humanist than Cooper I would suggest the film is further illustrating the continued prejudice and adversity our Indigenous people face in what is left of their own country. At the film’s end Jimmy is still held accountable for his actions by white man’s law. The incredible injustice of this inevitability really resonates as we come to realise that the only person for whom there will ever be a future in this country is the white man. Whilst this is not a particularly hopeful ending it is, dare I say, somewhat accurate.

Finally, a shot of the panther looking out onto the vast landscape it finds itself king of reminds us with bitterness that once a species is introduced it is almost impossible to eradicate and certainly its effect on the landscape is absolutely irreversible.

An engaging drama and an important commentary on the horrific history this country will always be haunted by, Red Hill is an impressive film for a first time filmmaker from whom I hope we will see a great deal more.

Red Hill is released in Australian cinemas Thursday November 25 through Sony Pictures.

The Last Exorcism opens with protagonist and exorcist Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) shaving and talking to camera (which is already self-consciously visible from the bathroom mirror reflection) to establish a “documentary aesthetic”. The first section of the film continues in this stylistic manner as it reveals a little about our fraudulent hero. The majority of the Cotton talking to camera sequences operate to establish both him and Him as imposters, often to great comic effect. Cotton tells us, “If you believe in God you have to believe in the devil. Jesus Himself was an exorcist.” And, on contemplating this one last “exorcism” he is about to perform – his way out of what he calls a crisis of faith, “I’m gonna miss this. Maybe I’ll sell real estate.”

Then the film shifts up a gear (much like the aforementioned Behind the Mask) and crosses over from its comedic mockumentary style and becomes an actual horror film for the remainder of its duration. The shift is timely and welcome as, irregardless of how amusing the mockumentary elements are (and they really are, especially the sequence where we are shown the process behind many standard effects used in horror), there is only so long such a technique can sustain itself and its audience’s attention. That said, there are still plenty of laughs to come even within the “horror” scenes themselves.

The performed exorcisms and the possession sequences that follow are suspiciously like the ones seen in The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) (particularly the barn sequence) although the results and the level of tension pitched in this film are much less severe or serious. The final scene in the film (a tonally fitting end for a horror/comedy) is where The Last Exorcism confirms that it was interested primarily in adjusting the levels of tone and pace with the hope at altering well-established, predictable and arguably tired paradigms of audience expectancy. Whilst far from “scary” and not exactly definitive in execution, The Last Exorcism is a lot of fun and comes with an appreciable knowledge and respect for horror-literate audiences.

The Last Exorcism is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday November 25 through Hopscotch Films.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

One of the greatest ways to ensure an audience buys the authenticity of a film is to use documentary or stock TV footage. This technique is especially successful when the footage is woven into the thematic fabric of the film and harmoniously matched with visual graphics (exemplarily explicated at the very end of the film where Liman cuts in graphic match from Naomi Watts’ performance to “real life” footage of Valerie Plame Wilson’s testimony in court.) In the opening titles for the film we are presented with news footage of George Bush and an aural mash-up of non-diegetic music from the Gorillaz layered on top of a spate of diegetic key words that alliterate and are accumulatively onomatopoeic; “scare”, “threat”, “substance”, “security”,  ”terrorist attacks”, “terrorist networks”. Set less than one month after September 11 and engaging in the media frenzy that followed these events, such formal techniques allow audience awareness from the outset; this film is interested in exposing the Bush administration as hysterical and fraudulent. Furthermore, the film is clearly and explicitly aligned with an anti-Iraq occupation political point of view.

In addition to the use of such footage, the drama itself is filmed in two distinctly different styles that play off one another to great effect. When we see Valerie (Naomi Watts) and her husband Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) at home or in a familial/social environment the camera work is static implying peaceful, steady and stable foundations. Conversely, when we see Valerie or Joe in governmental or field agent settings the camera work is often shaky and intrusive which is consciously interrogative implying a great deal of uncertainty and erraticism. This juxtaposition is used to both frame the Wilsons as “good” people of integrity and simultaneously cast doubt over the systems of power that employ them.

Selective use of famous quotations further ads to the communicable incredulity of certain US office holders and their role in the events that led to the West’s invasion of Iraq. From Saddam’s “I would rather kill my friends in error than let my enemies live” to the Bush administration’s “The responsibility of a country is not in the hands of a few” Liman is questioning the way in which the media present high-profile conflict to the public. In lieu of this it is clear that in presenting another perspective on Valerie Plame Wilson’s case, Liman is interested in visual media’s ability to communicate and manipulate viewers. Rousing and provocative in the first instance, Fair Game is a fascinatingly self-reflexive accusal of popular discourse in its ability to skew fact and create polemic.

Fair Game is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday November 25 through Hoyts Distribution.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Serving more as a backdrop than a narrative (in this sense the film is post-classical as it relies on characters rather than events for causal motivation), our two protagonists – newspaper photographer Andrew Kaulder (the adorable Scoot McNairy whose performance in 2007′s In Search of a Midnight Kiss remains one of the most honest I’ve seen in recent years) and Samantha Wynden (Whitney Able) – must make a physical journey back to the US across the “Infected Zone”; an area that covers almost half of Mexico following the crash of a NASA probe carrying samples of recently discovered alien life forms from within Earth’s solar system.

From here the film follows a typical romantic arc as the emotional interaction and connection between our unlikely duo deepens in accordance with the progression of their physical journey. And whilst it may be true that the backdrop of South America speaks to social/racial issues these are merely indicated rather than fully explored in the film. Furthermore, Samantha’s repeated question, “Do you feel safe here?” has less to do with infection, quarantine, social, racial or political difference than it does their relationship. That is to say that Sam, who asks the question of Andrew more than once, feels unsafe because has entered a liminal space between being on her own (as she was in Mexico) and returning home to her supposedly contented life and fiancé.

But that’s not to say that this film isn’t interesting or engaging, on the contrary, it absolutely is. The landscape itself, set up to enhance the atmosphere and heighten tensions in their relationship is also curiously sublime, and here I’m referring to Jean-François Lyotard’s interpretation and analysis of the Kantian sublime (for more information see Lyotard’s excellent Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime.) For Lyotard there is something within the Kantian sublime that defies cognitive comprehension insofar as the aesthetics of the represented thing are able to produce an indescribable, incomprehensible feeling. This thought within itself is self-reflexively sublime for it is a simultaneously beautiful and terrifying realisation. Moreover, Lyotard finds something sublime in the feeling of suspension that such imagery can invoke; the incognisable explication of waiting for “it” to happen, whilst not knowing or being able to explain exactly what “it” is.

Whilst not all viewers will find the backdrop for Monsters so sublime themselves it is clear that this is how our protagonists experience their own setting and is, furthermore, why at the film’s end our couple are left so entirely devastated. Theoretically jumping from aesthetics to psychoanalysis now, their sublime experience is so intense and affecting that it is akin to the experience of one’s greatest desires, an experience that Lacan tells us results only in severe trauma and a break with the Real.

Returning somewhat abrasively to that Real, Sam and Andrew are thrust back into the world of consumerism, convenience and sustainability. Having seen alien life forms in the infected zone live because of their connection to the natural world (they “grow”, for want of a better word, on the side of trees) the Real world – destroyed as it may be – sees this motif quite literally outgrown and the “monsters” (we humans) draw on unsustainable sources such as electricity in order to continue to flourish.

Likely proving either strangely compelling or overly sentimental, Monsters is a film that will divide opinions dependent upon individual sensibilities. Well rendered if a little reliant upon emotive response, it is perhaps best described as a humanist film in the first instance.

Monsters is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday November 25 through Madman Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Following Warner Bros’ announcement in early October that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 would not be presented in 3D as “they will not have a completed 3D version of the film within the release date window”, I wondered whether or not the sections of the film intended to maximize use of the 3D would seem silly or out-of-place in its 2D counterpart. With this in mind, I went into the IMAX Melbourne Museum looking for missed 3D opportunities and considering its effect on the presented film as a whole.

Melbourne’s IMAX museum has the third largest IMAX screen in the world. Seeing a film in that auditorium is as a result far more visually and even experientially impressive than a trip to your local multiplex. Furthermore, much like Melbourne’s Astor Theatre, when you go to the IMAX you are always watching film and not some digital file with flatter, lower resolution and poorer colour and sound quality. Further to this, there is a much smaller chance that something will go wrong in the projection booth because 1) film is a more reliable and predictable format and 2) it is a single screen cinema which means it is constantly monitored by a fully trained film projectionist. Taking these points into consideration, the IMAX made for the perfect environment to notice what was missing in terms of the abandoned 3D.

One of the problems in shooting a film for 3D conversion rather than shooting it in 3D in the first instance is that it lends itself to the gimmicky, ephemeral use of the medium. Shooting a film in 3D (as, by way of example, is most often the case with the IMAX natural history documentaries) affords the film with a cohesive depth of field whereas conversion tends often to add a layer rather than a dimension to an image that already exists (it is a matter of perception and some viewers less versed in 3D may not always notice the difference, but there is one.) Moreover, the gimmicky “coming out of the image” that you see with so much popular fare is actually a little counter-intuitive as it detracts from the “immersive” intent of the technology.

In Deathly Hallows there are two types of images that the filmmakers most likely thought would “benefit” from the technology: the ones where things do indeed come out at the audience (most notably here a snake, pictured above left) and the ones where the environment is supposed to reflect the mental and emotional states of its protagonists, by which I mean the shots of the cold, empty English countryside which I have no doubt would have felt even more barren and endless with the added depth of field. Further to this, elements informed by physics like the ‘dirigible plums’ would have been afforded with a more fitting spatial and gravitational visual rendering and the fast-paced chase sequence at the film’s beginning would too have had far more haptic effect with the layering of a third dimension.

There is also an animated story-telling sequence in the film that would have been fascinating in 3D. As it stands the imagery is already losing a dimension to its very form and as such feels a little displaced amidst the narrative. Adding a third dimension to a flat image of shadow puppetry would have given the sequence another layer which, as a story being re-told through an imaginative visual would certainly have added to the acknowledgment of the “problems of history” critical concern that necessarily comes with retelling and reimagining mythological folk-lore. Its relationship to its origins would then have been at yet another level of remove which, in the pursuit of historical truth (something the quest narrative is always concerned with) is not only significant but poignantly so.

Taking these points into consideration how then does Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows hold up in 2D? I’d say surprisingly well. For me, whether it’s 2D or 3D there is something to be said for “the IMAX experience”. The very dimensions of the screen along with its slight curvature and the perfect incline of seating in the auditorium mean that the viewer is always positioned in such a way that optimizes dimensional perception. If you are going to see Deathly Hallows (and be honest, you already know whether or not you are) do yourself a favour and see it at the IMAX.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is released in Australian cinemas and is playing at the Melbourne Museum IMAX from Thursday November 18.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Our protagonist is Hypatia (Rachel Weisz), daughter of Theon (Michael Lonsdale) and a woman who has no interest at all in taking up romantic relations with any potential suitor. Instead, Hypatia is interested only in the natural philosophy of the universe and teaching its endless wonders to the prefects of Alexandria. Refusing the advances of one most forward student, Orestes (Oscar Isaac), and later her own slave boy Davus (Max Minghella) as he turns against her in a violent uprising against Roman paganism, Hypatia quietly toils away in her quest to answer the true mathematical workings of the solar system.

Heavy on the cyclical motif and with religious uprising operating much like a solar or lunar eclipse, Agora explores Hypatia’s (for the time) radical ideas and arguments with pleasing reflection upon contextual political events. The positing of religious groups against one another weaves in a little contemporary conflict in its characterisation of the “bad” Christians who just so happen to look as though they are of Arabic descent. Further to this, and just in case you weren’t sure who to side with, the groups are conveniently draped in colour-coded robes; Pagans in cream, taupe and beige; Christians in grey and black, Jews in a mixture of colours that sit somewhere in between the two, and often err on the blue side of the colour spectrum. Not quite the black / white binary opposites one might expect from an historical epic, there is certainly a fair shade of grey to show that religion and the philosophy of science aren’t necessarily entirely distinct: both start with sacred literature and (in theory) persist with the pursuit of knowledge. The fundamental difference of course being that where natural philosophy is open to anyone (even Davus is allowed to speculate on its theoretical validity) religion is not (specifically here for women).

Hypatia, whose vast works have been lost to history, was persecuted because of her gender in the greatest display of relational power against an individual who has been quite literally and figuratively stripped of her own. The difference, so perfectly demonstrated right at the beginning of the film, is that Hypatia is only ever concerned with ethical encounters; guided by scientific truth rather than theoretical faith. After Theon whips her slave boy Davus for admitting to being “of the Christian faith”, Hypatia, despite her pagan ways, tends to his wounds much like Mary, sister of Lazarus did Jesus in the bible.

The film’s execution of such broad thematic concerns is relatively simplistic and though it feels somewhat clumsily edited at times (there is a terribly distracting intermittent zoom in and out of planet Earth that is strangely jarring amidst an otherwise seamless visual narrative), the performances, attention to detail and mise-en-scene are all exemplary. Perhaps it is the disjointed focus that affords the film with so undefinable an atmosphere and subsequently lets down what would otherwise be a very engaging work. These points notwithstanding, Agora is an enjoyable enough example of historical mythology and its failing to answer so many of the questions it raises is actually a strength rather than a weakness.

Agora is released in Australian cinemas Thursday November 18 through Transmission Films.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Josh Fox’s new documentary film Gasland (2010) is one such film whereby the very seed of hope and a genuine effort to incite positive activism hold the power to shake an otherwise often too apathetic core. We all have an ethical responsibility to each other and to our environment. That seems to be a simple enough statement and one that we might all take as a given. But apparently “we” humans are more interested in industry and commerce than health and environment and the result is water that catches on fire and individuals who die slow, painful and unvoiced deaths. Thankfully, filmmaker Josh Fox still holds an optimistic view for our ability to find real, workable solutions, his opening voice-over announcing, “I’m not a pessimist. I’ve always had a great deal of faith in people.” And it is from this admirable perspective that Fox begins his investigative documentary project on the processes, lies and effects of the act of “fracking”.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the process of pumping water and a veritable cocktail of chemicals (known as frack fluid) into the ground to cause a sort of mini explosion that cause the land to crack and fracture, releasing the earth’s natural gases which is, according to some people in positions of authority, a real “sustainable” energy source . But, as we all know, and as one of the aforementioned authoritative folk tells Fox in his film, “There is no such thing as a perfect source of energy.” A clever statement because 1) it’s indisputable and 2) it’s so definitive in and of itself that it almost denies the counter argument which is that just because there is no “perfect” source, doesn’t mean there aren’t some sources which would be preferable to others, or indeed other solutions that might involve humans cutting down on energy use rather than using with wild abandon and hoping the pursuit of something to replace it will just work out somehow.

With so many incredibly negative side effects, it’s difficult to decide what exactly about “fracking” is most troubling; that long-term exposure to the gases and contaminated water can lead to irreversible brain damage; that the people working on extracting the gases don’t know the truth about close-quarter effects; that the corporations involved refuse to divulge the full list of “chemicals” used in the process; that the process leaves behind “produced” water which further contaminates the earth; that the government are involved in ignoring their own clean air and clean water acts and are thus implicated in an almighty cover up; that even if it wasn’t dangerous the civilians who complained about their contaminated water were refused even an investigation; or that no one other than a filmmaker seems to care enough to try to stop it from happening. Is the only solution then to stop focusing on the problems already caused and start thinking about finding a solution that might stop it from continuing/happening elsewhere?

Fox’s film is highly contemplative and has fantastic and admirable intent but ultimately; against global corporations including Shell, Exonn, Mobil, BP, Halliburton (all of whom quite clearly and understandably declined to interview for the film) and governments; what chance does the common man have? There is certainly an element of hope that he/she has some and there are various websites set up for subsequent community action (including ones relating to fracking in Australia too)*. But the one thing that Fox fails to acknowledge in his film is that the whole orchestration of these events comes down to that one dirty word we just can’t escape: capitalism. In a system that controls and effects everything (truly everything) it will never be the case that we get the “best” or even the “less bad” of the supposedly available energy sources. Fox’s film finishes on imagery of wind turbines but with so many positions in authority voting against them for purely aesthetic objections (as is the case in the UK) it’s absolutely clear that the deciding motivators aren’t necessarily the same for farmers as they are councillors.

Moving, infuriating, incredulous: Gasland is a film of much merit. Unfortunately it will likely preach (as so many of these films do) to the already converted or, worse still, long time apathetic anti-activists who cogitate and leave it at that. Further to this, the quality of filmmaking, due largely to and absolutely forgivable for its one-man low-budget constrictions, is really rather poor. But these points notwithstanding I’d still hope everyone go out and see the film, because the cause and the fight are important.

With the extraction of an energy source contaminating arguably the most important resource on our planet (water) perhaps the most significant question Fox asks is at the very end of his film, “How much water could you replace?” If we’re lucky, those proverbial “powers that be” will find a way to convert the very tears of humanity into an energy source – because that’s probably the most “sustainable” source we’ve got.

Gasland is released in Australian cinemas Thursday November 18 through Palace Films.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

* Western Downs Alliance / The Basin Sustainability Alliance / The Hunter Valley Protection Alliance

Ree Dolly is only seventeen but with her father officially “missing” and her mother near catatonic, she quickly becomes head of the household and the only hope her younger brother and sister have for survival. Tired, down-trodden and understandably pissed, Ree learns that her father’s disappearance could cost them their family home if he doesn’t show for trial in a mere matter of days. Forced to assume responsibility for her entire family and their situation Ree sets about tracking her father down, or, in his absence, anyone who can help her to prove to the authorities that he can’t show for trial because he’s dead and buried.

Ree’s quest to find her absent father bears both Freudian and religious connotations. With the paternal structure breaking down and without a maternal figure to look to for help the only official avenue available to Ree is the Law – who she outright refuses – and, failing that, her “community”, which itself is run by a iron fist form of paternal Law. Denying all forms of social and political authority, Ree stands up to everyone with a sort of blind faith that propels her in her quest to find her maker. The only way for Ree to save her family is through an act of near martyrdom, proving her faith in her Father’s death and existence is not misguided; that he must have been murdered because he wouldn’t abandon them in their time of need. An incredibly beautiful sentiment that is simultaneously hopeful and despondent, Ree’s fears push her faith to its limits as she exclaims, “He ain’t anywhere.”

In a final act of baptism gone awry Ree must trust in her enemies that they will lead her to her Father, a moment that reveals terrifying truth and beauty in the most visually explicable demonstration of the Kantian sublime I have ever seen onscreen.

Finishing with the song “In The Palm of His Hand” performed by Dirt Road Delight, the film’s final words, “May He lead you to salvation/Whatever he has against you/May He blaze a path to glory/To the promised land” resonate wonderfully with our protagonist’s hardship and suffering on her arduous journey to prove God exists. The whole film reads like a exemplary literary classic, complete with the rich symbolism of fire and ice. The layers are so well established that instead of subtle complication the whole film is propelled by an internal logic that is crisp, cohesive and complete.

A more perfectly paced dramatic thriller I cannot recall; every detail right down to the sound of leaves crushing underfoot is impeccably executed, the tension in absolutely every scene heart-racingly palpable. The performances are amongst the most naturalistic and believable to be found: not so much as a bit-parter failing to sustain the necessary balance of energy and reserve. Each shot is beautifully composed and the environment so well captured that the Ozark woods themselves play a character in the film; dark and foreboding. The combination of these elements create a most incredible and piercing tonal quality which is ultimately the greatest of Granik’s many achievements. And of course the story itself is intense, gripping and so brilliantly layered that one constantly needs to remind oneself to exhale and catch breath.

Winter’s Bone is released in Australian cinemas Thursday November 11 through Curious Film.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Just like the proverbial spy, Jack (George Clooney), an assassin and weapons specialist, wants to retire his profession and come in from both the literal and metaphorical cold. Hiding out in a secluded lodge in wintry, snowed in Sweden, Jack attempts to live as a semi-recluse. Jack’s folly of course is in trying to “hide-out” with someone else for, much like the spy, coming in from the cold is never so simple a pursuit. Following a grim end to his idyllic hideaway in Sweden, Jack takes nothing more than his unshakable past and runs with it to a small, warmer town in Italy.

But Italy isn’t exactly an easier location within which to hide. Jack, not “an American”, but “the American” is situated in the film as a signified representative for a nation and, with that, a type of universalising neo-liberalism that doesn’t quite fit with the authentic and historic European locations he attempts to inhabit. His arrival in Castel del Monte is an immediately alienating experience that jars with his distinct and undeniable American culture; he is not fluent in their language and though he tries to use his limited Italian vocabulary to get by it is ultimately the case that the local populace must make most of the effort and use their English language skills to communicate with him; despite being in Italy (where arguably the best coffee in the world is made) he orders “an Americano” when frequenting their cafes and restaurants; religion is both overt and celebrated as part of their culture and community and yet he continues to deny the Catholic church, questioning the very morals of the city’s priest even though his own actions and sins amount to far worse.

His placement within an environment so vastly foreign seems at best counter-intuitive and Jack constantly stands out- a thread that is further signified by the employment of a butterfly motif throughout. The motif itself is a somewhat trite and the metaphor weak but – anomalously so – it operates successfully to further resonate Jack – the American’s – own undeniably anomalous position amongst European cultures and societies.

Beyond Jack’s existence in a physical and cultural geographic space that indicates his difference and signals his alienation, he seems intent upon trying to shake his own identity as “the American” and assume instead one that is more to both his liking and his environment. Although Jack is a weapon’s specialist he constantly claims “I’m no good with machines” and, ironically, though he maintains he has no interest in the past and is concerned only with living for the present, it is precisely his past that prevents him from assimilating in the first place. Finally, he denies religion and confession yet repeatedly seeks counsel from the local priest who, aside from his prostitute/girlfriend, is the closest thing he has to a “friend” in the world.

Here the film contemplates a fascinating theoretical paradox: if a man can’t come in from the cold, how can he survive and adapt to his environment without imposing upon it his own negative attributes? The answer of course is that he cannot. Despite his finest efforts, an individual can no more escape or deny his/her own past than a country can its national identity (informed as it is by history.) Ultimately, the very presence of “the American”, and the universalising neo-liberalism he represents, stains upon the cobbled streets of Castel del Monte both physical and metaphorical stains of blood.

A slow, tense build and a fantastically authentic film for its visual representation of small town Italy, The American is one this year’s finest films and George Clooney is nothing short of brilliant in his measured and considered portrayal of an individual whose desires to escape himself and what he represents are futile.

The American is released in Australian cinemas Thursday November 11 through Universal Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) is a young soldier who is but three months away from the end of his military service. Recovering from injury and post-traumatic stress syndrome (though he notably denies suffering this) he is forced to serve out his time as a messenger for their Casualty Notification Service (a very official way of saying that he tells people their loved ones are dead.) His job, and thus the film’s central message, is simple and clear: the military is about protocol not emotion, following orders not empathizing, and carrying out difficult and trying tasks for the supposed greater good, not for individual or personal reasons. And whilst both SS Will Montgomery and his superior Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) have served long enough to have learnt this lesson already, there is something about the experience of mediating between the military and the civilians they purportedly fight for that makes this lesson all the more piercing.

Upon assignment to the Casualty Notification Team, Montgomery is told two things; 1) it’s a “special assignment” and 2)  ”This mission is not simply important, it is sacred.” From here he is further taught by his slightly misguided but well-meaning recovering alcoholic mentor and partner Stone the subtle differences in both phraseology and terminology that must be used; “killed” or “died” are acceptable, but “deceased”, “body”, “expired”, “lost” and “passed away” for example, are not. Furthermore, and most significantly, they must always name the soldier. The ethics at play here would be best described as respectful as they intend to honour the soldier who has died, but never is the communication to extend beyond this most elementary of ethics and certainly it is forbidden to ever enter into moral obligation.

The soldiers who have died have done so because they were “doing their job”, just as, unpleasant though it may be, Montgomery and Stone are doing theirs, back on US soil. The parallel is indicative of the difficulties and adversities that soldiers encounter once they’ve enrolled; everything they do is the result of an order that has been carefully prescribed, the inference that they are in no way subject to “free will”. But Montgomery proves himself to be less than a model soldier; he doesn’t just “do his job”, he “feels”. Breaking all the rules, he becomes personally involved with a widowed woman and her son, physically hugs and makes personal apologies to family members who are distraught and angry with him for delivering the news, and even extends his humanity to his superior – Stone. Protegé to mentor, Montgomery teaches him the value of human life through the retelling of his own war experience, its simplistic lesson that there is still hope: “The sun came up and I didn’t feel like dying anymore.”

Set against an often stark mise-en-scene and carefully lit to show both Stone and Montgomery as heroes hurt in plight, The Messenger wants its audience to know that the “war effort” hasn’t been entirely in vain and that the individuals who are fighting, though numbers and workers on the one hand, are also just ordinary people on the other. The majority of the families they visit are from lower socio-economic backgrounds and belong to disparate races and religions. From this the audience may glean that many who enlist do so for personal reasons despite the fact that the military as an organisation remains disinterested in individuals’ motivations, and indeed we are told; “Sometimes the army has to be concerned with something bigger than the truth.”

But what exactly is bigger than the truth? I suppose that would be the promise they give which turns out to be a lie: signing up for service is not about each individual, it is not about freedom any more than it is about survival, it is about service and, one way or another, service is finite. It is no mistake that this film is released in Australia on Remembrance Day and that it hopes to remind people what individuals give in the name of a greater good.

The Messenger is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday November 11 through Madman Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Firstly, our protagonist is Bill Nighy, a man whose entire career is built upon a cornerstone of stiff-upper-lip English gentlemanliness. He plays a refined assassin; from an upper-middle class family, as well-educated as he is well-mannered, suave, discreet and with just enough reserve to be charming, Victor Maynard is the type of assassin you’d want if someone put a price on your head. He is, of course, “the best” and, in line with true English stoicism, he never lets emotion or altruism get in the way. That is, until he is hired to take out a beautiful, sassy young woman who is, by her very name, the epitome of the English Rose. The kind of girl who’d steal your sandwich whilst applying lipstick, Rose (Emily Blunt) is savvy and charming as the OTT scamster damsel in distress. For a well rounded comedy trio add to the mix some poor bystander kid, Ferguson (Rupert Grint), who unwittingly gets himself involved in a car park shoot out and only sides with our two unlikely heroes after making a judgement based on 1) class and 2) decorum; “I’m going to give the gun to him [Maynard], he’s got a tie on. And I didn’t shoot him so he’s not as pissed off with me.” With a humorous and dysfunctional family unit of sorts in place, peppered with Maynard’s overprotective over-English Mother (Eileen Atkins), a few East End thugs working for another upper crust villainous sort (Rupert Everett), a second rate smart-arse assassin (Martin Freeman) and a red morris mini a la The Italian Job (1969), you have yourself the makings of an awfully English film indeed.

But best of all, in order to escape the madness and mayhem of central London where crime and killing are as common as the lower classes, they leave the magnificent backdrop of alleyways and art galleries in favour of the good old rolling hills that so wonderfully characterise the English countryside. Finding solace in Maynard’s family home and its surrounding greenery, the three almost immediately sit down to a traditional roast dinner, complete with yorkshire puds. With their pursuers temporarily thrown off track, Maynard sets about training Ferguson in the art of assassination and, in the meanwhile, attempts to tame the proverbial shrew who, as a representative of a younger generation and its values, is desperate to escape the old fashioned values and serene isolation of rural England to return to the bright lights and constant thrill of big city life.

But there’s something wrong with this vision of both England and the English. Dangerously nostalgic for a picture of Englishness that ought by now, to have been abandoned many moons ago, Wild Target is nostalgic for old-time manners but brings with it old-time prejudices. Set in the present day it seems grossly out of place for there to be cheap jokes leveled at a social confusion between good English breeding and latent homosexual tendencies. It is also seems out of place for our “heroes” to be shown driving away from the “East End” when they were never in it; the majority of the film being shot in Central or West London. Filled with an overwhelming whitewash of the upper-middle classes, Wild Target seems to have taken a leaf out of the Richard Curtis book of Imaginary White London.

Verging on annoying and offensive rom-com territory Wild Target is strangely saved by its mediocrity and Englishisms that though misguided are more often than not at  least a little endearing. Enough fun to sustain its run time but missing the mark when it comes to substance and intrigue, Wild Target is at once enjoyable and instantly forgettable.

Wild Target is released in Australian cinemas Thursday November 11 through Icon.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

It is well established within the world of writing that there are only seven basic plotlines in narrative storytelling and from those plotlines evolved an economics of predictability that provides the very foundations upon which film genre theory is built. In lieu of this it seems almost absurd to talk about this film’s “story” in a context that compares and contrasts it with the Coens’ film Blood Simple (1984), or for that matter The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) upon which Blood Simple itself is based. That’s not to say that the story is unimportant or superfluous, it is of course integral, especially as this film fits a classical narrative paradigm whereby narrative progression is very much motivated by causal events. But seeing as the story is familiar or known to audiences, both its visual style and its contextual setting bear greater significances as they inform said “story” to an entirely new end.

A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop is set in a non-specific period of Chinese feudal society. Quite literally deserted, the story is of inexplicably wealthy Wang, his wife, and their servants – one of which Wang’s Wife is having an affair with. With little to do and no customers other than hawkers and the Law, Wang’s Wife fantasies about killing her cruel, abusive husband and taking up with her lover full-time and so, buys herself a gun. Our title provocations now successfully established; who, what, where, the Law arrive to search the premises for a canon, setting in motion the causal events to follow.

This surprise visit from the Law being the only instance in the film where Wang’s noodle shop has any customers to speak of (and they aren’t paying customers either), the inference is that Wang’s wealth is the product of corruption rather than business. On learning that his deceitful wife has armed herself, he then enters into a “contract” of sorts with The Captain, paying him to take care of the situation, which further clarifies that the Law is also corrupt. Though I am far from an expert on Chinese history, I have seen and know enough, even just of Yimou’s oeuvre, to understand that in positing lovers against the rich and powerful in society, Yimou is highlighting the adversity that faces the proletariat in China and, in setting the time somewhere in China’s feudal past, is commenting upon the resonances of so oppressive an history.

Add to this the incredible and vibrant colour palette that Yimou is famous for; where reds and blues don’t “feature”, rather they own the frame, positing communism and conservatism against one another to great effect. The lighting is so carefully and soundly executed in every shot that the actual colour and role of the landscape seamlessly changes from day to-night, hell to haven, as our brightly dressed protagonists become anomalous, animated individuals trying to survive a harsh and unnatural environment rather than its natural inhabitants. A stunning reflection of thematics and a credit one comes to expect of Yimou.

Telling its tale in a manner that feels deeply Shakespearean; a tragicomedy with sound resolution and some restoration at its end; A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop illustrates perfectly how a story is just the beginning of storytelling and how artistic direction and contextual content can transfer a well-known story into brand new territory. The two English language titles the film has been given demonstrate this with aplomb: just like the children’s game of Cluedo, there are few things you need to set up plot and intrigue: who, what and where. Furthermore, the story itself is simple; A Simple Noodle Story; for even if its particulars become convoluted it is the simple canvas upon which a cinematic artist can paint his/her masterpiece. And how beautifully Yimou does.

A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop is screening exclusively in Melbourne at the Cinema Nova.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Straight forward and straight up, British directors Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas’ filmmaking style gets to the point quickly and clearly, just like Hicks did when he addressed an audience. Charting a simple but sound trajectory of Hicks’ physical and mental journey from his deep southern roots in Houston, Texas to an international stage across Canada, the US, Australia and the UK, American shows how someone who really cared about the words that came out of his mouth built a career out of progressive thought.

Not exactly a stranger to controversy, Hicks was more than just a “comedian”. Probably more politically astute than the entirety of any western country’s governmental administration, Hicks was on a militant mission to change the minds of the masses and, if he could, to quite literally shake consciousness into a populace who, at least in his early days, weren’t expecting to learn something when they turned up to hear his “routine”. But with such great intellect and wit there comes a price. It is not anomalous for someone so perceptive and affected by the problems of the world to find solace in substance abuse and self-destruction and so, we see too a side to Hicks we might prefer to forget, but it is one that we most certainly shouldn’t.

Inter-cutting interview footage of Hicks’ closest family and friends with the stock footage of his stand up routines, American gives its audience – newcomers and veterans alike – a view of how Hicks’ personal life simultaneously informed and was informed by his measurable successes and failures. A product of his own mythology, Hicks couldn’t abide the self-destructive nature of a society so filled with fear and hate.

Demonstrating perhaps more perfectly than even his own words were able, Hicks’ life – at least insofar as it is presented in the film – outlines a wonderful “how-to” guide for reaching enlightenment:  first look at yourself and where you come from, then examine the influences and the surroundings of which you are – whether you like it or not – a product, and finally, look and examine again. One thing that is always present in Hicks’ stand up is the central idea that everything in life, including life itself, is subject to limitation – except of course for the critical use of the human mind.

If you love Bill Hicks then get off your lazy ass and leave your living room to learn a little more about the man’s life and journey as it informed his work. And if you don’t know who Bill Hicks is – well, I’d still implore you to get off your ass and go see it. It doesn’t matter if you know everything or nothing about this man before you see this film: whatever Hicks’ material you come to first is the right one, because believe me, everything this man ever said is enough to change something in you for the better.

American: The Bill Hicks Story opens in Melbourne at ACMI Thursday November 4 and screens until Tuesday November 23.

The film opens with Brent Mitchell (Xavier Samuel), a seemingly happy teen, driving along a highway with his father. At this point Brent fits the stereotype of a young, carefree, plaid-shirt wearing, country boy-next-door. But when an ill omen appears in front of them in the form of a blood-drenched young man, causing Brent to swerve suddenly and crash into a nearby tree, killing his father, there is a clear break with this idyllic presentation of reality and Brent undergoes a deeply Freudian experience of trauma. Blaming himself for his father’s death, and becoming increasingly distant from his own “loved ones”; a grief-stricken mother and a concerned girlfriend; some six month later Brent is displaying early signs of “emo” behaviour and from here we are introduced to a group of teenagers who each perform hyper-real stereotypes of misplaced teen angst and overzealous sexual desires.

In addition to “emo” protagonist Brent there is; goth Mia (Jessica McNamee), stoner Jamie (Richard Wilson), pretty, popular girl Holly (Victoria Thaine) and invisible wilting wallflower Lola (Robin McLeavy). Each teen carefully performs both their stereotype and their gender in order to establish their individual “role” and “function” in an environment where identification and semiotics are everything: high school. In order to judge, categorise and somewhat misguidedly “understand” one another it is acceptable for teens to almost over-perform these roles in order to establish a clear, unspoken order, and from that order derive a set of acceptable and unacceptable social codes. Once established, we see these codes at play in almost every scene as gender and type conversely allow and forbid the various social and sexual encounters that take place in the narrative film world.

Stoner Jamie is emo Brent’s best mate, acceptable within the established social code because 1) they are both gendered male and 2) they are both in roles that operate as counter to popular or mainstream teen stereotypes. Each of our male protagonists then performs his straight heteronormative sexuality by taking up with a performed female counterpart. Jamie, nervous and introverted (qualities becoming of our typical stoner friend) asks gorgeous goth Mia to the school dance. She accepts with little enthusiasm with confirms her goth stereotype through 1) nonchalance and indifference and 2) by taking up with a stoner who is an acceptable date for a goth as they, again, both occupy positions counter to the popular majority.

Due however to Brent’s transition from a happy-go-lucky boy-next-door type to outsider emo, we see two very different female gendered performances present themselves to him and, in lieu of their rivalry, a truly fascinating break down of these established social codes ensues. Brent already has a girlfriend: an attractive, fun-loving girl-next-door type. She is compassionate and caring and even though Brent’s recent emo behaviour has put a strain on their relationship it still functions because 1) she operates as a nurturer, intent on “saving” her wistful, broken partner and 2) because their relationship presumably pre-dates Brent’s performative change it can supposedly withstand it. But, unbeknownst to Holly, Lola has read Brent’s present emo performance as a coded opportunity to ask him to be her date for the school dance. Of course he declines, in a kind but dismissive way which one would ordinarily assume, from Lola’s performed wallflower exterior, would sadden and probably even humiliate her. But what no one could have predicted is that it would anger and provoke her own change in performativity. And when Lola’s shy violet facade fades, it reveals a terrifyingly promiscuous pink psycho-killer in its wake.

Abducting Brent and inflicting her pent-up psychotic desires upon him, Lola performs the stereotype she would rather embody: a perfectly pink prom queen. Outside of the coded grounds of high school, Lola is a “Princess” who gets whatever she wants; the spoilt, brattish embodiment of “Daddy’s little girl”. Dressing Brent in a tux she tries to force him to perform the available role of prom king to her queen, and failing thus his resistance is met with bloody violence.

The violence that then takes place, though I am sure many will crudely call it torture-porn, actually operates as a manifestation of misplaced and misrepresented teen angst and sexual desire as well as a subtle indicator for the breakdown of cohesive, functional familial structure – Lola’s relationship with her father, known disturbingly only as “Daddy”, being decidedly less than kosher. Not wanting to give too much away, the most interesting violent act Lola exacts is the attempt to home-labotomise her victim using a power drill. The required removal of Brent’s agency is demonstrative of the intense break-down of Lola’s performed fantasies and her failed need for an implicit co-performer.

With the pinkest of pinks you could possibly imagine (and probably pinker), Lola is a vision in satin, glitter and lip-gloss, which, set against the cruel and unforgiving mise-en-scene of rural depravity offers up a kitsch backdrop for the tremendous splashes of blood that homage a plethora of horror films from the ’70s and ’80s. In lieu of this, and as the only central teen character not shown to be sexually active, Lola’s excess in blood-spill make her an exemplary model for Barbara Creed’s “monstrous feminine” or Laura Mulvey’s “bearer of the bleeding wound”. A modern-day Carrie if you will, Lola abjectly performs and embodies the inverted object of the male gaze, she who  ”can exist only in relation to castration and cannot transcend it.” (Laura Mulvey)

Intercutting between our stoner and goth couple getting it on whilst Princess tortures her victim, there is also an interesting juxtaposition of Freudian life and death drives whereby alternating actions intended towards creation and calm represent a terrifically twisted view of teen survival. Fantastically shot against devastating and pathetic surroundings of; a tackily decorated school gym, the unromantic, unmemorable car park setting for a sexual encounter and the disturbingly child-like bedroom of our femme fatal, right up to the final moments where the highway plays cyclical host to the horror at its very heart; The Loved Ones offers a fantastically kitsch aesthetic and is nothing but pure unadulterated entertainment from beginning to bloody end.

The Loved Ones is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday November 4 2010 through Madman Entertainment.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

It’s worth saying right away that the majority of viewers will likely err on the side (for in lieu of its lawsuit foci, it is about sides) of Zuckerberg’s co-founder Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), who is the more endearing and certainly emotive of the two. However, I would like to look at the film from the viewer perspective of alignment with Zuckerberg as I found Saverin, though appealing if one is connecting to the film passively and/or emotionally, is actually a far less interesting character. Conversely, despite his social awkwardness, lack of tact and all round asshole behaviour, Zuckerberg is the true hero in the film and it’s because of his annoying but deeply humanizing traits that his character deserves the greatest attention.

Unable to relate to the “average” (in every sense of the word) person, Zuckerberg is a misunderstood and often misguided genius. Dumped in the opening scene by girlfriend Erica Albright (Rooney Mara) because of his incessantly insulting and inconsiderate nature, Zuckerberg isn’t heartbroken, he is perplexed. Here is a problem for which his inordinate aptitude and IQ cannot even fathom let alone solve. His reaction? To deflect the problem onto someone (or someones) else. In creating an impromptu website called facemash.com, where students can rate the hotness of their female peers against one another, this is exactly what Zuckerberg does. He transfers his anger, frustration and what might even be a little bit of upset into a clever endeavour undermined only by its petty, crude exterior. This is how Zuckerberg copes: we all have our mechanisms, some more favourable than others, but what’s so interesting about Zuckerberg’s is that his coping mechanism combines itself with his intelligible talents, an ability that is really rather admirable.

Aside from the insane amount of money the site eventually comes to generate and be valued at, the most significant achievement of Facebook is its reach: over 500 million users worldwide. And to think that all this began in a wee Harvard dorm room born of inebriation. Having myself been at university during the mid 2000s I can actually remember when UCL (University College London, of which my university, King’s College London is a part of) “got Facebook”. It was some time in 2005 and you had to have a college email account to join and you had to be invited by another user. So fast-moving was its reach that I can recall walking along the Strand with a friend who, upon passing a total stranger, yelled “Facebook!” as we passed. It seems, even though the two individuals didn’t know each other and had never before met, they had, through pictures and links online, a very real connection. More than just Zuckerberg’s dream of “the entire social experience of college, but online”, Facebook simultaneously created a new social experience of college life offline.

But I digress. This anecdote is only mentioned to illustrate the momentum with which the site moved and, despite my not joining Facebook until but a few weeks ago (I have my reasons), it has come to change the way in which we – not just university students now, we everyone – have come to communicate, promote, share, socialize and interact. Yet here is the story of a man who, insofar as the film would have us believe, could not communicate, promote, share, socialize or interact successfully with his peers. Still, he is the impetus behind the revolution. The film then posits the idea that it is only someone who struggles with the restrictions of their own social context who can successfully create and implicate a new one. And this is why, despite the reasonable grounds held by Saverin, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (both played by Armie Hammer) and their business partner Divya Narenda (Max Minghella) for filing lawsuits against Zuckerberg the film still posits Zuckerberg as the rightful inventor of Facebook, his own cutting remarks the final word on the subject: “If you were the inventors of Facebook, you’d have invented Facebook.”

Narenda and the Winklevei (as Zuckerberg so calls them) claim Zuckerberg stole their idea after agreeing to work with them on their own social enterprise The Harvard Connection. Zuckerberg, maintaining that “They had an idea, I had a better one.” leaves them behind not because their idea is no good but because he isn’t interested in anything that they represent. Painfully aware that he is not a part of the college elite Zuckerberg knows that where you can’t assimilate, you surpass. When the Winklevei and Narenda physically arrive in the UK, Zuckerberg is already there – online. While the other students are revelling in college life from parties to one night stands; Zuckerberg is already there, playing host to their antics – online. The film regularly juxtaposes the social aspects of other students’ extroverted lives with Zuckerberg’s introverted college life, which, for the most part, involves sitting at a computer typing endless lines of code. Why? Because who wants to be the puppet when you can be the puppet master? Zuckerberg doesn’t create Facebook because he wants to share his college experience online and it’s not because he wants to access anyone else’s either. Zuckerberg creates Facebook because his intellect is superior to his peers and so, instead of just involving in social activity, he has the ability to evolve social activity.

But what of all this recognition, fame and fortune if our “hero” ends up rich but alone? Especially seeing as we are constantly reminded throughout the film that Zuckerberg isn’t really interested in the money. Add to this that he never (at least insofar as the film’s narrative is concerned) successfully manages to enter into another romantic union, he loses anyone he could once have called his friend, and is ultimately as he began: alone, alienated but intelligent. Despite the final words from his counsel, “You’re not an asshole Mark, you’re just trying so hard to be”, the majority of audiences will still likely come away thinking he’s a bit of a tool. Sorkin and Fincher then would have us all believe Zuckerberg isn’t too bad of a guy, but that he’s still a bit of an asshole who you probably wouldn’t want to “friend” (so to speak). But this is the film’s wonderful irony. The man who services us all with a platform where we can share, promote, like and comment on our own and each other’s statuses, activities and achievements has no place in it.

He doesn’t get the girl, he doesn’t reconcile with Saverin and he doesn’t appear to live happily ever after. But that, in my humble opinion at least, is a far more relatable and more endearing “hero” than is found in the vast majority of Hollywood narrative cinema. Here is a hero narrative that necessarily can’t end with complete and tidy resolution because human life and its interconnectivity, much like Facebook, is an ever-evolving process that will never in effect be “finished”. A hero shouldn’t “overcome” adversity, he/she should continually be working through it. Zuckerberg’s character then is much like his creation: it is constantly in flux. So if we all like Facebook, and it’s imperfect, shouldn’t it follow that we like its founder?

The Social Network is released in Australian cinemas on Thursday October 28 2010 through Sony Pictures.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.

Heidi (Rachael Taylor) who returns to Mildura for her estranged father’s funeral meets Michael (Alex Dimitriades) when he picks her up hitchhiking along an all but deserted highway. As we learn more about Heidi and Michael it becomes increasingly clear that they are both experiencing a musical (artistic and creative which leads then to emotional) block whereby playing their instruments (or in another sense being in control of their own life score) becomes almost impossible as they are inhibited by their respective personal losses; the grieving process metaphoring their musical codas (a musical coda is a passage which brings conclusion through prolongation, essentially what the film is all about).

Heidi experiences two musical struggles before she meets Michael; first at home in Nevada where playing her dead father’s violin causes the first block and motivates narrative causality, bringing her back to Mildura; the second at the Roadhouse (roadside cafe) where Heidi stops for refreshments and where Michael first sees her as she tries again with her violin to move herself forward (busking for money). The violin stays in its case from here until the pair stop once again for refreshments, this time at a pub, where the violin is again brought out of its case. Here however, it is by a provoked hustler who plucks at its strings angrily and antagonistically, causing Heidi visceral emotional pain and jarring the narrative aurally for the audience.

Heidi’s very connection to her father is through music and what she wants more than anything else is to simply “see” his record collection, in particular, one record that holds deep sentimental value: her truest memory of her father. Following the funeral, when her step-mother forbids this, it is a personal affront and another block towards the final resolution of her pain or closure to the coda. Her step-brother Lachlan eventually reaches out to her and lets her see the record, a familial link that brings one conclusion to a very difficult chapter (or score) in her life. Similarly, Michael, who was previously unable to play the piano, referencing it as “just for show”, is finally confronted by Heidi about his own past. Once he actually begins to deal with his loss, he finds he is able to play the piano again, no longer just “looking” at it filled with pain, regret and remorse. A musical instrument, like a life, is to be played or played out and when abandoned, left to sight, dust and the passage of time, mirrors death and resounds in deafening silence.

The coda plays out over the summer and its conclusion is not one that could have been reached any sooner. Through teaching one another how to grieve, Heidi and Michael work through their personal pain and their prolonged resolution is bittersweet; beautiful and moving, in perfect rhythm with the film’s soft soundtrack.

Summer Coda opens in Australian cinemas Thursday October 21 through Sharmill Films.

Written by Tara Judah for Liminal Vision.