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101 great and very good Australian films

Started by Johnny Townmouse, December 04, 2013, 02:56:29 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

vrailaine

I mentioned Babe there earlier, and the sequel. Two incredibly good looking films as well, imo.

Not super keen on the ending of the sequel but it has loads going for it and it's just bizarre that it got made. I guess when the original got a best picture nomination Miller got free reign. The trailer is both really dissuading to its prospective audience and ruins some of the better moments of the film.
Spoiler alert
Babe saving that dog on the bridge is a really nice moment in the film that gives you time to really feel the bleakness, for example.
[close]
Here's the trailer regardless http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mARmXtTkVvY

Feralkid

Quote from: vrailaine on December 15, 2013, 11:27:10 PM
I mentioned Babe there earlier, and the sequel. Two incredibly good looking films as well, imo.

Not super keen on the ending of the sequel but it has loads going for it and it's just bizarre that it got made. I guess when the original got a best picture nomination Miller got free reign. The trailer is both really dissuading to its prospective audience and ruins some of the better moments of the film.
Spoiler alert
Babe saving that dog on the bridge is a really nice moment in the film that gives you time to really feel the bleakness, for example.
[close]
Here's the trailer regardless http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mARmXtTkVvY

Ach, so you did. I actually really like the end to Babe 2. The revelation about the Pit Bull, though not entirely cheery from his perspective, is pretty hilarious. I think one thing in Babe 2's favour from the POV of Universal was that it was made in the late 90's when the Australian Dollar was insanely weak compared to the US dollar. So for a wee while Australia was the cheapest English speaking country in which one could mount an epic movie. It's certainly an expensive movie but the exchange rate helped make it possible.

Speaking of Miller, another of his productions is worth mentioning here even if its cast and setting make it seem like a film without a nation. Dead Calm. A great wee suspense movie from Phillip Noyce but produced by Miller. Sam Neill and a disconcertingly youthful Nicole Kidman are a married couple stuck in the middle of the Pacific with a homicidal and rather unhinged Billy Zane. 

Johnny Townmouse

Quote from: stunted on December 15, 2013, 02:09:39 PM
Just watched Wake in Fright off the back of this thread and really enjoyed it. Tense throughout and some of the scenes completely wrong-foot you. Interesting seeing how vulnerable we all are to complete loss of control.

Spoiler alert
Found it strange that I was urging John Grant not to get more drunk in an unfamiliar environment with complete strangers yet me and thousands of other people will have been in similar states due to alcohol and substances with casual acquaintances and complete strangers in the past and will be again in the future.
[close]

I think one of the most powerful things about Wake in Fright is the way it makes you feel you are looking at yourself through the mists of time, like you are experiencing your very own A Christmas Carol. It makes you think about all the times you have politely gone along with things in tricky social situations rather than bailing out or telling people to fuck off. Enforced social activity can be a real problem and you always regret not having the strength of will to simply leave.

There are so many moments in the film where you feel you are watching a film of your own life and you are willing the educated everyman character to STOP and GO. But he doesn't, in much the same way as you or I didn't. It's quite an unbearable thing to sit through for me. I think I drank about 3 litres of water the first time I saw it because I just felt so dessicated by the heat and the beer and the lack of actual fucking water. I may be wrong but I think it is Pleasance's character who says something like "nobody drinks water in the Yabba."

zomgmouse


shiftwork2

Picnic At Hanging Rock

Peter Weir's mid 70s tale of the disappearance of a load of schoolgirls while visiting a geological formation. Eerie, quite luscious.  The landscape's alien and forbidding in the same vein as Walkabout.  A young Mrs Mangel's in it.  Probably got some traction on eighties BBC2 because it features some straight-laced posho kids emoting but it's much more than a stiff costume drama.

stunted

#65
Quote from: Johnny Townmouse on December 16, 2013, 12:38:09 PM
I think one of the most powerful things about Wake in Fright is the way it makes you feel you are looking at yourself through the mists of time, like you are experiencing your very own A Christmas Carol. It makes you think about all the times you have politely gone along with things in tricky social situations rather than bailing out or telling people to fuck off. Enforced social activity can be a real problem and you always regret not having the strength of will to simply leave.

There are so many moments in the film where you feel you are watching a film of your own life and you are willing the educated everyman character to STOP and GO. But he doesn't, in much the same way as you or I didn't. It's quite an unbearable thing to sit through for me. I think I drank about 3 litres of water the first time I saw it because I just felt so dessicated by the heat and the beer and the lack of actual fucking water. I may be wrong but I think it is Pleasance's character who says something like "nobody drinks water in the Yabba."

That pretty much sums up the experience I had better than I could have worded it. Drags you right through the film and left me feeling very uncomfortable with much of my own drinking tendencies. I didn't find it completely unbearable, it was quite revelatory for me so I found it enjoyable as well unpleasant, there have been other tension filled films that I've found more unbearable (a compliment to this film rather than a criticism).

Johnny Townmouse

Quote from: shiftwork2 on December 16, 2013, 10:03:32 PM
Picnic At Hanging Rock

Peter Weir's mid 70s tale of the disappearance of a load of schoolgirls while visiting a geological formation. Eerie, quite luscious.  The landscape's alien and forbidding in the same vein as Walkabout.  A young Mrs Mangel's in it.  Probably got some traction on eighties BBC2 because it features some straight-laced posho kids emoting but it's much more than a stiff costume drama.

This was my next nomination. I adore this film so much, it blew me away the first time I saw it on TV many, many years ago because I had absolutely no idea what I was watching. I thought it was a pervy schoolgirl film at first, then a kidnap thriller, then a horror, then sci-fi, then a pervy schoolgirl horror thriller sci-fi. But I just enjoyed it for what it was - one of the greatest psychogeographical films ever made.

It was not until I saw Tarkovsky's Stalker that I finally got it. The parallels between the two films are quite strong for me.

Quote from: stunted on December 17, 2013, 12:56:13 AM
That pretty much sums up the experience I had better than I could have worded it. Drags you right through the film and left me feeling very uncomfortable with much of my own drinking tendencies. I didn't find it completely unbearable, it was quite revelatory for me so I found it enjoyable as well unpleasant, there have been other tension filled films that I've found more unbearable (a compliment to this film rather than a criticism).

Actually, this is better worded than my post. You are right - I think I did find the film very therapeutic. I came away from seeing it feeling like I had the confidence to assert myself in social situations, and in fact have since seeing it, I think as a direct consequence of going through the unpleasant experience of feeling like the main character.

What was your take on the 'dress' scene and how did you find the hunting scenes?

stunted

Quote from: Johnny Townmouse on December 17, 2013, 02:04:10 AM
What was your take on the 'dress' scene and how did you find the hunting scenes?
By dress scene, do you mean the scene with Janette? It seemed set up like it was going to cause conflict which highlights the uncertainties of being incapacitated around strangers. In the end it turned into a seedy non-event like so many drunken encounters and then the reveal from Pleasence brought him right back down to earth.

The hunting scene was just brutal to watch, made all the more effective by making the kangaroos as human as possible. I guess the disclaimer at the end confirmed this was to send out an anti-hunting message. And I suppose also a Milgram-esque warning that it's possible to find yourself committing all kinds of depravity if there are enough people around to convince you it's normal behaviour and if you gradually work up to it.

Johnny Townmouse

Quote from: stunted on December 18, 2013, 06:39:58 PMBy dress scene, do you mean the scene with Janette? It seemed set up like it was going to cause conflict which highlights the uncertainties of being incapacitated around strangers. In the end it turned into a seedy non-event like so many drunken encounters and then the reveal from Pleasence brought him right back down to earth.

I agree, but actually I meant the scene with Pleasance in a dress.

QuoteThe hunting scene was just brutal to watch, made all the more effective by making the kangaroos as human as possible. I guess the disclaimer at the end confirmed this was to send out an anti-hunting message. And I suppose also a Milgram-esque warning that it's possible to find yourself committing all kinds of depravity if there are enough people around to convince you it's normal behaviour and if you gradually work up to it.

Pretty much how I felt - the hunting scene just seems to go on for ever, but the real footage of those bullets ripping flesh off the roos is somehow quite powerful. It certainly shows the reality of hunting, with very few shots resulting in clean, quick kills.

Phil Colons

Speaking of Peter Weir I'd nominate The Last Wave andThe Cars that Ate Paris

Yeah, The Last Wave does have Richard Chamberlain in it, but it's still a powerful,disquieting experience with a brilliant ending.

Long Weekend if you haven't seen it is worth checking out too. The original not the cruddy remake.


zomgmouse

Quote from: Phil Colons on December 22, 2013, 06:29:47 PM
The Cars that Ate Paris


I borrowed that from the library about a week ago and will be watching it at some point. It's coupled with another of Weir's films, The Plumber. Should be interesting.

billtheburger

Quote from: zomgmouse on December 23, 2013, 04:39:18 AM
I borrowed that from the library about a week ago and will be watching it at some point. It's coupled with another of Weir's films, The Plumber. Should be interesting.
The Plumber is very good and quite underseen.
It's like The Cable Guy, but with a plumber and a decade earlier. (& if I recall correctly, based on true events)

#72
81. Bad Boy Bubby
Rolf de Heer, 1993

Already discussed here but it deserves to be numbered. A man, prevented by his mother from ever leaving their apartment, ventures outside for the first time. It's one of my favourite films, certainly my favourite by Rolf de Heer, who is never less than fascinating (having never pandered to overseas audiences, unlike, say, Peter Weir; he remains rather obscure even within Australia). It has vivid tonal shifts throughout its meandering narrative without ever becoming tediously episodic; it's shocking, funny and uplifting.

About the production, from Wikipedia:

QuoteDirector de Heer describes the film as one large experiment, especially in the method used to record the dialogue: binaural microphones were sewn into the wig worn by leading actor Nicholas Hope, one above each ear. This method gave the sound track a unique sound that closely resembled what the character would actually be hearing. The film also used 31 individual directors of photography to shoot different scenes. Once Bubby leaves the apartment a different director of photography is used for every location until the last third of the film, allowing an individual visual slant on everything Bubby sees for the first time. No director of photography was allowed to refer to the work of the others.

The entire thing is on YouTube.


80. Cane Toads: An Unnatural History
Mark Lewis, 1988

A short, engaging documentary about the cane toad menace. Children dress and cuddle them, haters run them down in cars, weirdos get stoned off the poison. Herzog loves it. A follow up has since been released, unseen by me.

Youtube.


I mentioned it briefly in the first page, but like the above, feel it probably deserves a number and a proper explanation.

79. 'He Died with a Falafel in His Hand'



I've not seen this in quite a few years, and I think I need to rewatch it. I don't remember it being a perfect film, but it's definitely very unique and becomes immensely more personal and poignant once you've lived in a shared house. It feels the kind of thing that goes hand in hand with something like Spaced in terms of the demographic, although they're very different tonally. He Died with a Falafel in His Hand is a black comedic thing following Noah Taylor's character, through his life in various shared houses across Australia. It's almost like various vignettes as he goes about meeting all these different characters, and evolves as a person. It has an absolutely stonkingly great soundtrack and I remember it being really pretty funny. It's based on a book, which was based on the author's experiences, so the film is somewhat of a hightened biopic of these bizarre people the author met during his 20's. The film is not perfect. I remember it falling apart a bit at the end, but it's definitely an experience.

The film is all up on youTube apparently.

The first scene begins with a brilliant deconstruction of the opening of Reservoir Dogs, which is worth watching regardless of if you want to see the rest of the film.

mothman



High Tide (1987)

In the days before Sky and on-demand you'd be pretty-much dependent on whatever odd movies happened to be shown late at night on BBC1. This was one such I saw in 1998 and it's stayed with me ever since though I've never seen it again. In a nutshell, the plot: a travelling musician stranded in a miserable seaside town in the off-season discovers the teenage daughter she abandoned - or left with the mother of her dead boyfriend - as a baby. It's a very emotional film and the final sequence, which turns into the end titles, is stunning.

Trailer for David Michôd's new film, The Rover. Man who made the excellent Animal Kingdom.
Looks to be a post apocalyptic thing set in the outback, with Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson. Could be brilliant.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/rover-teaser-robert-pattinsons-postapocalyptic-675301

zomgmouse

I'm looking forward to this even though I felt a bit lukewarm towards Animal Kingdom. It was a fine enough film, but I just didn't get the overexcitement that was thrown at it. I guess if a decent Australian film comes out, then that is enough of a miracle to warrant berserkness. This one sounds like it could be actually fantastic, though.

Quote from: zomgmouse on January 30, 2014, 09:50:41 AM
I'm looking forward to this even though I felt a bit lukewarm towards Animal Kingdom. It was a fine enough film, but I just didn't get the overexcitement that was thrown at it. I guess if a decent Australian film comes out, then that is enough of a miracle to warrant berserkness. This one sounds like it could be actually fantastic, though.

I don't think Animal Kingdom's a perfect film, but it's an exceptionally well-executed film with some great performances. It's great, but I feel it's the nature of hype, because I myself came to it later and it was hard for me as well for the film to keep up with my expectations and preconceived notions. I think it's also the fact that it was an Australian film, shot in Melbourne. And the whole thing with Jacqui Weaver getting nominated for an Academy Award for it. It was all incredibly exciting for people.

But if it came from elsewhere, it'd not be met by the same excitement, and you probably would have found it more of a surpise, since it is incredibly good. 


But that aside, I think it's an incredibly great film. My problems like mainly with the character and performance of the protagonist. He's the one weak link in all of it, I understand what they were trying to do, but still, I do rate it very highly.

Snowtown was the one that blew me away personally. They do feel like they went hand-in-hand in the public consciousness, really. I think the latter is a far more challenging and unique film. Whereas the former is a general gritty crime-thriller type thing, but an exceptionally well executed one.
It's funny, because I guess you could define Snowtown as a gritty crime-thriller too, but it doesn't feel that way to me. It's more of a horror, domestic drama type thing in my eyes. Although it definitely is a thriller too, but not to the same scale. It's far more passive and quiet.

zomgmouse

The acting and script were the main attraction for me in Animal Kingdom; I felt that it was cinematographically lacklustre in that typical Australian "let's point at things" way. The visuals were good in terms of content but had no real framing or structure about them. Or maybe I'm just making this up. But that's what I remember feeling.

I haven't seen Snowtown, but your description of it reminds me a lot of Down Terrace, which is just fucking mental in a quiet sort of way.

You know what's absolutely incredible?




Crossbow.
David Michod's short film before Animal Kingdom. The parallels between them are obvious, but this is really brilliant.

If I'm talking Aussie Shorts, I could recommend a shit-ton more of astonishing ones. This has to be near the top for me. All the elements are working together perfectly.

zomgmouse

Gonna resurrect this thread, or at least try to. Still lots left unexplored.
A few of my

Dunno what number it got up to, but:

Predestination (2014)
Felt it was a solid adaptation of the Heinlein story it was based on, with lots of nice visual touches.

The Babadook (2014)
Wasn't the best thing ever, but more than competent. Dealt with things in an unusual way. The director worked/sat in with Lars von Trier on Dogville so maybe that explains some things? I dunno. It's received heaps of praise which is good but maybe it doesn't live up to all of it. Definitely worth watching, though.

I watched a bunch of Rolf de Heer films recently; Bad Boy Bubby has been mentioned already (it is brilliant) so here's some more:

Tail of a Tiger (1984)
A nice debut feature. Sets up de Heer's tendency to focus on unusual themes, in this case a little boy who likes planes. It's a sweet film.
Incident at Raven's Gate (1988)
Really cool near-future-type sci-fi with an alien invasion (that you never see) causing unsettling chaos in a small town.
Dingo (1991)
The only film Miles Davis ever acted in. Inspiring and fun.
The Quiet Room (1996)
Deeply moving film about a small girl who takes a vow of silence against her parents who are in the midst of a crumbling marriage. You get her voiceover constantly which is very affecting. I liked it a lot.

Shaky

Don't think anyone's mentioned Bliss yet?

It's a beautifully shot, dreamlike comedy/drama with dollops of magic realism; an advertising exec dies for a brief period then returns to what seems to be a more extreme, twisted version of his former life. There are some jarring shifts in tone (several sections of the film play more like a series of sketches) and a few plot threads drift off without clear resolution, but it all helps to create a messy, unsettling, life affirming whole. Like real life, innit? Barry Otto is brilliant in the lead and many scenes have stayed with me for a long time.


Gulftastic

No love for The Club?



1980 film about Aussie Rules Football, it's a cracker, and used to get shown a lot on UK TV. I have a friend who became obsessed with Aussie Rules after watching it.

black_betty



Steven

Wasn't that released as The Go-Kids over here? I remember the mystery was eventually discovered to be a
Spoiler alert
JCB at the bottom of the pond.
[close]

Dex Sawash

[
Kenny a lot better than Welcome to WoopWoop


zomgmouse

Dance Me to My Song. Incredibly harrowing, intense and emotionally difficult film about a woman with cerebral palsy (the lead actress, who had cerebral palsy, co-wrote the film) whose carer is a piece of shit and who falls in love. Really wonderful.