FILMS ... with Tim Milfull
The Eye of the Storm (MA15+)
Director: Fred Schepisi
Stars: Geoffrey Rush, Charlotte Rampling, Judy Davis.
Rating: 4.5/5
114-minutes, now screening
Let me assure you that you’ll not be at a disadvantage heading into Fred Schepisi’s film The Eye of the Storm without having reading its inspiration: the novel of the same name by Patrick White.
The Nobel Prize winner set this story in the early eighties that revelled in the excesses and shenanigans of millionaires like Alan Bond who later inspired monumental failures like Christopher Skase.
But while this novel and film somewhat frowns on the trappings on wealth, White and Schepisi were looking more to what led to this point, rather than what lay ahead. Yes, Schepisi has his characters rubbing shoulders with the awful glitz of the Sydney social scene of the time, and some absolutely reprehensible politicians—here, I’m thinking of Colin Friels’s duplicitous Athol Shreve—but the true focus of The Eye of the Storm is on a family from the landed gentry, those privileged few whose wealth grew from a century or so of the squattocracy that gave Australia its own perverted class system.
And at the head of this particular family is ailing matriarch, Elizabeth Hunter (Charlotte Rampling), who lives in a sprawling mansion sparsely populated by loyal but harried servants, and laments the absence of her globetrotting, shamefully parasitic children, Basil (Geoffrey Rush) and the “Princess” Dorothy de Lascabanes (Judy Davis).
Yet when both Basil and Dorothy return to see their mother shuffle off, it soon becomes obvious that both are more concerned with divvying up the spoils, than comforting their admittedly arch mother in her final days.
Rich with scriptwriter, Judy Morris’s pitch-perfect dialogue delivered by veterans of stage and screen, and filmed and scored masterfully by cinematographer, Ian Baker and composer Paul Grabowski, The Eye of the Storm marks a triumphant return to Australian shores for Fred Schepisi.
Lucky 13 for fans of this genre
13 Assassins (MA15+)
Director: Takashi Miike
Rating: 4.5/5
114-minutes, now screening
Japanese director, Takashi Miike often terrifies potential audiences on the reputation of films like Audition or Ichi the Killer, but you’d be making a big mistake to avoid him, because this very talented man is one of the best Japanese filmmakers alive.
And to the delight of his fans, Miike refuses to be pigeonholed, moving from extreme horror and violence of the films I’ve already mentioned, to David Lynch-like weirdness in the television series, Multiple Personality Detective Psycho, and lately the just plainly bizarre Ninja Kids!!!—with three exclamations, no less.
13 Assassins marks an homage to the Japanese samurai films of yesteryear, visiting territory that fellow director Takeshi Kitano honoured in 2004 with Zatoichi.
But while Kitano was paying his respects to Shintarô Katsu’s legendary television blind swordsman, Miike looks back further to the work of one of Japan’s most famous popular directors, Akira Kurosawa, and films like Seven Samurai or Yojimbo, where the legendary filmmaker often focused his attention on the influence of ronin (masterless samurai), who wandered Japan, often taking on the causes of villages filled with peasants tormented by ruthless gangs.
In 13 Assassins, however, Miike ups the socio-political ante, examining the dying days of the Shogunate in the Edo period, where extended peace meant bored and often broke samurai craved the good old days of blood and gore.
Set mostly in a village primed for one of the most violent extended ambushes in the history of cinema, a group of politically motivated samurai join forces to destroy a psychotic Shogun lord determined to revive the glory days he never really knew.
Beautifully choreographed, unremittingly violent, and eschewing the neatness of CGI for some absolutely astonishing stunts, 13 Assassins is simply one of those films that must be seen on the big screen.
THE BINGE
In Their Own Words (M) now available through Madman
Mrs Carey’s Concert (PG) available from 21st September through Madman
Biutiful (MA15+) available from 14th September through Madman
Snowtown (MA15+) available from 21st September through Madman
Lovers of literature will relish the opportunity to see some of the twentieth-century’s greatest novelists and essayists speaking about their craft in the documentary, In Their Own Words: British Novelists.
Drawing on the extensive audio and video archives of the BBC, a team of filmmakers relates conversations from such luminaries as HG Wells and EM Forster, and more contemporary figures like Salman Rushdie and Martin Amis, William Golding, JG Ballard and Doris Lessing—astonishing stuff.
Also astonishing, but in a much more restrained manner is Bob Connolly and Sophie Raymond’s documentary (above) about the eponymous Karen Carey, a no-nonsense music teacher at an exclusive Sydney girls school, who works tirelessly every two years to stage a concert at the Sydney Opera House that involves every student in the school.
Focussing on three talented, but occasionally problematic young women, Mrs Carey’s Concert marks a welcome return for Bob Connolly, whose other documentaries include Rats in the Ranks and Joe Leahy’s Neighbours.
Set in Barcelona, and directed by Mexican maestro, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Biutiful follows the final days of Uxbal (Javier Bardem), a vaguely shifty street grafter, who is desperate to reunite his troubled family, maintain a very dodgy counterfeit clothing operation, and cope with a sudden diagnosis of terminal cancer. This stunning film offers a very different impression of one of Europe’s most beautiful cities.
And finally, some harrowing drama on our own shores, as debut director Justin Kurzel dramatises the activities of a group of Australia’s most grisly serial killers.
Set in and around the actual territory where John Bunting (Daniel Henshall) and his grubby mates picked off an incredible number of innocent and not-so-innocent victims, Snowtown is a very difficult film to watch, but at the same time, a very important story.
