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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 22 August 2005

Much has been made of the war in Iraq but Turtles Can Fly approaches the subject matter from an unexpected angle.  Set just before the war commences, it’s the story of a group of kids who live in a small own near in the Iraqi-Turkish border.  They are led by Satellite (Ebrahim), a boy with technological expertise.  He his helping set up a satellite dish so that the town elders can tune into CNN or the Fox News Channel (god forbid).   They want news of the pending war and they aren’t getting it on Iraqi television.

We’ve seen the war from our perspective, now here’s the chance to see it from the eyes of children living in Iraq.  Satellite and his posse of children earn a small amount of money by removing land mines from the local farmland.  You wouldn’t think that they’d live in such a hostile country when you look at the affectionate enthusiasm these children have.

Things change for Satellite when an armless boy named Pashow (Feysal) and his sister Agrin (Latif) arrive in town.  Pashow starts making predictions about the war which are become eerily true.  Satellite sees Pashow as a threat to his leadership and stance in the community.  Ironically though, he has developed a crush on Pashow’s sister.  He is discovering new feelings and his priorities are soon changing…

I am told it is the first major film to be filmed in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein.  This is great to see but it doesn’t impact my review in anyway.  Regardless of the circumstances of how it came to be, this a superb film with a big heart.  The children give tender performances which are exemplified by a scene towards the end where Satellite tries to rescue a blind baby from a field full of land mines.   

On his website, director Bahman Ghobadi dedicates his film to “all the innocent children of the world – the casualties of the policies of dictators and fascists.”  It’s apt way of passing on the message behind Turtles Can Fly.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 14 August 2005

Do you own a house?  If so, it’s time to sell it and place all the proceeds on Look Both Ways to win best film at this year’s Australian Film Institute Awards (to be held in November).  Without any shadow of a doubt, it’s the best Aussie flick of the past two years.  Our film industry may still be in a slump but at this provides assurance that we do have some very talented artists in this country.

The film reminded me of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia.  There are many characters and many stories but they are all tied together in some way.  Nick (McInnes) is a middle aged photographer who has just been told by his doctor that he has cancer.  Meryl (Clarke) is a painter who is plagued with premonitions of death.  Phil (Gilbert) is a newspaper editor who feels like he doesn’t belong at home.  Andy (Hayes) is a journalist who just can’t get people to listen to him.  A train accident serves as a turning point for all of them.  Exactly how it all fits together, I will leave for you to discover.

Shot in South Australia, Look Both Ways is a wonderful collaboration which has been crafted by writer-director Sarah Watt.  Like another Australian film of a few years back, The Tracker, some animation is mixed amongst the live footage to great effect.  It gives the film a real buzz and its particularly graphic nature is both hilarious and disturbing.  The well-selected soundtrack helps bring it all together and is ideally placed in the film’s reflective moments.

When watching Look Both Ways you’re sure to go through a range of emotions and relate with many of the characters.  It feels real and honest – a story about ordinary people who act like ordinary people, speak like ordinary people and have problems like ordinary people.

It’s unrelated to my review but I also want to praise the marketing of the film.  The posters are distinctive and looks great with the road sign design.  The trailer is also memorable – it’s split into 3 parts and on the times that I’ve seen it, two trailers for other films have been shown in between.  The film is only screening at a couple of cinemas in Brisbane but I pray that it finds a strong audience and receives positive word of mouth.  At the Brisbane International Film Festival earlier this month, the film played to a sell-out crowd and was voted the best film of the festival by the audience.  When you consider it was up against roughly 200 other films, that’s a pretty impressive honour!

Last year, Look Both Ways won a Queensland Premier’s Literary Award.  Now that the screenplay has been developed into the final product, more awards should follow.  The film has already been invited to screen at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, my personal favourite and considered by some to be the best in the world.  I look forward to hearing the plaudits from critics across the globe.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 19 August 2005

This film was originally titled Danny The Dog.  I’m not surprised they changed the title.  What I am surprised about is how unexpectedly poor this film was.  All you need do is watch the first 10 minutes, walk outside for 80 minutes and do some shopping, then come back for the final 10 minutes.  You will have missed very little and have no trouble picking up the storyline.

Martial arts star Jet Li stars as Danny, a man who has been raised as an animal all his life.  His master, Bart (Hoskins), has an unusual way of keeping him under control.  When he has his collar on, Danny is a docile individual who stays in his cage and doesn’t do much.  When the collar comes off, Danny is a remorseless fighting machine who can defeat any challenger.

Bart is in the dirty business of debt collection and Danny is ideal protection.  His debtors always pay when threatened with the prospect of Bart removing Danny’s collar.  They know his reputation.  When a job goes bad however, Bart is shot and Danny flees.  He finds his way to a piano tuner named Sam (Freeman) and his daughter, Victoria (Condon).  They take him into their home and show him the world he has never known.

There isn’t much more to this story.  A solid half-hour is wasted developing Danny’s plight and his growing relationship with Sam and Victoria.  It’s tedious and obvious.  Those expecting action won’t find as much as they’d hope for.  Those expecting drama will be looking beyond the cinema doors.  That said, the above average score from the public on the Internet Movie Database suggests there’s people out there who will disagree with my opinion.

There’s a scene in the film where Bob Hoskins tells Jet Li that the past can’t be changed and instead, one should be more concerned with the future.  How appropriate that comment is.  I can’t change the past and I shouldn’t worry about the two hours wasted.  Ah, but I can influence the future.  I can tell people not to bother with Unleashed and try another movie instead.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 11 August 2005

Mysterious Skin was one of the most talked about films of this year’s Brisbane International Film Festival (BIFF).  Set to be released nationwide on August 18, Attorney General Philip Ruddock appealed the R-rating given to it by the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC).  After receiving complaints from the Australian Family Association (AFA), Ruddock wanted the film banned.

The outcry sounds all too familiar.  Last year, Ken Park was banned in Australia as, in the words of the OFLC, it “offended the standards of morality, decency and proprietary generally accepted by reasonable adults”.  This was despite New Zealand’s classification calling it “an insightful presentation of the societal and family pressures on teenagers”.

Two days after I saw the film at BIFF, the decision came down from the OFLC.  By a margin of 4 votes to 2, the film kept it’s R-rating and thankfully, will now be seen here in Australia.  David Stratton of ABC’s At The Movies was making a presentation at BIFF when fellow critic Margaret Pomeranz called in with news of the decision.  I wasn’t there at the time but I wish I could have been to see an excited David inform the audience.

As much as I will rave about this film, it will shock many people.  Child abuse can be a difficult subject matter and I’ll understand if people don’t want to see it.  It’s kind of surprising though that such a film hasn’t been made before given that the issue has become so prevalent in the media in recent years.

Mysterious Skin is the story of two 18-year-old boys who were sexually abused by their baseball coach when just 8 years of age.  Neil (Gordon-Levitt) has become a gay hustler who has seemingly slept with every guy in town.  He’s proud of the fact that he’s gay and doesn’t care what people think of his lifestyle.  Brian (Corbet), on the other hand, has suppressed all knowledge of his abuse.  He suffers from blackouts and nose-bleeds but doesn’t know why.  An interview with a local girl on a television show has him theorising that he was once abducted by aliens.

What distinguishes the film is writer/director Gregg Araki’s ability to find something uplifting amongst the depressing gloom.  Neil and Brian’s lives have been scarred forever but the film’s focus is not on the abuse itself.  Rather, it’s the way in which each of them tries to come to terms with the experience and move forward.  There’s a lot of heartache but a few laughs to keep a nice balance.

The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Third Rock From The Sun) and Brady Corbet (Thirteen) in what is a great chance to establish themselves in the film world.  It’s difficult for any young actor to break away from the teen mould but their two performances in Mysterious Skin have demonstrated talent and commitment.  They subtly give their characters intrigue and complexity.  The emotional finale they share left an awed hush at my screening as the credits started to roll.

Validation of my own opinion of the film came at the closing night of BIFF when the audience voting cards were tallied and the film was ranked as the third favourite movie of the festival.  Now that the censorship debate is behind us, the rest of Australia now has the opportunity to confront a film that tells a compelling story and has something meaningful to say.  How many other films this year can you say that about?

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 15 August 2005

Jack Starks (Brody) stands by the side of the road.  He hitches a ride with a young guy (Renfro).  The car is pulled over by a police officer.  The driver pulls out a handgun and shoots the officer dead.  The driver then shoots Jack and leaves him for dead by the side of the road.  Jack survives but has no memory of the event.  On trial for the death of the police officer, Jack is found guilty by way of insanity.  He is now incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital and under the care of Dr Thomas Decker (Kristofferson).

Decker has been experimenting on his patients with a radical procedure.  He injects them with a formula and locks them in a very confined space for a short period of time.  The results have been unusual and the intrigued Decker continues with his research.  Jack is his latest lab-rat and trapped inside the dark cell in a straight-jacket, the hallucinations begin…

It’s Christmas Eve and Jack waits outside a diner.  A girl named Jackie Price (Knightley) offers him a lift somewhere but Jack has no idea where he wants to go.  He goes back to her house and they spend the night talking on the couch.  Looking around while Jackie is asleep, Jack finds a pair of dog tags hanging on the wall.  They are his.  He gave them to a young girl on the day he was shot.  How did Jackie get them?

Confronting her straight away, Jackie tells of how she was given them many years ago by a stranger.  Putting two and two together, Jack realises he is witnessing “a time that is not this time”.  He has been given a glimpse into the future.  When Jack finds out that he is to die in four days time, it becomes a quest for both himself and Jackie to find out how and try to prevent it...

The Jacket is a thriller which fails to thrill.  Time travel movies can be great like Donnie Darko or they can really stink like Timeline.  This falls into the later category and didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense.  It was never explained how Jack was seeing into the future.  If Dr Decker realised this was happening (and surely he did), why didn’t he take it further?  Why didn’t he even go in for his own look?  Furthermore, what’s with the big conspiracy as to how Jack died?  Without giving it away, I found it hard to believe that so many people were unwilling to give him the information.

Adrien Brody is an accomplished actor but flounders in this befuddling screenplay.  Keira Knightley isn’t much better either.  Kris Kristofferson and Jennifer Jason Leigh (as another doctor) are the pick of the bunch but this isn’t going to help ticket sales.  Unless you’re easy to please, The Jacket will provide more irritation that enjoyment.