Cinephile and retired film library
curator. He trained as an economist and some of his work analysing the box office for Australian films can be found at www.filmalert.net. He has contributed to the online journal Senses of
Cinema, most recently to the "John Flaus Dossier" .
I ask myself what am I doing when I nominate ten or twenty
feature films as 'the best'. Is it just a case of “you show me yours and I'll
show you mine”. Or is it more? I think it can be a personally arbitrated
historical road map of the cinema or, as in this case, a national
cinema which, if confined to a particular era, at least implicit might be
something of a framework for an emerging
national cinema. In edging towards this, it may be consciously, or more
or less unconsciously, provocative. Or it may be more a measure of the culture
by taking into account commercial as well as artistic merit, acknowledging, for
the feature film, the importance of 'bums on seats'. Do we apply our own Harry
Cohn test (the notorious Columbia studio boss's trust in the sensitivity of his
own backside as the ultimate measure of a film's merit)? If we do, we are
unlikely to admit it, but are more likely to invoke the pleasure principle
within at least a modicum of artistic and cultural merit.
In selecting my canon of Oz films I have not gone back beyond
1970, the seminal year separating the
film revival from the commercial imperatives of the first seventy five years
and have allowed a director only one film each in the list. Initially,
following the piecemeal film by film approach, I found that when I had reached
close to twenty features, most of the films were on the dark side, the blackest
being the extraordinary and strangely prescient Snowtown which, on re-viewing,
brought to mind Peter Tammer's equally extraordinary Journey to the End of
Night (see below) and its companion, the all but unseen Fear of the
Dark. What I'm referring to here are roles being played out in these three
films that go beyond any conventional notions of performance, both disturbing
and, for me, even curiously liberating. The two comedies in the list conformed
to the apparent default setting : the black comedy, Death in Brunswick,
and the in turn comic, sad and ultimately mordant romcom, Love Serenade.
Pure Shit, set in the Melbourne drug scene, has the pacing and some of
the ambience of a screwball comedy that ends badly, which notably resulted in a
Melbourne critic condemning it as 'evil'. And there is the droll portrait, by
Robert McDarra in 27A, of an alcoholic in detention. Sweetie is an unclassifiable blend
of engaging wit, disconcerting deployment of on-screen space, stylised performance
and a choral music score, drawing us into a disturbing mix of emotions.
The earliest film on my list, Wake in Fright (1970),
seems an appropriate genesis. Excepting Newsfront
and Return Home, the 17 feature films listed above reach into the
darker recesses of experience from inner city drug culture (2) to various forms
of alienation in suburbia (10) and small outback towns (5).
Does that say more about my slightly perverse application of
the pleasure principle than it provides a snapshot of rewards, regardless of
commercial success or critical consensus, to be found in more than four decades
of Oz cinema ? Significantly Newsfront is the only film on my list that
notably succeeded at the box office.
Feature films in chronological order:
Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff) 1970
27A (Esben Storm & Haydn Keenan) 1973
Pure Shit (Bert Deling) 1976
Newsfront ( Phillip Noyce) 1978
My First Wife (Paul Cox) 1981
Dogs in Space (Richard Lowenstein) 1986
Celia (Ann Turner) 1987
Shame ( Steve Jodrell) 1987
Sweetie (Jane Campion) 1989
Return Home (Ray Argall) 1990
Death in Brunswick (John Ruane) 1991
Last Days of Chez Nous (Gillian Armstrong) 1993
Love Serenade (Shirley Barrett) 1996
Noise (Matthew Saville) 2007
Blessed (Ana Kokkinos) 2009
Snowtown (Justin Kurzel) 2011
Mystery Road (Ivan Sen) 2013
The Babadook (Jennifer Kent) 2014
Charlie's Country (Rolf de Heer) 2014
Three unique films: Sunshine City (1973, Albie Thoms,
118 mins), Journey to the End of Night (1982, Peter Tammer, 80 mins) and
In This Life's Body (1984, Corinne Cantrill, 147 mins). All three films
are available for loan on 16mm from the NFSA's Film Lending Collection; only Journey
to the End of Night is also available on dvd. For my description of these
films (including the companion of Journey, Fear of the Dark), which
can all be characterised as 'non-fiction' but not as 'documentary' or
'fiction', see the brief online entries in the NFLC catalogue on the NFSA's
website (search collections>lending collection>submit).
The selections below are based on my fading memory of these
films in the National Lending Collection of the NFSA, during my time (1981-96)
with the Collection when it was located in the the National Library. With two
exceptions they were all shot on 16mm film. Almost all are still available for loan, but with the exception of
Bonjour Balwyn, Mallacoota Stampede, Feeling Sexy,
Come Out Fighting and Passionless Moments which
are available on dvd, are only on 16mm and/or vhs. They represent some high
points in low budget fictional filmmaking of the pre-digital era.
Short features ( in no particular order): The Love Letters from Teralba Road
(1977, Stephen Wallace, 50 mins), Temperament Unsuited (1978, Ken
Cameron, 56 mins), Bonjour Balwyn (1972 Nigel Buesst, 60 mins), Greetings from Wollongong ( 1982, Mary
Callaghan, 45 mins), Feathers (1987, John Ruane, 49 mins), Mallacoota
Stampede ( 1980, Peter Tammer, 63 mins),
My Life Without Steve (1986, Gillian Leahy, 52 mins),
Feeling
Sexy (1999, Davida Allen, 50 mins),
Brake Fluid ( (1970, Brian
Davies, 51 mins),
Come Out Fighting (1973, Nigel Buesst, 50 mins),
A Handful of Dust (1974, Aylen Kuyululu, 42 mins).
Telemovies: The Plumber (1979, Peter Weir), Mail-Order
Bride (1984, Stephen Wallace), 2 Friends (1986, Jane Campion).
All three are on 16mm but only The Plumber is also available in the Lending
Collection on dvd.
Short films: Between Us (1990, Bill Masoulis, 36
mins), Bonza (1988 David Swann, 30 mins), The Girl Who Met
Simone De Beauvoir in Paris (1980, Richard Wherrett, 24 mins), Cherith
(1987, Shirley Barrett, 19 mins), Plead Guilty, Get a Bond (1990, Peter
Maguire, 31 mins), Passionless Moments (1984, Jane Campion &
Gerard Lee, 13 mins), Letters from Poland (1978, Sophia Turkiewicz, 37
mins), Just Me and My Little Girlie (1976, Linda Blagg, 12 mins)