Table of contents for No. 205 in Metro

An adaptation of sorts of the classic HG Wells novel of the same name, this US–Australian–Canadian co-production uses its familiar premise to convey the horrors of domestic violence. Speaking to director Leigh Whannell, Elizabeth Flux finds that the film uses narrative ambiguity, transcendence of genre and a contemporary setting to thought-provoking effect. In 1897, HG Wells published The Invisible Man, a novel with a relatively simple premise: Griffin, a scientist, has found a way to make himself invisible – but unfortunately doesn’t know how to reverse the process. Stuck in this state, he rapidly discovers that he can act without consequence, and the book – flicking back and forth between the past and the present – tracks his descent into murder and madness. Since then, the novel has been adapted…

After profiling such personalities as Aussie photographer Trent Parke, Spitting Image co-creator Roger Law and overlooked Australian impressionist painter John Russell – among others – documentarian Catherine Hunter has turned her attention to the well-known and subversive painter Ben Quilty. Rather than another probing expose of its titular subject, Quilty: Painting the Shadows reveals the often-overlooked practical methodology to his intricate artistry, including his efforts to depict the 1838 Myall Creek massacre, in which twenty-eight people of the Wirrayaraay tribe were brutally murdered by stockmen at Myall Creek Station. I talk to Hunter about the importance of authenticity when documenting a creative process; how the film organically developed into something more than just a profile on Quilty; and the ultimate irrelevance of impartiality in documentary making. Oliver Pfeiffer: Considering he’s…

Charting an Indigenous woman’s rise from obscurity to the Senate, this TV series – directed by Rachel Perkins, and starring Deborah Mailman and Rachel Griffiths – effectively dramatises the conflicts, compromises, backstabbing and personal ambitions inherent to the modern Australian political system. As Jake Wilson finds, the show also reflects the daunting, unwinnable position often faced by members of marginalised groups who seek to enter public life. There is a degree of irony in the title of the Australian TV series Total Control, which screened on the ABC late last year. When cast member Rachel Griffiths hit on the idea for a drama about an Indigenous woman senator, her proposed title was the far more provocative Black Bitch – and the show was referred to by that name till shortly…

An eye-catching and predictably violent tale of yakuza, drugs and romance, Miike’s film may be written off on face value as a minor instalment in a staggeringly prolific oeuvre. Yet, Dave Crewe argues, this is very much a significant work in its own right – one that places the Japanese auteur’s signature thematic concerns in a more coherent, sophisticated and ultimately uplifting framework. Takashi Miike’s output at once attracts and resists film criticism. There’s an undeniable allure to his work, a combination of unbridled insanity, restless creativity and – among it all – a distinctive worldview that offers his oeuvre something approximating auteurism. But any tendency to collapse his filmography into something coherent is reflexively resisted by the sheer size of said filmography, which stretches into the triple digits. That…

ONLINE PLATFORMS HAVE AFFORDED OPPORTUNITIES FOR TEENAGERS TO CONNECT IN WAYS THAT THEIR PARENTS COULD ONLY HAVE DREAMED OF, BUT WITH THIS TECHNOLOGY COMES A RANGE OF CHALLENGES FOR THEM TO NAVIGATE. IN THIS GUIDE FOR PARENTS AND TEACHERS, CATHERINE MANNING LOOKS AT A NUMBER OF STRATEGIES FOR DEVELOPING FRIENDSHIPS, DEALING WITH SOCIAL DYNAMICS AND RESOLVING CONFLICT IN THE DIGITAL AGE. I’m not surprised that my fifteen-year-old son’s favourite coming-of-age film is Stand by Me (Rob Reiner, 1986). Adapted from Stephen King’s 1982 novella The Body, it’s a beautifully delivered tale of adolescent friendship with the perfect mix of humour, drama, adventure and the kind of banter you’d expect from a bunch of pubescent boys. My own favourite film at that age was Little Darlings (Ronald F Maxwell, 1980), which…

Arguably no Australian director has embraced so wide a generic range while working in various continents as Bruce Beresford has. There have been war films, rites-of-passage dramas, thrillers, comedies and biopics, and in various contexts he has shown an ongoing interest in narratives of intercultural conflict. This last concern is most powerfully present in Black Robe, and Terry Hayes’ superbly researched and perceptive study highlights its enactment as the two crucial white characters relate to First Nations culture in the dangerous world of the Canadian forest regions. Hayes’ account contextualises Beresford’s film in other ways, too: for example, as a work of adaptation, and in relation to US films that took on similar areas of conflict. Brian McFarlane, Series Editor TERRY HAYES In A Place of Greater Safety, Hilary Mantel…

Depicting the romantic tribulations of an actor who struggles to read social signals, this Melbourne-shot web series offers comic insights into living with autism spectrum disorder. Speaking to writer, director, editor and star Kathleen Lee, Anthony Carew finds links between her own experiences and those of the character she embodies – as well as a creative process suffused with self-realisation. When Kathleen Lee was twenty-eight, she was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The Melburnian writer/director/ actor was about to go into production on Sex and Death, a story initially penned as a feature-film screenplay and eventually made as a six-episode web series. Even though Lee had written it before her diagnosis, Sex and Death is, in many ways, an exploration of how a neurologically different person can find difficulties…

Making films abroad and in an unfamiliar language is a feat that few directors attempt, and far fewer still pull off. But it’s an obstacle that Japanese auteur Hirokazu Koreeda successfully overcomes in The Truth – even if, with its focus on the family dynamics of its privileged protagonists, the film still falls short of his most sophisticated work, as Kenta McGrath argues. Although there’s no shortage of films sharing the same name, something feels precarious about the title of Hirokazu Koreeda’s latest work – The Truth in English, Shinjitsu in Japanese, La vérité in its original French – and the way it confidently announces itself. To begin, the film marks the first time Koreeda has worked outside Japan and in a language he doesn’t speak, and the history of…

THE FINAL WORK OF FAMED SENEGALESE AUTEUR OUSMANE SEMBÈNE, THIS DRAMATISATION OF WOMEN’S RESISTANCE AGAINST THE PRACTICE OF FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION EVADES FAMILIAR WESTERN DICHOTOMIES REGARDING TRADITION AND PROGRESS. RATHER, HAMISH FORD ARGUES, THE FILM DEMONSTRATES THE POWER OF COMPETING CULTURAL NARRATIVES DRAWN FROM LOCAL TRADITIONS AND GRADUAL, DELICATE SOLIDARITY AS A MEANS OF COMBATING PATRIARCHAL CONTROL AND VIOLENCE. When the great Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène died in June 2007, Western responses were rather muted compared to the copious outpourings that would follow the deaths of European art-cinema giants Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni the very next month. Nevertheless, the passing of this commonly designated ‘father of African cinema’1 elicited – by the usual Eurocentric Western standards – relatively extensive comment (especially in France, with which he had a long…

OUR INDUSTRY ON LIFE SUPPORT Rochelle Siemienowicz The Coronavirus hit the Australian screen industry like a badly scripted disaster film. It was 12 March when Tom Hanks announced via Instagram that, while working Down Under, he and his wife, Rita Wilson, had tested positive to COVID-19. Then came the shutdown of pre-production on that film, Baz Luhrmann’s untitled Elvis Presley project, at the Gold Coast’s Village Roadshow Studios. In the weeks that followed, other film and television productions fell over like a row of dominoes. Physical-distancing restrictions meant that both big and small productions stalled indefinitely, leaving thousands of producers, actors and crew members stranded and debt-ridden. Also affected were the distributors, exhibitors, publicists and audiovisual-equipment-hire companies – all those other parts of this fragile gig-based industry that annually contributes…

In part a nostalgic homage to coming-of-age films of another era, Owen Trevor’s kinetic take on the sport of competitive go-kart racing is as technically assured as it is, at times, predictable. Yet, as Travis Johnson discovers, this family-friendly dramedy has more depth than its tried-and-true narrative formula might initially suggest. Film critic Simon Foster jokingly referred to this latest piece of youth-oriented Australian cinema as ‘The Kart-y Kid’,1 and, frankly, there is no more apt sobriquet close to hand. Go! (Owen Trevor, 2020), titled Go Karts prior to its theatrical release, is a punchy, amiable teen dramedy that draws so heavily on John G Avildsen’s 1984 crowd-pleaser The Karate Kid, for both narrative structure and emotional pathos, that original screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen is surely owed at the very…

Looking into the life and career of controversial cartoonist Michael Leunig, this documentary is, as its title suggests, an incomplete picture – one somewhat captive to the whims and selective participation of its enigmatic subject. In spite of these limitations, as Nadine Whitney finds, certain insights into the artist’s personality, and complicated relationship with publicity, shine through. You don’t understand a person in their lifetime; you understand them in their death. That, to me, is a more important thing – that you are forgiven and understood. —Michael Leunig, The Leunig Fragments When filmmaker Kasimir Burgess first approached cartoonist Michael Leunig to propose a film on his life made over the course of twelve months, little did he know that the process would extend to a commitment lasting more than five…

Depicting a historical moment of working-class protest, Amanda King’s documentary brings together analysis and copious archival material with artistic responses to the 1917 strike a century on. As Barnaby Smith describes, the film serves – despite some limitations in scope – as not only an essential record of Australian trade unionism, but also a timely call for political reunification. The written history of Australia since invasion is, as is well known, riddled with holes, omissions and inaccuracies. One such gap, undoubtedly, is the nation’s long tradition of industrial action and unionism. Anyone looking to read up on the subject is faced with precious few literary options, Tom Bramble’s well-regarded 2008 book Trade Unionism in Australia: A History from Flood to Ebb Tide notwithstanding. Perhaps there is a need for a…

Over just four features and one TV series, Japanese anime auteur Satoshi Kon left a lasting legacy on world cinema, 2D and live-action alike. Ten years on from the filmmaker’s death, Anthony Carew explores his strange and intoxicating depictions of surreal interior worlds, dystopian technology, and the hazy boundaries between reality and fantasy. On 24 August 2010, Satashi Kon died. The illustrator, animator and film director had – unbeknown to the public – been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer on 18 May and given only six months, at best, to live. The swiftness of his demise meant his death, at just forty-six, came as a shock. Kon had become one of Japan’s most well-regarded and cultishly beloved anime auteurs, for his four feature films – Perfect Blue (1997), Millennium Actress…

AS THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC WREAKS HAVOC AROUND THE WORLD, STEVEN SODERBERGH’S 2011 THRILLER CARRIES A NEWFOUND – AND SOMEWHAT EERIE – CURRENCY. AS DAVE CREWE DESCRIBES, THE FILM OFFERS INSIGHTS INTO A WHOLE RANGE OF TOPICS RELEVANT TO THE ONGOING CRISIS, INCLUDING TRANSMISSION, GENETIC MUTATION, R0 AND THE DIFFICULTIES INVOLVED IN DEVELOPING AN EFFECTIVE VACCINE. Hollywood movies with realistic science come along about as often as global pandemics. Which might explain why, as the scourge of COVID-19 began to sweep the globe, audiences returned to Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 pandemic thriller Contagion.1 While the film was moderately well received in its time,2 its success as a drama was arguably undercut by its emphasis on accurate science – an emphasis that makes the film especially relevant in light of recent events. Flitting between…

A milestone in Australian television history, the series about the adventures of the eponymous marsupial left a significant mark not only on the national imagination but also around the world. Fifty years after the airing of the show’s final episode, Adrian Schober speaks to cast members Tony Bonner and Ken James, and asks them to reflect on their time on the show as well as its groundbreaking themes, contemporaneous cultural impact and legacy. In March 1970, the final episode of Skippy the Bush Kangaroo was aired in prime time on the Nine Network in Sydney and Melbourne. This episode, ‘Fred’, has Sir Adrian (John Warwick), chairman of the National Park Trust and a world-class surgeon, buying protected wildflowers from an old lady vendor in downtown Sydney that have come from…