- Written and directed by Ivan Sen
- Starring Daniel Connors, Christopher Edwards, Michael Connors & Dean Daley-Jones
- Runtime 97 minutes
- Classification: MA15+
NINE years-ago Australian Aboriginal filmmaker Ivan Sen’s first feature, Beneath Clouds hit the screens. Winning him an AFI award for Best Director in 2002, together with a few other international nominations and awards. Now his latest feature Toomelah is headed on the same course.
Set in the remote tiny community of Toomelah, where the Gamilaroi and Bigambal people live in an old Aboriginal mission north of Mooree. This is the country where Ivan Sen’s mother grew up. With a deep personal connection to the place, Toomelah is both a confronting and disturbing film, with its brutal and honest look at life in remote Aboriginal communities. Sen paints a picture of boredom, joblessness, drugs, drink and despair, that stares into the faces of young people growing up in such places. Laced with mob humour Sen – who not only wrote, directed, shot and edited it – includes aspects of the stolen generations, self harm, substance abuse and cultural erasement.
Drawing on locals, untrained actors and one who had acted before, Sen tells the story of ten-year-old Daniel (Daniel Connors). He’s a good little boxer like his dad Buster (Michael Connors) once used to be. Impatient with the other kids at school – except for his sweetheart Tanitia (Danieka Connors) – he skips school and starts hanging out with Linden (Christopher Edwards), the drug local dealer. Delivering and collecting, Daniel sees himself as a gangster. When Bruce (Dean Daley-Jones), a thug returns home after release from jail, and starts invading Linden’s turf, and things start to get violent. Daniel now faces choices, having seen two the avenues of life, what direction will he take?
Toomelah is in cinemas now.
As the magical storyteller he is, we talked the Ivan Sen when he was in Perth to promote his film.
Q. “Who did you make this film for?”
A. “I have always wanted to show people what places like Toomelah are really like.”
Q. “I think you best audience for Toomelah who have to be an Aboriginal audience, because you really are sending out a very strong message here?”
A. “Oh yes, and the community screenings we’ve had, they have been so responsive to it, and such a different response to that of non-Aboriginal people. They [Aboriginal people] see past all the confronting parts because they’re used to that, they don’t even recognise the things that are familiar to them. They respond with a awful lot of humour, and from what I’ve seen I think indigenous people get a sense of validation, that their experience has been validated by being presented in a film.”
Q. “How do indigenous people see humour in these surroundings?”
A. “When the little boy [Daniel] comes out doing a bit of shadow boxing, when they hear words that are familiar to them the just can’t stop laughing.”
Q. “As a group of people I’ve always found you guys have a great sense of humour, you laugh a lot!”
A. “Yes, there’s a lot of optimism, all those issues in the film, they’re also in the community, they don’t control their lives. It’s one day at a time, there’s a sense of optimism out there.”
Q. “So what’s next on the menu?”
A. “I’m trying to make films for a wider audience, like the film I made in American, Dreamland.”
He then told me about his next film, which should be out in 12 to 18 months, but the details of that are not for publication just yet.
The Movie Hound’s Picks
- Restless [M] (Four Stars – in cinemas December 1)
When Enoch (Henry Hopper, son of Dennis) meets Annabel (Mia Wasikowska), who is terminally ill with cancer, at a funeral of someone they don’t know, they fall in love. Together with his ghost Japanese kamikaze pilot friend, Enoch and Annabel discuss the consequences of life and death. Director Gus Van Sant makes this charmingly delicate love story work because of its fine acting by Hopper and Wasikowska.
- Attack the Block [TBC] (Three and a Half Stars – in cinemas December 1)
When teen gang mug a female nurse returning home to a tower block flats in South London, on Guy Fawkes night. They soon find themselves being attacked by furry black aliens with fluorescent teeth, and needing the nurse who also lives in the block, when one of their number is attacked by an alien. It’s all a bit silly, but very funny with some very snappy dialogue.
- The Inbetweeners Movie [MA15+] (Three Stars – in cinemas now)
Four 18-year-old boys from South London take a cheap flight summer holiday together in Greece, as their end of school break up. For some it’s a break before university, for the others it’s before they have to go looking for a job. The order of the day is to get a suntan, drink as much as they can, and screw as many girls as they can find. Based on a British television series, it’s rude, crude but disgustingly funny.
- Immortals [MA15+] (Three Stars – in cinemas now)
Brutal, bloodthirsty and a non-believer in the Gods, King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) and his army are rampaging across Greece seeking a long lost magic bow. With this bow will overthrow the immortal Gods of Olympus and rule the world. When a stone mason named Theseus (Henry Cavill) sees his mother killed by the marauders, the Greek God Zeus select him to save Greece from Hyperion’s army. As silly as it is, a cast of thousands of CGI men in short skirts and sandals use their swords to defend Greece. While it takes itself too seriously. The special effects, lots of blood and gore, it will easily find its audience, but it’s still pretty silly, with little or no story or intelligent dialogue.
Mexico Film Festival 2011
Cinema Paradiso – November 24-30
With 16 films, documentaries, comedies, grand dramas and a retrospective of three Luis Estrada films, the Mexico Film Festival is back again. Opening night film is Alvaro Curiel’s Acorazado (The Raft), filmed in Cuba and Mexico, it tells of the adventure of unemployed Silverio Palacios who leaves Mexico in search of the American Dream. Convinced it’s nearly impossible to cross the border like everyone else, he impersonates a Cuban refugee and sails to Miami on a handmade raft! To his surprise, instead of reaching Miami, he arrives in Cuba but the island is not ready for the witty and crafty Mexican. Winner of the Morelia Film Festival Audience Award, this is a film that generates both laughter and reflection.
Among the highlights of the festival are Luis Estrada’s El Infierno (Hell), a Mexican box office hit. A black comedy about the Mafia world and organised crime in Mexico. Beto Goméz’s Saving Private Perez (Salvando al soldado Perez), The most feared Mexican organized crime boss, is instructed by the only authority he respects: his mother to travel to Iraq and rescue his younger brother, who is fighting in the American army, and has be reported missing. Mexico’s number one box office hit this year.
Gustavo Loza’s (La otra familia) (The Other Family), when the mother, a drug addict, of a seven-year-old boy is sent to rehab. A friend of hers, a lesbian, gets two gay men living together, to take him into their care, as time goes by they come to love the little boy. When his mother is released her lover wants to sell the boy to a rich couple for adoption and the authorities want to place him in an orphanage. What is the little boy’s fate? Alejandra Sánchez’s Agnus Dei (Angus Dei), a disturbing documentary about a man who, as an eleven-year-old boy was abused by a Catholic priest, during his training as an altar boy.
For full program details, see: www.holamexicoff.com/australia/films/
Lotterywest (PIAF) Film Festival
Happy, Happy (Sykt lykkelig) [M]
- Directed by Anne Sewitsky
- Starring Agnes Kittelsen, Henrick Rafaelsen, Joachim Rafaelsen & Maibritt Saerens
- Runtime 85 minutes
- Four Stars
ALTHOUGH she’s married to Eirik (Joachim Rafaelsen), a man who now refuses to have sex with her, Jaia (Agnes Kittelsen), they have a son Theodor , will do anything to keep the family together. When
tall and hansom Sigve (Henrick Rafaelsen) and his fashionable wife Elisabeth (Maibritt Saerens) together with their adopted little Ethiopian boy Noa, move in to a house next door, Jaia is ecstatic. The two houses are located in a remote isolated area. So close they can see each other through the windows.
Sigve and Elisabeth look like a successful and happily married couple, but their marriage is on the rocks, Elisabeth has just ended an affair with another man. Jaia is overjoyed to have them as neighbours, and invites them to dine with her family. After a few drinks Jaia is flirting with Sigve, so when Eirik goes off on one of his regular hunting trips. Jaia soon finds herself sleeping with Sigve, while Theodor is bullying Noa, and treating him as his African slave. Come Christmas and Eirik’s return, they get together to celebrate Christmas, and with everyone full of Christmas spirit, things happen. It becomes evident that nothing will ever be as before, even if Kaia tries her very best.
This hilarious, bawdy, Norwegian comedy is very Scandinavian. Created by Anne Sewitsky and co-writer Ragnhild Tronvoll, it’s the story of an insistently happy person, no matter how tragic her life and circumstances are, Jaia can’t stop smiling. She lives through others, and wants to be like everyone else. Her prime objective is happiness, it’s her survival strategy.
Happy, Happy screens exclusively at the Somerville, December 5-11.
Tomboy (Même pas mort) [TBC]
- Written and directed by Céline Sclamma
- Starring Zoé Héran, Malonn Lévana, Jeanne Disson, Sophie Cattani &Mathieu Demy
- Runtime 84 minutes
- Four and a Half Stars
WHEN her mother and father (Sophie Cattani &Mathieu Demy) move house, ten-year-old Laure (Zoé Héran) and her little sister Jeanne (Malonn Lévana) soon settle into their new apartment in a high rise block on the outskirts of Paris. Laure with her short hair, shorts and T-Shirt looks more like a boy than a girl, and pretends to be a boy. Calling herself Michaël, she plays football and fights with the boys. Lisa (Jeanne Disson) is rather taken with Michaël, and a childhood romantic crush develops between them. The kids are on their summer school holidays, and Michaël and the other kids spent most of their time outside playing.
Initially Michaël doesn’t allow her little sister Jeanne to play with her and the other kids. However, when Jeanne opens the door of their apartment to Lisa one day, Michaël strikes a secret deal with Jeanne to never tell anyone that Michaël is in fact Laure. While Jeanne keeps her part of the bargain (kids love secrets), a situation arrises when the truth is revealed. When Laure’s mother tells Lisa the truth, Laure runs off into the woods. How will Laure deal with it, and anyway the school holidays can’t last for ever and she’ll soon have to front up to reality, when school begins?
Céline Sclamma (Water Lilies) tells this story with a deep sense of care, delicately and brutal honesty, while all the time keeping her audience on tender hooks, as tensions rises. Luckily Laure’s parents are mature and sensible, so unlike those in a recent movie, We Need to Talk About Kevin.
Tomboy screens exclusively at Joondalup Pines, December 6-11.
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