The Hunter

In The Hunter, Willem Dafoe plays a world-class game hunter who has accepted a contract to kill the world’s last surviving Tasmanian tiger.  He’s a quiet man in a quiet setting.  He walks the Tasmanian wilderness, sets traps, and tries to pick up the trail of a lonely, elusive creature.  Things get complicated because this is, after all, narrative film.  However, one gets the sense that the plot is secondary.  The film recalls the pacing and tone of Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, and it is a film very much more about the pacing than the destination.

The pacing is .. deliberate.  We don't get to know Dafoe's hunter with an intro and a quip.  Rather, we get know him as he (re?)discovers an aspect of himself slowly, carefully.  There are few actors who can pull this off, and Dafoe is one of them.  However, The Hunter moves so slowly, so carefully, that I found it difficult to remain engaged.  The Hunter is a film for someone ready to meditate.  I, however, saw it on a computer in an airport lounge while keeping an eye on the "Delayed Departures" board.  I may be the target audience for this film, but I was not the target headspace.

So, see The Hunter if you love Dafoe.  See it if you love Australia.  But skip it if you have something else on your mind.  The Hunter is for meditation, not distraction.

Bad Boy Bubby

Ugly, crude, and intentionally shocking, I hated Bad Boy Bubby in a way I haven’t hated a film in years.

The picture, a 1993 Australian import and multiple Australian Film Institute Award winner, centers on a man who’s been raised like an animal, abused and imprisoned in a basement for thirty-five years.  When he finally makes it to the outside world, he does his unhinged best to cope.

But the outside world, like the basement and the people in it, is ugly and coarse and horrible.  This is intentional, as Bad Boy Bubby seeks to shock and dismay.  But you know what?  I do a lot of traveling around the world, and I’ve seen my share of ugly and coarse and horrible.  I don’t need it in my entertainment, and I don’t need to see Bad Boy Bubby ever again.  Goodbye.

Australia

If you don’t like AUSTRALIA, you don’t like movies. Here’s a movie that just screams “Movie!”, with a big story, big sets, big score, big villains, and big heroes. It has cattle drives, sunsets, air assaults, magic, and even an angelic choir. Baz Luhrmann’s motto is “A life lived in fear is a life half lived,” and here he shows that he isn’t afraid to throw everything he loves about motion pictures on the screen.

Ok, but I recently slagged off on Ed Harris’s APPALOOSA for throwing everything it loves about Westerns on the screen, decrying its lack of focus and dragging pace. What’s so different about AUSTRALIA?

Everything Baz Luhrmann touches is deep fried awesome on a stick, that’s what. When tightly wound duchess Nicole Kidman first alights on the Continent, who’s the governor eyeing her through a telescope? The dad from STRICTLY BALLROOM, that’s who. Whose is the second voice we hear? None other than that of Barry Fife, that’s who. Who’s the villain? Bryan Brown. Who’s the evil henchman? Frakkin’ Faramir. And who’s the scruffy drover who Kidman pegs as unworthy to scrape the mud off her boots? Well, it’s Wolverine. And if you’ve ever seen a movie, you know it won’t be long before the Duke’s out of the picture, Kidman lets her hair down, and we’re off to the races.

And it’s a grand race, particularly if you’re willing to delight in Luhrmann’s swooning passion for all things film. AUSTRALIA looks great, it sounds great, and it’s a great time at the movies. Enjoy.

Chopper

CHOPPER reminds me of SEXY BEAST. But imagine the Ben Kingsley character as the protagonist.

Here, Eric Bana plays a guy street-named Chopper. He’s a violent and charming sociopath whose ability to destroy the lives of everyone around him is eclipsed only by his self-absorption. The film, based loosely on the eponymous Australian criminal, is misnamed, however. It should have been named BANA, because its real focus is the ability of its lead actor.

This is the picture that broke Bana out, and for good reason. His Chopper is wheedling, arrogant, dangerous, needy, unpredictable, charming, streetwise but stupid, and extremely violent. Like Kingsley in SEXY BEAST, his every moment creates tension, both in the characters on the screen and the people watching. But as the protagonist of this film, Bana has to keep the tension going almost all the time. It’s amazing.

Well, here I am in my fourth paragraph, and I still haven’t mentioned the story, really. Fact is, I can hardly remember it, for the story is not Chopper’s draw: the performance is. Wow.

Japanese Story

Toni Collette ranks among the great actresses of her generation.

From MURIEL'S WEDDING to THE SIXTH SENSE to ABOUT A BOY to IN HER SHOES, she's proven to be that rarest of gems, the character actress who also gets to be a movie star. She so thoroughly sells her characters that most people probably don't even know who she is, or that the same person played her roles. With JAPANESE STORY, Collette delivers a remarkable star turn, the kind of performance that will make a true believer out of you.

Collette plays a geologist and businesswoman who's saddled with the unpleasant task of showing a potential client, a young Japanese businessman, around his company's mining operations in the Australian Outback. She wants to sell him an analytic software package; we're not sure what he wants, but we are sure that he treats her like the gum under his shoe. But the Outback is a big place. Strange things can happen. People can turn human.

And that's about it for the plot teaser. What really matters here is the force of Collette's performance. JAPANESE STORY is almost entirely about her character's inner journey, and it's a journey she takes without soliloquys. This film hinges upon its star's ability to depict a rich inner life with the slightest of hints, and Collette delivers. Hers is not a classically beautiful face, but it is a classically fascinating one, and she uses it to focus our attention and carry the picture. We grind our teeth with her, we smile with her, we nearly become her in a performance so inviting, so true, that we walk out of the picture putting it right up alongside her very best work.

Simply put, this is an astonishing performance in a very fine picture. Seek out JAPANESE STORY.

Benji

BENJI (1974) is the mashed potatoes of movies. It's warm and comforting and nice and does all the things you expect it to do.

Here's the deal: Benji's the town stray, and he has a good little deal working for himself. He lives in a creepy old house that the locals think is haunted, so no one bothers him. He scores his chow from some local kids who've taken him to heart, as well as at least one local restaurateur who can always find a few scraps. He has friends throughout the town, and the film enjoys taking its time as it follows the loveable pooch on his rounds. Heck, he even goes on a date. How cute is that?

But it wouldn't be a movie without drama. Soon enough, the kids are in danger and Benji has a problem Lassie never had to handle. Who's going to listen to a stray? It's a good problem, and it's resolved well, and BENJI wraps everything up with a great big comforting bow. BENJI is a wonderful movie.

Rabbit-Proof Fence

I tend to look askance at "issue moves." They have this way of putting the issue before the movie, seeking more to educate than entertain. This isn't to imply that movies shouldn't educate - rather, it's a reaction against the hamhandedness that normally accompanies such education.

Thus did I approach RABBIT-PROOF FENCE, a film that's about either the Australian government's earlier policy of reeducating part-Aboriginies and separating them from their heritage or three Aboriginal girls on an awesome journey of escape and endurance.

The film begins as the former, with Kenneth Branagh the genuine but cruelly wrong government official in charge of the relocation and reeducation program. "If only these people knew what we were trying to do for them," he laments. It's hamhanded and, in a separation scene, overtly manipulative to the point of agitprop.

Once it becomes the latter, however, it turns into a better, more effective film. The three girls are heartbreakingly tough and vulnerable, the villains generally well nuanced, and the whole thing thoroughly gripping entertainment.

Ultimately, I think RABBIT-PROOF FENCE is just ok. With a little less agitprop and a little more adventure, the film could have both entertained and scored its points much more effectively.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

The first and most important thing film must do is entertain. Whatever its insights, whatever its contribution to the art form, a given film must hook and hold the viewer throughout its running time. Granted, this prerequisite assumes a degree of subjectivity, as that which hooks and holds one viewer may distract and bore another. I can live with that.

Roger Ebert talked me into viewing PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK. In one of his Great Movies columns, the critic paints a portrait of a mysterious, haunting, perceptive film that both hypnotizes and engages the viewer. I found it tedious and uninvolving. I simply did not care about its characters, it milieu, its insights, or much else about it. Perhaps it's the class warrior in me: why should I care about rich Victorians? Perhaps its the chronological ethnocentrist in me: why should I care about the geographically and chronologically limited ramifications of Victorian sexual and sociological norms? Perhaps it's the animal in me: I saw the movie at five in the morning, while waiting for an airplane to get fixed so I could take it flying - I didn't care much about anything other than getting another cup of coffee. And another. And another. Oh, and maybe a donut.

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK may well be a stunning masterpiece, but it didn't hook me and it definitely didn't hold me. Ah, well.