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Reviews
Violett (2023)
Layered, Dense, Observed
This slow burn piece is intoxicating. From its delicious colour palette and complementary production design to its extraordinary lead performances, there's nothing about this film that won't reward the thoughtful viewer. There's often too much caution in an earlier slate of Australian horrors and this film does not pull its punches. The ineluctable sense of trauma that builds from its first moments has you clutching at the armrest, and director Mihaljevich dares you to look away. His cohort of performers rise to the challenge of his detailed script, with unaffected and raw performances from lead Eyers and a long overdue return to the screens of an ever compelling Angela Punch McGregor.
Particularly appreciated was its commitment to a sonic experience, marrying a score and design that genuinely plays boldly - it certainly wrapped the audience in its nacreous delights on the night I saw it.
Any ambitious young actors should look to Mihaljevich's precise form of storytelling to render for themselves what is truly important in harnessing a relentless, engaging and challenging character over ninety minutes.
I want to see more from this filmmaker.
Exit Pangea (2023)
A Polished Gem of Mindful Speculative Fiction
This film is like a triple caffeinated shot of espresso filmmaking. It's smart and engaging and will reward the viewer seeking to re-elasticise their brain. A perfectly moulded example of independent filmmaking that compromises nothing via its budget. EXIT PANGEA is emboldened by a sound design and original score to augment Baumann's significant imagination and the central performances are laden with an integrity and truth that sees a holistic and satisfying conclusion.
Unique in its proposition is that it has real heart. Too often, the science-fiction filmmaker considers emotion too lightweight to do justice to their creation. EXIT PANGEA stands courageously above this and invites a real bond to the audience via its characters with the lead Pouya evincing a real desperation in her need to solve this most delicious of puzzles.
See it. See it quickly. It's a polished gem of mindful cinema.
An eight letter word starting with A (2022)
LONG OVERDUE
A much overdue observation of a scenario that is all too uncommon. Delivered with grace and subtlety, it's just unfortunate that the audience most deserving of seeing this is precisely the demographic that will avoid its challenge. The young boy at the end is exceptionally good. He looks like a young Edward Furlong but with even more grace than that young star. More from Cricri Productions, please!
Guilt (2020)
Brave View on a Difficult Subject
The filmmakers have charged into tricky territory with their film GUILT and although not without its flaws, it does an admirable job of investigating the ethical quagmire of vigilantism. The directors have done an extraordinary job in giving their film a big screen feel with a polish in picture and sound that belies its small budget and its execution can be a lesson to many indies in how to add value and integrity to one's vision in bringing important subjects to the screen.
Safe (2011)
Beautifully Constructed Film
Tremendously elegant film, magical, humane and truthful. Well-rounded and observed, the lead character charts us through the dark and lonely fissures of modern life and its inherent dramas, both real and imagined. It sums up the distance between institutions to see a film like this emerge from a body like VCA (I believe this was its origins) that the prosaic outpourings of its NSW equivalent in AFTRS might see the wonder stripped from it. Whereas the magic realist approach can sit comfortably within the frame here, I can only imagine its treatment via other institutions to have been hampered. I always shiver sitting down to watch a film that has 20 minutes listed as its running time but with SAFE I can't imagine time better spent on a story. I can only hope it reaches a wider audiences through festival exposure.
The Nothing Men (2010)
Rich and Uncompromising
I recently caught a second look at this film. It remains a brave portrait in a landscape of safe Australian choices. I'm aware that the film has had a long and arduous road in getting a theatrical release, but having now seen it writ large in a modern cinema, I was made aware of the importance of seeing some of the shadowy plays of our culture up on the big screen.
Technically polished, it strains the confines of its meagre budget and concentrates its priorities where they need to be - in the dialogues and in the performances. Its theatrical origins are obvious, but it doesn't need to be ashamed of them in the spirit of cinema. Its camera prowls like some kind of spectre waiting to possess these broken men. If they leave the circle of protection, the ritual of their lives is disrupted and chaos and entropy become their bedfellows. And that can only unleash a particular kind of hell on these shells of men.
As a raw and tattered banner of an aspect of 'Australian mateship' on screen, it really is a landmark work.
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)
Sweeeet!
This film freaked the bejesus outta me when I was a tyke!
Love to see it again. It used to be one of those films that would run again and again on Australian TV late at night, and then, no more. Anyone know if it's out on DVD?
Making Venus (2002)
Essential viewing for any novice feature filmmaker.
'Making Venus' should be on the curricula for all film schools before they unleash their students on the world. A wise and sobering treatise on the wiles of producers, the eagerness of directors, and the collective fugue of sundry filmmakers.
Shockers: Parent's Night (2000)
Comment in modern horror
What a pleasure to see horror about what it used to be. A scare and a shock, but moreover a bit of commentary on society, rather than simply the 'slasher' ethic imposed by 'Scream' and its cousins.
Cheek to Cheek (2000)
Heart to Heart in a Forgotten World
In the funky world of making short films, it's often way too cool to resist doing your movie à la Tarantino or Ritchie. Nothing wrong with the odd shootout matched with witty repartée, but it's nice to see something delving into the human side for a change. The great luxury of a short (or in this case longer short) film is that you're excused from the demands of a bitter Hollywood turn to focus on the lowest common denominator. And let's face it, most would consider old people unsexy when opting at a choice containing Denise Richards on the other side. But here's a film that shows that it's okay just to tell a story again. And with the slew of awards this film won in 2001, thankfully audiences are realising it's okay to once again enjoy a film for its substance, rather than simply its style.