Last night Grumpy and I ventured forth to the Fremantle Outdoor Film Festival. ("F OFF?" asked Grumpy. "But I thought they would be trying to hustle people through the door?")
Our chosen fillum of the night was Wolf Creek. I was expecting to be scared out of my pants (and wore a skirt to facilitate such an outcome) but except for a couple of gruesome moments of violence and blood thirstiness, it was disappointingly tame.
It wasn't the worst film ever, but it was fairly ordinary.
I don't mind that Australian films are cynically made for the overseas market where people either don't know or don't care to know anything about us and our country. So I don't mind that someone can stand on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge or the Opera House and see all the way to the other side of the Nullarbor. That's okay, if that's what people want to see when they cough up the dosh for an Australian film.
And I didn't mind last night that a movie supposedly set in Western Australia was clearly shot in South Australia with no regard to geography. I shrugged when I saw that the terrain was nothing like the north-west. It mattered not that one of the characters watched the sun rise over the Indian Ocean. And it was but water off a duck's back that Kalbarri was supposed to be in the vicinity of Halls Creek. I was even willing to tolerate the statement at the beginning of the film that it was "based on actual events" only to be served a weird hodge podge of the Peter Falconio case and the backpacker murders.
What really gets my goat is when pompous arses like Cate Blanchett and Toni Collette deign to return to Australia to patronise us with their whining about what an uncultured, backward lot we are because we don't support the Australian film industry enough. If, in order to prove to twits like this how high-minded we are, Australian audiences are supposed to swallow bilge like Wolf Creek, which treats us with the contempt the film makers clearly think we deserve, I really don't care if the local film industry carks it tomorrow.
Our normal programming will return with the next blog entry.
5 comments:
Its not just Australia though, HB. I was severely disapointed when I watched Lord of the Rings (on so many levels but let's not open old wounds); That scenery was clearly not Middle Earth.
It has very little to do with your post, but I was just reading about Peter Falconio's trial and I found the names of the prosecutor and attorneys to be funny: Rex Wild, Grant Algie, and Mark Twiggs. Maybe I just have a weird sense of humour? Oh, and I like Grumpy's comment about the name of the festival. Maybe I just have a weird sense of humour.
Judging from your blog, it appears you don't have a sense of humour at all, Karen. What's so funny about those names?
I desperately want the Astralian movie industry to succeed but I'm not going to movies that don't interest me or are poorly made.
As far as I'm concerned, Australian culture peaked twice - in both the 1890s and the 1970s. At that rate, the likes of 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' and 'Breaker Morant' will not be matched before 2050.
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