Tag: Madman

Review: The Last Showgirl

Gia Coppola opens her third feature with a close-up of Pamela Anderson in the middle of an audition. The moment sees her character of Shelly, a 57-year-old showgirl who has spent her entire career in the Las Vegas show Le Razzle Dazzle, nervous and unsure of what she’s doing. Yet this is the most intimate and raw moment in a film that fails to ever get beneath the skin of its character.

Like The Wrestler before it, Coppola and screenwriter Kate Gersten attempt to frame Shelly’s journey in a naturalistic light. Eschewing the bright lights of the Vegas Strip, the film follows Shelly largely backstage as she struggles to keep pace with younger dancers Jodie (Kiernan Shipka) and Marianne (Brenda Song). Though she treats them like daughters, her own daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd) remains distant, a dynamic the film hints at but never fully explores.

Shelly’s world unravels when the softly-spoken Eddie, the producer of the revue, tells her that the show she has been in for over three decades will be closing in a few weeks. Having wrapped her identity so completely in the show, self-deluding that she’s carrying on a French stage tradition, she is unable to move on.

There are moments where Coppola seems to grasp the weight of Shelly’s predicament, but too often, the execution undermines the intent. Shelly’s best friend, former showgirl Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis)—embittered, addicted to gambling, and now working as a waitress—serves as both Shelly’s antithesis and her only model for a possible future. Yet the film never lingers on her for long, just as it struggles to focus on anything else, as Coppola and Gersten continue introducing new threads without ever weaving them together.

Nowhere is this more evident than in a key sequence where Annette dances her heart out to Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart on the casino floor. What should be a defining moment instead becomes an awkwardly edited montage, cutting rapidly between Annette and other characters as if unsure what emotion to convey. In another film, it might have played as parody—here, it simply falls flat.

The choice to cast Anderson as Shelly is somewhat inspired, and there are moments where it feels like she’s speaking through her avatar. Yet for all the praise she will deservedly receive for tackling this role, she ultimately struggles with the same creative limitations as her character. Her breathy vagueness recalls Monroe, but without the ironic winking, only emphasising how meagre the script’s offerings are.

Of course, it’s hard to shine when Curtis is delivering a powerhouse supporting performance right next to you. Like Anderson, she too has been pigeonholed at points in her career, but here she lays it all bare with triumphant conviction. Bautista also surprises in a low-key role that suggests more depth than we ever truly get to explore. Lourd, however, simply feels miscast.

On a technical level, there are fleeting glimpses of beauty. Cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw frequently employs a wide-angle lens, capturing the Vegas Strip as a hazy, fading remnant of its former fantasy. Even in close-ups, figures at the edge of the frame blur into obscurity. While this visual approach could align with Shelly’s unravelling perspective, it more often feels like an unintentional distraction, muddying rather than enhancing key character beats.

THE LAST SHOWGIRL offers no conclusive ending for Shelly, its dreamlike denouement suggesting she has yet to accept her fate. Ultimately, it’s a shame, as there’s a strong story at the heart of this—one that would have benefitted from a serialised format. In a way, that might have also brought Anderson full circle, back to the medium that made her a household name.

2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Gia Coppola | WRITERS: Kate Gersten | CAST: Pamela Anderson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Billie Lourd, Dave Bautista, Brenda Song, Kiernan Shipka | DISTRIBUTOR: Madman Films (Australia), Roadside Attractions (USA) | RUNNING TIME: 89 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 20 February 2025 (Australia), 13 December 2024 (USA)

February 5, 2025
Review: Queer

Luca Guadagnino’s second film of the year doesn’t quite land with the same electric charge as Challengers, despite reassembling much of the same creative team. Adapted from William S. Burroughs’ 1985 novella, QUEER drops us straight into the dirty sheets of its story, already rumpled and in motion.

The opening title sequence—featuring an artfully messy arrangement of items like stained shorts, photographic slides, and guns sprawled across a dingy mattress—encapsulates Guadagnino and screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes’ interpretation of the material. We’re thrust into 1950s Mexico City, a world crafted to feel authentically worn and lived in, immersing us in its disheveled intimacy from the outset.

In fact, few moments escape the pervasive sheen of sweat and grime. William Lee (Daniel Craig)—adopting the same pseudonym for Burroughs that David Cronenberg used in Naked Lunch—is introduced as a fixture of the clubs and bars south of the border, having fled New Orleans after a drug-related crime. In this insular, alcohol-soaked environment, Lee becomes fixated by Eugene (Drew Starkey), a discharged serviceman eking out an existence along the same fringes.

QUEER juggles many ideas, careening from intimate and hurried motel trysts to a surreal quest for a psychotropic plant in South America, all in pursuit of telepathic connection. Yet the film resonates most when it stays grounded in its immediate world, allowing its cast of characters to flourish—such as Jason Schwartzman’s rotund and self-assured fellow writer, a figure seemingly free from the inhibitions that plague Lee. This contrast sharpens the film’s focus on Lee’s fragmented sense of self.

At its heart, this is a story about relationships that defy conventional boundaries of queerness, set against the backdrop of an era that stifled open exploration of identity. Lee’s turmoil—manifested in his destructive reliance on booze, drugs, and the escapism of hallucinations—underscores this struggle. When he confides in Eugene that his “proclivities” feel like a “curse,” the dreamlike refrain “I’m not queer, I’m disembodied” becomes a repeated line about Lee’s alienation.

Like earlier Burroughs adaptations, Guadagnino incorporates elements of the author’s life, adding depth to Craig’s portrayal. One scene sees Lee envisioning a William Tell routine with Eugene, a grim nod to the real-life death of Joan Vollmer. Burroughs was in Mexico awaiting trial during the period in which Queer was written. Craig delivers an award-worthy performance, his sunken, wearied and needy expressions anchoring the role so convincingly that it’s easy to overlook the muscular physique that contrasts sharply with Burroughs’ own gaunt, junkie frame.

Guadagnino leans into the hallucinogenic aspects of Burroughs’ oeuvre, though he applies them sparingly. Lee’s yearning for connection with Eugene is visualised through ghostly projections: his hand caressing Eugene’s face or leaning in for an imagined kiss in a darkened cinema. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score skews more ethereal than their usual fare (a notable shift from Challengers), while anachronistic music cues—from Nirvana to Prince’s Musicology—add unexpected layers. Meanwhile, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s cinematography drenches pivotal moments in a warm, golden glow, creating an almost dreamlike contrast to the film’s grittier textures.

QUEER exists in that space of being a strong adaptation yet an arguably uneven film. Guadagnino and Kuritzkes faithfully channel some of the chaotic, road-trip spirit of Burroughs while meticulously crafting the period setting. Yet, by the time we arrive at an ouroboros and an aged Lee, isolated in a room, there’s a creeping sense of familiarity, as though we’ve traveled this road before.

2024 | Italy, USA | DIRECTOR: Luca Guadagnino | WRITERS: Justin Kuritzkes (Based on the novella by William S. Burroughs) | CAST: Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Jason Schwartzman, Henrique Zaga, Lesley Manville | DISTRIBUTOR: Lucky Red (Italy), Madman Films (Australia), A24 (USA) | RUNNING TIME: 137 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 27 November 2024 (USA), 19 January 2025 (Australia – Westpac OpenAir), 6 February 2025 (Australia – Wide)

December 6, 2024
Review: Priscilla

Even now, the relationship between Elvis Presley and Priscilla is painted as something of a love story. This is largely because, like people who aspire to be Romeo and Juliet, the promise of all-encompassing romance blinds us to how that all turned out.

Priscilla Ann Wagner (played here by Cailee Spaeny) was only 14 when she met 24-year old Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi) during his military service in Germany in 1959. She naturally falls head over heels for him.

In 1962, when Priscilla was still a minor, Elvis Presley sends her airfare and invites her to come and live with him in Graceland. From here, Coppola paints an impressionistic portrait of a child kept like an object in a gilded cage, all the while trying to complete high school. Elvis’ highly publicised affairs, his increasing paranoia and substance abuse take a toll.

The casting and styling of the magnificent Cailee Spaeny tells you almost everything you need to know about Sofia Coppola’s take. In contrast to Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis (2022), where Priscilla is merely depicted as one of the anchors in the star’s life, the ‘great public romance’ told back through Priscilla’s lens. In that view, we see a child who was groomed by an adult man and kept like a doll on a shelf “to be there when I call.” It’s a dynamic everyone around them allowed, and Coppola peppers the dialogue with constant references to how much Priscilla looks like “a little girl.” Through our pop culture obsession over the decades, Coppola reminds us of our collective culpability.

Elordi, who was the lighting rod at the centre of Saltburn, has a more downbeat turn as Elvis. We’ve grown so used to seeing Elvis the icon, a gyrating performer in a jumpsuit that Austin Butler leaned into heavily. Elordi’s Elvis is a more complicated character, and Coppola’s script makes him equal parts predator and frightened figure.

Coppola and regular collaborator Philippe Le Sourd’s dreamlike photography is stunning, focusing in on seeming minute details of objects like hair brushes or false eyelashes. The visual metaphor isn’t lost: Priscilla too is part of this ornate dollhouse. In fact, it’s rare that we leave Graceland for long, and when we do it feels like the outside world is intruding on this carefully constructed bubble.

Similarly, Coppola has always had the ability to use the soundtrack like a scalpel, and her latest collaboration with Phoenix continues that trend. Yet it’s perhaps that final song – which you won’t find on the official soundtrack – that hits the hardest.

A definite contender for all the shiny things during this year’s awards season, PRISCILLA is Coppola’s most confident work in years. Indeed, thematically linked all the way back to The Virgin Suicides, here we watch the artist come full circle.

2023 | USA | DIRECTOR: Sofia Coppola | WRITERS: Sofia Coppola | CAST: Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi, Dagmara Domińczyk, Ari Cohen | DISTRIBUTOR: A24 (US), Madman Films (Australia) | RUNNING TIME: 114 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 27 October 2023 (USA), 18 January 2024 (Australia)

January 16, 2024
Review: Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Girlhood director and My Life as a Zucchini screenwriter Céline Sciamma became the first woman to win the Queer Palm at Cannes. While the reasons it took a decade for this to happen is another discussion entirely, it’s easy to see why PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu) will land on all the ‘best of’ lists as we close out that decade.

Sciamma’s film is a staggeringly powerful and evocative romance set against the backdrop of a remote island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century. Artist Marianne (Noémie Merlant) has been commissioned by the Countess (Valeria Golino) to paint a portrait of Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) prior to her reluctant marriage. Héloïse refuses to sit for the painting, so Marianne acts as a hired companion and observes. As their relationship grows stronger, Marianne is torn by the trust and passion she has engendered in Héloïse.

Led by a pair of powerful performances from Merlant and Haenel, Sciamma uses Claire Mathon’s (Atlantics) photography like a precision instrument to envelop us in this closed world. This is no male fantasy about two women in isolation finding love, but rather a musing on the power of friendship and trust. Sciamma’s slow-build tension is organic, and despite the almost complete absence of men in the film the bounds of the dominant paradigm is present just behind the scenes. A subplot with the wonderful Luàna Bajrami as Sophie the handmaiden, for example, is about home abortion.

Electronic music producer and director Jean-Baptiste de Laubier and Arthur Simonini are ostensibly the composers on the film, yet there’s a notable absence of an active score in this studied construction. As Marianne and Héloïse wander wind-swept coastlines or haunt candlelit hallways, there’s a tangible weight to the silence of their longing. There’s two massive exceptions to this: a group of apparent pagan women chanting by firelight and the final scene of the film.

Effectively a two-hander – save for a handful of wonderful scenes with Golino or Bajrami – the duo of Merlant and Haenel carry the entire emotional weight of the film. Built partly around the repeatedly referenced myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, each character is given a chance to slowly unfold their backstory as Sciamma teases out the fears underlying their passions.

If the rest of the film flirts with greatness, then the final 20 minutes or so tips it over into masterpiece territory. A devastating use of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, while focusing entirely on Haenel’s face, will leave you breathless as it taps into feelings of loss and regret that entire tomes have never managed to capture so effectively.

2019 | France | DIRECTOR: Céline Sciamma | WRITERS: Céline Sciamma | CAST: Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel, Valeria Golino | DISTRIBUTOR: Madman Films| RUNNING TIME: 120 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 26 December 2019 (AUS)

December 15, 2019
Review: Violet Evergarden – Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll

The first Violet Evergarden film comes with a boatload of added significance. Arriving over a year after the conclusion of the first series with an OVA special, it’s also the first major film released by the legendary Kyoto Animation since the tragic arson attack on the studio that killed 36 people in July this year.

So, it’s appropriate that VIOLET EVERGARDEN: ETERNITY AND THE AUTO MEMORY DOLL (ヴァイオレット・エヴァーガーデン外伝 – 永遠と自動手記人形) carries on in their best understated fashion. After all, the series has always been about dealing with grief and other complex emotions in the wake of monumental tragedy.

A side story to the anime series, the brief film almost feels like a couple of longer episodes strung together. Violet (voiced by Yui Ishikawa of course) arrives at an exclusive girls’ academy with the unusual task of being a ‘tutor’ to Isabella York (Minako Kotobuki), who is effectively a prisoner there based on a contract of sorts with her father.

In the first half of the film, we watch as Violet steadfastly breaks down Isabella’s defences and learns her backstory. As the truth about her past emerges, we are introduced (via a brief time jump) to Taylor Bartlett (Aoi Yūki) and an emotional journey that series writers Reiko Yoshida, Takaaki Suzuki and Tatsuhiko Urahata do so well.

Punctuated by the same titles that graced the end of episodes, this really does follow the style of the series to the (wait for it) letter. Which will suit series fans just fine: it doesn’t so much continue the story as extend the world a little bit, focusing just as much on the emotional arc between new characters Isabella and Taylor as it does on Violet and her fellow Dolls.

Which doesn’t mean that the animation isn’t gorgeous. Director Haruka Fujita doesn’t have quite as many non-sequitur cutaways to feet or the backs of heads, but there are long sequences where he lets the visuals tell the story. There’s a beautiful moments during a waltz where the frame lingers on a painted ceiling of a bird. Later, the stunning painted background give life to a wintery village.

While there’s an argument to be made that this was the kind of thing that could have been included on a home release, as last year’s OVA was, the opportunity to see Violet Evergarden on the big screen is delightful. As we look forward to the main story feature film in 2020, this ‘side’ story is a testament to Kyoto Animation’s ability to tell stories of all sizes and a sign that they will endure beyond their own grief.

2019 | Japan| DIRECTOR: Haruka Fujita | WRITERS: Reiko Yoshida, Takaaki Suzuki, Tatsuhiko Urahata | CAST: Yui Ishikawa,Minako Kotobuki,Aoi Yūki | DISTRIBUTOR: Madman Films (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 90 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 5 December 2019 (AUS)

December 5, 2019
Review: Promare

The thing about PROMARE (プロメア) is that just when you think that it can’t get any crazier, the film bursts through the next thin boundary of common sense and stamps that line into oblivion. In other words, it just might be a Studio Trigger masterpiece.

Describing the plot to a film like this is like trying to catalogue each element of a Jackson Pollock painting, but here goes nothing. It’s been thirty years since the appearance of the Burnish, a group of flame-wielding mutants, destroyed half the world. When an extremist group called Mad Burnish emerges, Galo Thymos – a new recruit in the firefighting Burning Rescue brigade – goes up against Mad Burnish leader Lio Fotia. Yet he may not be the real villain.

From the opening credits, blending a kind of animated ‘documentary’ footage with the Benday dots of retro cartooning, PROMARE visually signals that it is going to be something different. In fact, it would be folly to try and follow this as if it were a traditional narrative, as director Hiroyuki Imaishi and writer Kazuki Nakashima have managed to tap into the collective unconscious of anime fans and given us a continuous train of thought of almost two hours.

Yet for the all of the seemingly chaotic shopfront, Imaishi and Nakashima exhibit a very savvy awareness of the conventions of modern anime. So much so that they use all of them: the tropes, inside jokes, visual parodies, genre transitions (from mecha to mock yaoi in a heatbeat), insane cutaways, and literal deus ex machinas. It’s almost as if they compressed several seasons of a show into a single film or wanted to make every anime at once. Either way it works.

The animation is unquestionably mind-blowing. While it may not be everyone’s cup of tea – pastel explosions, CG buildings, rectangular lens flare, and triangular ash – you never forget that you are watching something different. There’s one breakout sequence where the screen fills with a series of massive Burning constructs, each of them seeming to devour the last. At other times, seemingly random inserts will appear as a means of transitions between scenes. This film cares not for your rules.

In PROMARE we have a strange hybrid that is not only a tip of the hat to all the things the filmmakers love, but a weird tribute to itself as well. Fans of Gurren Lagann and Kill La Kill will recognise all the hallmarks of those shows (albeit turned up to 11), while everybody else can happily walk into this without any warning. The looks on their unsuspecting faces will be worth the price of admission.

2019 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Hiroyuki Imaishi | WRITERS: Kazuki Nakashima | CAST: Kenichi Matsuyama, Taichi Saotome, Masato Sakai, Ayane Sakura, Hiroyuki Yoshino| DISTRIBUTOR: Madman (AUS)| RUNNING TIME: 111 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 24 October 2019 (AUS)

October 31, 2019
Review: Human Lost

Osamu Dazai’s novel Ningen Shikkaku, commonly translated as No Longer Human, has largely been interpreted as being about the impact of Western influences on Japanese traditions. Yet as the second best-selling novel in Japan (after Kokoro), what resonates most with people is its personal narrative of a creator clearly dealing with various forms of depression and alcoholism.

HUMAN LOST (人間失格) seems completely removed from that world, but it is actually one of the more curious adaptations of the 1958 work to date. Set in 2036 (Showa Year 111), human life has been extended using nanotechnology and the S.H.E.L.L. system: Sound Health and Everlasting Long Life. While this is usually reserved for the rich, when depressed artist Yozo Oba (Mamoru Miyano) joins his drag racing friend and penetrates the elite’s inner sanctum, he discovers he has been imbued with terrific powers.

It’s interesting seeing Dazai’s novel filtered through the lens of sci-fi, especially given it has already been filmed in live action, as an anime series, several manga series and was a major influence on the anime Bungou Stray Dogs. The title of the original book more accurately translates as “Disqualified from Being Human,” and this is the thread that director Fuminori Kizaki and writer Tow Ubukata take to its extreme in a cyberpunk reimagining. The notion of the “Lost” in this film are malformed humans who quite literally drop off the grid.

While the surface sheen seems to be a mix of Akira and Ghost in the Shell, and it’s certainly hard to escape those influences in this medium, Kizaki and Ubukata have also maintained Dazai’s narrative structure. Separated into “Notebooks” like Dazai’s book, the contents of which were originally “found” by the publisher and reader, it doesn’t really serve the same purpose here. The romantic elements with agent Yoshiko Hiiragi (Kana Hanazawa) mirror the tragedy of the double-suicide attempt in the novel.

Separating this from every other version is some gorgeous animation. The futuristic vistas of Tokyo immerse us in a world both familiar and unseen, but it really cuts loose during the more metaphysical moments when Yūsuke Kozaki’s elegant character designs are literally turned inside out. As the film builds to a crescendo, where giant monsters roam and there’s a literal clash of inner demons.

With some complex techno-babble and several overlapping sidebar quests, the film doesn’t have all the connective tissue needed to take it to the next level. Still, this is a thoughtful anime thanks to the references to the source material, and it will be interesting to compare this with the straight adaptation from Mika Ninagawa (Diner) – and starring superstar Shun Oguri – due out this month in Japan. Either way, the door is left open for more adventures, which is perhaps the biggest departure from the source material of them all.

2019 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Fuminori Kizaki | WRITERS: Tow Ubukata | CAST: Mamoru Miyano, Kana Hanazawa, Takahiro Sakurai| DISTRIBUTOR: Madman Entertainment| RUNNING TIME: 110 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 22 October 2019 (Worldwide)

September 10, 2019
Review: Weathering with You

If Makoto Shinkai was already an anime hero for 5 Centimetres Per Second and Children Who Chase Lost Voices, then 2016’s crossover hit Your Name shot him into the stratosphere. Following one of the highest grossing anime films of all time is no mean feat, but WEATHERING WITH YOU (天気の子) is about no less a topic than changing the world.

Japan is going through a particularly rainy patch. Think: torrential 24/7. Teenage girl Hina Amano (voiced by Nana Mori, Tokyo Ghoul ‘S’) spots a patch of sunlight on the rooftop of a derelict building, and is transported to a sky world. Meanwhile, runaway Hodaka Morishima (newcomer Kotaro Daigo) arrives in Tokyo penniless, and their lives connect during a moment of kindness.

The grander narrative commences when Hodaka’s life starts looking up thanks to publisher Keisuke Suga (the legendary Shun Oguri), and Hodaka investigates the alleged ‘Sunshine Girl’ bringing literal light wherever she goes. Yet a scheme to make money reveals that all ‘magic’ has a price.

Shinkai’s original story is arguably one of his most complex and, at times, darkest to date. Much of the film deals with people living on the fringes, and the very real threat of homelessness, harm, and ‘club’ work that these vulnerable teenagers must face. This is magical realism with an emphasis on the latter, tackling issues of absentee parents, gun violence, and climate change within the broader framework.

Like Your Name, many of the locations were based on real places and the attention to detail shows. From the accurate neon-lit streets of Shinjuku to the wide shots of the Tokyo skyline, Shinkai and his animation team, including animation director Atsushi Tamura and art director Hiroshi Takiguchi, create a lived-in world that happens to cross over with ancient myths. They cut loose at key moments, whether it is the earth-bound magic of fireworks or those places where the real and unreal blur. It’s staggeringly beautiful in either place.

Masayoshi Tanaka’s character designs are grounded by the lead actors, who are both earnest and believable. The vocal range of emotion in Tsubasa Honda (Colour Me True), who plays Suga’s assistant Natsumi, is impressive and also hilarious at times. There’s also a great running gag with Hina’s little brother Nagi (Sakura Kiryū), who is so much of a ladies’ man that the older Hodaka calls him senpai. With connections to some of Shinkai’s other films, there are also two moments in the film where the (pleasingly full) cinema actually squealed in delight at the cameos.

What’s great about this film is that it follows many of the same tropes and basic structure of the filmmaker’s previous works – not to mention the music of Radwimps – but still feels fresh and immediate. Even with the elements of realism, and a tense Mexican standoff at the climax, the film is essentially about love and hope. WEATHERING WITH YOU might just be a contender for best animation of 2019.

2019 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Makoto Shinkai | WRITERS: Makoto Shinkai | CAST: Kotaro Daigo, Nana Mori, Shun Oguri, Tsubasa Honda, Sakura Kiryū| DISTRIBUTOR: Madman Entertainment| RUNNING TIME: 114 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 22 August 2019 (AUS)

August 25, 2019
Review: Children of the Sea

“Go ahead, they told me. Open your eyes. And in front of me was an ocean.” Director Ayumu Watanabe’s much-anticipated feature follow-up to the 2014 film Space Brothers comes on the back of his directorial gigs on the Ace Attorney and After the Rain anime series. CHILDREN OF THE SEA (海獣の子供) is a visual delight that doesn’t just explore the ocean, but the inner self.

Based on the Daisuke Igarashi manga of the same name, which originally appeared in Monthly Ikki between 2006 and 2011, the film opens with the young Ruka Azumi (voiced by Mana Ashida of Pacific Rim fame) hanging out at the aquarium where her father works. One day she spots a boy swimming in the giant tank, and soon meets Umi and Sora, brothers who say they were raised by dugongs. As with all good children’s literature, Ruka finds herself drawn into a world she had never imagined.

Driven by the look and feel of the source material, some of the psychedelic animation was amazing, and totally does one’s head in. Caring as much for linear time as the ocean itself, Watanabe’s film compresses a whole lot of story into a runtime that is just shy of two hours, and the transition between the scenes is somewhat disjointed. Which might explain why I had no idea what was going on half the time.

Those visuals are quite stunning though. While some of the character designs, especially Sora, look as though they have (appropriately) stepped straight out of a high school girl’s notebook, as was the case with the source material, there’s no denying the scope of the backdrops and effects. There’s a whole trippy whale sequence that boggles the mind, and as the film reaches its crescendo, it’s like one of Steve Ditko’s multiversal Doctor Strange moments.

Yet there are other elements to the production, such as the musical score, that completely ground us in something familiar. If the motifs sound familiar, it’s probably no surprise that it is the legendary Joe Hisaishi behind the music. Having composed the scores for almost all Hayao Miyazaki’s films, along with the modern classics Hana-Bi (1997) and Departures (2008), Hisaishi’s classical approach has phrases that rise and fall like the tide, immersing us in this nautical adventure.

Taken purely as an exercise in colour, shape and sound, CHILDREN OF THE SEA is a veritable feast for the eyes and ears. Yet there’s more of an emphasis on style in the latter half of the film, makes some of the narrative inaccessible, especially for younger viewers. Nevertheless, while this may not be the most straightforward animated film of the year, it’s still one of the most interesting, and animation buffs will surely find it worth a look.

2019 | Japan | DIR: Ayumu Watanabe | WRITER: Daisuke Igarashi | CAST: Mana Ashida, Hiiro Ishibashi, Seishū Uragami, Win Morisaki, Goro Inagaki, Yu Aoi | DISTRIBUTOR: Madman Films, Melbourne International Film Festival (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 110 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1 – 18 August 2019 (AUS)

August 10, 2019
Review: The Australian Dream

There have been a number of documentary films in the last few years that have pointed to a culture of racism in Australia. From Warwick Thornton’s We Don’t Need a Map to this year’s The Final Quarter, the films have aimed to confront Australia with the casual prejudice that permeates everything from the flag to sports.

Director Daniel Gordon (The Fall) and writer Stan Grant’s THE AUSTRALIAN DREAM takes the life of AFL player Adam Goodes, from his early days to his treatment later in his career, and explores the institutionalisation of racism in the country. Goodes, a passionate advocate for Indigenous causes, was treated abysmally by the media and sporting crowds later in his career when he began calling out behaviour that he no longer wished to tolerate.

The Final Quarter is a brilliantly edited piece that simply lays out existing footage and lets the events speak for themselves. In this film, Grant takes a different approach by interviewing key subjects in the saga as they reflect back. On the one hand, there’s Goodes himself (along with his friends and family), and Indigenous players such as the legendary Nicky Winmar. On the other, there’s unapologetic conservatives Andrew Bolt and Eddie McGuire, who only seems to open his mouth to change feet.

Which is one of the strengths of Grant’s narrative, in that it doesn’t isolate opinions within a vacuum chamber. Nevertheless, there is a strong narrative here about the impact of racial vilification in Australia. “The Australian Dream,” he remarks “is rooted in racism.” Showing the attacks on Goodes not as a isolated incident but as part of a pattern of behaviour, the “booing campaign” against him is revealed to be the tip of a larger iceberg. In this context, the conservative voices – who also include the frequently racist and homophobic Sam Newman – seem small-minded and wrong by virtue of proximity to the truth.

The film also deviates from The Final Quarter, which can be viewed as a companion piece, by weaving in Grant’s personal history. Grant paints a broader picture of racial vilification in the country and the importance of sport in that culture. Indigenous Australian former AFL player Gilbert McAdam likens football to his relationship with the land, drawing parallels with the community and tradition it engenders. So when attacks occur on players, several players remark, “it just makes us feel like shit.”

THE AUSTRALIAN DREAM doesn’t simply show us examples of racism in Australia, it conveys the feeling of being vilified by an entire nation. An often emotional film, frequently fiery, and relentlessly honest, this is a documentary that should be seen by all Australians.

2019 | Australia | DIRECTOR: Daniel Gordon | WRITERS: Stan Grant | CAST: Adam Goodes, Stan Grant, Nathan Buckley, Linda Burney | DISTRIBUTOR: Madman Films (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 106 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 22 August 2019 (AUS), 1-18 August 2019 (MIFF)

August 4, 2019