Summary
One woman’s journey through the remote world of misfit men is also one of the more unique Australian films of the last few years. Gorgeously shot, it marks an arresting new voice on the landscape.
Russian-born Australian filmmaker Alena Lodkina comes to the local landscape with something of an outsiders view of Lightning Ridge, creating an Australian story with funding from outside the traditional government bodies. This somehow makes STRANGE COLOURS all the more convincing.
Lodkina moved with her family to Australia when she was 13, and her character of Milena (Kate Cheel) follows a similar journey, albeit inside the microcosm of a specific environment. Growing out of a short documentary, Lightning Ridge: The Land of Black Opals, here the fictional Milena arrives in Lightning Ridge to visit her dying father (Daniel P Jones). Upon arrival, she is suddenly thrust into an alien environment of hyper-masculinity, a collection of men hoping to still strike it rich.
In this sense, it follows in the footsteps of classics like Walkabout, where the most piercing gaze is seeing our country reflected back through the eyes of an outsider. The other thing it shares is the persistent sense of place, a country that envelops the visitor. STRANGE COLOURS is like a gentle breeze, with Melina almost floating through the environment like so many plastic bags. As one elderly man Melina encounters says, people arrive in Lightning Ridge and don’t know if they’ve been there days or years.
The viewer is as much a participant in this floating world as Melina, thanks partly to Michael Latham’s (Casting JonBenet) stunning photography. Cheel is phsyically dwarfed by the seemingly endless emptiness of her surrounds. Hazy blue skies contrast with the machinations of mining. Overlapping dialogue and diagetic sounds, such as the focal point of a pub, further immerse the audience.
The cast of largely non-actors is almost like Lodkina is using Melina as an avatar to continue her documentary exploration of the area. Ex-con turned actor Daniel P. Jones, who gave a terrific performance in Hail back in 2011, is a massive presence even when not on screen. With the other cast, entirely consisting of Men of Certain Age, Lodkina taps into the simultaneous macho front and loneliness of life deliberately lived on the fringes.
Eschewing with a traditional act-based structure, Lodkina has constructed something that sits outside expectations in every sense. Heralding the arrival of a strong new voice in cinema, with a unique perspective on the Australian landscape, she also joins the ranks of a growing number of filmmakers who continue to demonstrate what is possible by working outside the system.
2017 | Australia | DIR: Alena Lodkina | WRITERS: Alena Lodkina, Isaac Wall | CAST: Kate Cheel, Justin Courtin, Daniel P. Jones | RUNNING TIME: 85 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: MIFF (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: Bonsai Films, 15 + 17 August 2018 (MIFF)
