Film
INTERVIEW QUEEN OF THE ROAD
Paul Dale doesn’t fall head over heels for GATE SHORTLAND, the writer/director of the new Australian coming of age drama SOMERSAULT.
‘I totally disagree.’ Things are not going well. I’m interviewing Cate Shortland, the writer/director of the rather special Australian independent flick Somersault, an elegiac, spacious, quietly oppressive drama about one disturbed 15-year-old girl’s runaway sexual adventures in the weirdly intemperate area of Jindabyne on the edge of Victoria, Australia. The trouble is we can’t seem to agree on the thematic concerns of the film she has spent over eight years working on between stints on 02 TV cult hit The Secret Life of Us. I see the film’s odd, naive protagonist as the victim of abuse from every man she comes in to contact with, and I believe the film is an essay on how easily a butterfly can be broken on the wheel of machismo. She does not. ‘Take the first instance,’ this brown-haired, late thirtysomething, healthily attractive filmmaker from Canberra continues. ‘She picks up a guy in a bar but he’s not taking advantage of her, because she is willing to go with him. The one character who is abusive is the aboriginal girl’s father because he is trying to protect himself by changing everyone’s judgement of her.’ Exasperated by my reading of the film she adds: ‘Think of all the people who try to help her, like the old lady.’
‘Yeah, but that’s just road trip cliché,’ I retort. ‘The film’s essentially
about abuse.’
We argue for a further ten minutes and agree to differ. I mention that I really liked the look and feel of the movie, that it reminded me of an early Campion film called Sweetie. But it’s the kind of lazy journalistic film comparison she clearly doesn’t care for. ‘Listen, I really loved Sweetie but I didn’t see Australian cinema as an influence. I was looking at photography from people like Nan Goldin from New York and Juergen Teller, people who photograph so there is an intimacy between the photographer and their subject. We also looked at German, Nordic and gothic fairytales for that fresh, engaging and really intimate look
and feel.’
As I notice she is itching to leave, I try my closing gambit and ask what she is working on next. ‘I’m about to start work on a TV noir series about a cop who becomes obsessed with a woman in an old crime scene photo. Features? I don’t really know. I just think you really need to fall in love with something before you do them.’
With that we leave by separate exits.
I Somersau/t is on selected release from Fri 4 Mar. See review, page 50.
POLITICAL DRAMA HOTEL RWANDA (12A) 121 min 0000
A film with a conscience that never feels like it preaches. Terry Some Mother '5 Son GeOrge's Hotel Rwanda is a remarkable achievement. Set during the 1994 genoode in Rwanda. when the neigthuring Hutus massacred over one million members of the Tuts‘i tribe. George and co-writer Keir Pearson's movie doesn't make the mistake of explicitly ShOWlflg the Slaughter. Rather. they View the tragedy through one man's eyes - those of real-life hotel manager Paul
48 THE LIST 3—1.7 Mar 2005
Rusesabagina. played with considerable power and dignity by Don Cheadle.
Running the Belgian-ox'rned luxun. Hotel des Milles Coilines in the capital City of Kigali. Rusesabagina is a smart busmessman \.-.'ho knows who to pay off to keep his establishment tickzng over and his Western Clientele happy. He's a Hutu who's married to a Tuts named Tatiana Sophie Okonedo. and when he finds himself caught up 1.” the carnage he turns reluctant hero. sheltering 1200 TutSis in the hotel as armed Hutu troops rampage through the c0untryside. The presence of the
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I General release from Fri 2:3 Feh.
HOMANTlC COMEDY HITCH (12A) 115 min .0
'Hitch: the cure for the common man,’
Or ShOuId that read the common cold”? Will Smith's new t:lm comes across like a ITOU‘NI',’ Sugared. antiseptic lozenge -— a cough sxxeet that's instantly digestible. does the ioh but may cause dyspepsm. Will Smith plays Alex ‘Hitcn' Hitchens. a Nex.’ Yerk 'date doctor' whose top it :5; tr, school the city's guileless men :n the ways of covert ".‘JOOlllg. His latest challenge :8 Albert tKing ot Odeeits star KC‘Vlll James . a rotund
acc0untant who urn/ants nothing more than an exerting out With his client. party girl Allegra Cole rArnber Valletta.
Albert's tutelage ensues. does
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I General re’ease from let, BlOPl‘Q
KINSEY (15) 118min 00
'Let's talk about aexf irtxite', tne luster, although tn the disappoint”igl, sftittyt Altred Kinse, .‘xhr, get', 3', do most the ,akking. Bill Gods and f/ionsters Condon"; biopic of the great sexual chronicler of the 20th centur; l’, one long dry—buian yret it does turn up a tar amount of galacioif; detail.
You can easily see My Kinsey 'tJM'Il Neeson, would want out footloose alter a ,o.;thful struggle f/lllt his moralist preacher lather lJoh". Ltthgoi. But rather than I’llOHl'lg shapes on the ‘ootbatt field. Kinsey becomes, a sex researcher. and is soon ltitting the books with his head researcher Peter Sarsgaard. who alsc wants to inalre a ‘ew ehdUiries 0‘ his 0:er J/lI’l Kin/fife .wfe. pia‘, ed by Laura Ll'ill‘:/. Qru paper. Kinsey's {)UDll’, and pr rate sexual adler‘itu'efi ee’tatnly sound rag. and a te scenes here play well. particularly some CCTTllCaH/ frank talk arOund the dinner table. and a more disturbing scene in which Kinse/