FILM | Reviews
TRUE DRAMA TRACKS (12A) 112min ●●●●●
Australian cinema has frequently explored the lure of the outback, from 1970s classics like Picnic At Hanging Rock, Walkabout and Wake In Fright to more recent films like The Proposition and Wolf Creek. Now, director John Curran adds Tracks to that rarefied list, a film that blends the hallucinogenic beauty and horror of the desert. What’s more, it’s all true. Based on the best-selling book by Robyn Davidson,
Tracks is a frank account of her nine-month trek that began in Alice Springs and took her almost 2000 miles across the country’s most inhospitable terrain. Davidson is played by Mia Wasikowska who is accompanied on this against-the-odds odyssey with just four camels and her faithful dog, Diggity. Tracks isn’t the most dynamic of dramas. Davidson does meet with various figures on her journey – from aged aborigine Eddie (Roly Mintuma) to photographer Rick Smolan (Adam Driver). The only way she could fund the trip was to sign a deal with National Geographic; which meant agreeing to Smolan’s occasional presence, much to her annoyance.
Wasikowska brings authenticity to Davidson but unfortunately Curran never quite solves the problem of how to make a story about someone trekking through endless sand dunes riveting. (James Mottram) ■ General release from Fri 25 Apr.
THRILLER BLUE RUIN (15) 90min ●●●●●
A big hit of the festival circuit, writer and director Jeremy Saulnier’s backwoods drama is a twisty thriller that sits in the jet-black hinterland between Winter’s Bone and Fargo. The run-down feel of Delaware is matched by the haggard central character, a vengeful assassin who gets into a conflict that takes him in far over his head.
Things start out simply enough with vagrant Dwight Evans (Macon Blair) living in his car. When he hears news that Will Cleland, a man that Dwight holds responsible for his parents’ death, has plea-bargained his way out of jail, Dwight realises he has nothing to lose and plots bloody revenge. But his poorly thought-out actions have consequences, and not the complications with the law that he expects. Blue Ruin rises to the occasion, mixing Gothic melancholia
with bursts of violent action. Blair gives a haunting performance, making the transformation from sidelined no-hoper to a man fighting tenaciously for his life with genuine gravity. This is a simple story well told, delivering on its promises of a tightly wound descent into hell, and marking promising work from both Saulnier and Blair. (Eddie Harrison) ■ Limited release from Fri 2 May.
ANIMATION THE WIND RISES (PG) 126min ●●●●●
Studio Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki has taken a few curtain calls in the past; if his final film is to be The Wind Rises, then he’ll be going out at the very top of his game. A beautifully animated study of Japanese aircraft designer Jiro Horikoshi, The Wind Rises is an engaging, deeply moving and mature film that exudes intelligence and compassion. Re-voiced by an American cast, Miyazaki’s film is a fictionalised account of Horikoshi’s life, establishing Jiro (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) as a dreamer whose ideas soon take flight. Studying engineering, Jiro meets Nahoko (Emily Blunt) during the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and falls in love, but her family closes ranks to hide her tuberculosis from him.
As World War II emerges on the horizon, Jiro finds his ideas are much sought after, and
returns to woo Nahoko with renewed confidence. But the uses to which his designs will be put appall Jiro, and he struggles with his conscience as his career prospers.
Few directors would dare to put the dilemmas inherent in military aircraft design to the fore, but Miyazaki’s film deals sensitively with the notion that good work may be used for bad ends. The counterpointing romance with Nahoko is handled with similar grace rather than sentimentality, but the resolution will still elicit copious tears.
Flight has been a key element of the Studio Ghibli films, from Kiki’s Delivery Service to Howl’s Moving Castle, but The Wind Rises has a unique warmth that makes it accessible for both children and adults. A scene with a German spy, voiced by Werner Herzog, nails the complexities of Jiro’s life: his ideas may come to fruition, but his destination is uncertain. Reality may be subject to change, but the beauty of the dream endures all earthly setbacks. (Eddie Harrison) ■ General release from Fri 9 May.
PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER MAGIC MAGIC (15) 97min ●●●●●
Alicia (Juno Temple) is a young American student taking her first trip outside the US to visit her cousin Sarah (Emily Browning) in Chile. Arriving jet-lagged and sleep-deprived, Alicia embarks on another long journey, this time by car to the rural south with Sarah, her boyfriend Agustín (Agustín Silva) and his friends, the seemingly permanently bad-tempered Barbara (Catalina Sandino Moreno) and Brink (Michael Cera), a gauchely camp American ex-pat. Director Sebastián Silva keeps tight control of
the film’s tone, creating an atmosphere that is by turns intensely claustrophobic and bizarrely funny. Weaving through the movie is an underlying suggestion that even the natural world around Alicia is in some way out of joint, or perhaps working against her, increasing a sense of panic and unravelling state of mind.
Temple is excellent, raw and unpredictable as Alicia, while Cera (who also executive produces) offers genuine surprise in a dark and unrestrained performance. Silva ultimately takes his characters to the strange place he has hinted at throughout, and delivers on the title’s promise with a kind of magic. Or is it madness? (Paul Gallagher) ■ Limited release from Fri 18 Apr. See feature, page 56.
58 THE LIST 17 Apr–15 May 2014