The Australian film festival has turned out to be one of the most eclectic festivals I ever had the chance to attend. Not only the variety of movies and genres but also the enormous variety in quality of what is being produced in Australia.
For example I started the festival with ‘Irresistible,’ terrific and ‘Like Mind,’ awful. Then came ‘The Court Of Lonely Royals,’ tremendously awful. Followed by ‘Macbeth,’ watchable, and ‘Ravenswood,’ brilliant.
The only time where there was some sense of stability was the short films. Bar one, they all turned out to be brilliant, so good they make the features fade in contrast. I loved them. Next year I will do a review just on the short films alone.
‘Last Train To Freo’ was one very eagerly anticipated title. It was based on a play called ‘The Ride’ by Reg Cribb and had already garnered very good, very solid reviews. It had an intriguing prospect and there simply was an aura about it that seemed to scream success.
So what a surprise that it did live up to all my expectations and then some. I must admit this is probably the only film, where after leaving the cinema, I headed home to see when the DVD would be released.
Before heaping tons of praise and specifying the nitty gritty, let me recap the story. Two thugs (they are not named in the movie) board a train, a train whose last stop is Fremantle. These gentlemen are going to Fremantle to collect some dole cheques. They talk among themselves they kid with violent glee, they make snide remarks at each other and in general behave like thugs of a somewhat charming nature.
Then Lisa boards the train. You see, Lisa is a long-legged blonde with a gorgeous face. As soon as she boards the train , attention focuses on her. She sits down nervously, takes out a book, tries to read. But it is obvious that she will not be left alone by these gentleman. Here starts a journey which will not end as any of them expect it to. Along the way two more people will join their little troupe. And none of them are really who they seem to be.
‘Last Train To Freo’ is a prime example of how plays should be adapted to the silver screen: subtle and non-intrusive, it uses a single interior location and lets its’ characters drive the story forward.
There are no flashbacks, no images from other places, just the train and these five characters. Each have their own story to tell and each story brings hitherto unknown revelations to the overall story at play.
Acting is uniformly excellent. There is not a single moment when you disbelieve any of the actions’ the characters take. The director’s use of light and sound to signify changes in the ‘act’ is extremely clever, while the way the film ends is open to a lot of iinterpretation.
It is , by all accounts, an excellent and amazing film. If you have the opportunity, please see it as you will experience what cinema seems to be lacking days: intelligence.
And on the other hand we have ‘Em4Jay.’ It is a well-written, well-acted film with one or two absolutely stunning scenes. But as a whole: the only feeling the film manages to convey is “we have seen all this before.”
‘Em4Jay’ tells the story of Em and Jay who are young, in love and addicted to heroin. Bored of their drab apartment, surroundings and lifestyle, the two decide to fund themselves by getting involved in a little smash and grab. Starting with small convenience stores, the two start to get a kick out of their robberies and Jay discovers the dangerous surge of power a weapon affords him.
The lead actors/actresses Nick Barkla and Emma Thompson are extremely adept at portraying the “hell” that this couple exists in. Especially Emma Thompson - Em emits a sense of disillusion and loss that borders on frightening at times. Watching Em and Jay as they both walk down the street with a blank, lost expression on their faces, fills the whole room with an unspoken sense of dread: one that stems from fear we feel for these people.
There are a couple of scenes which excel beyond the rest of the movie: one is the scene where Em goes to meet her sister whom she hasn’t seen for years. Em is extremely anxious about meeting her sister and unable to calm herself in any other way, shoots up and then proceeds to meet her sister at a little beach café two hours late. All through the scene, she wears her sunglasses, lost to the world, a shadow, a ghost pretending to be alive. Her sister watches in pain, helpless, quietly crying but Em is far too gone to even respond to that.
The tone and the feel of the scene resonates so strongly that it almost detracts from the rest of the film.
The realism of the world Em and Jay inhabit is very well realised. A gray, dingy Australia with endless twilights seems to represent this couple’s entire life. And it is almost scary how acutely aware of their own condition they are. When Jay suggests that they go to Tasmania; Em responds: ‘Don’t be stupid. We are junkies. We could never do that.’
The love between Em and Jay is also a bit strange. There is a undeniable feeling that these two indeed need each other but their relationship feels as nihilistic as everything else surrounding them.
Only during the scenes when Em displays violence because of her jealousy, do you ever get a sense of a link between the two. At best they are immature teenagers, trying to cover each other’s cracks. Maybe that is the intention of the director: creating a couple who clearly did not, will not grow and rely on each other to appear as grown-ups. Even plot strands fizz out without ever becoming important, Jay loses a lot of drugs and ends up in debt but it is a problem that is quickly skated over rather than explored or used towards any drama.
So although ‘Em4Jay’ is not a bad or deplorable movie by any account, it really brings nothing to the genre. A couple of standout scenes lift the film above average but it is still a title that is hard to recommend.
USA
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