DEATH WISH

Stars: Bruce Willis, Dean Norris, Vincent D’Onfrio, Elisabeth Shue, Kimberly Elise, Camila Morrone, Beau Knapp and Len Cariou.
Writer: Joe Carnahan; based on the novel by Brian Garfield.
Director: Eli Roth

Rating: 3/5

There is no escaping the urge to dismiss, even deride, Eli Roth’s remake of Michael Winner’s 1974 sequel-friendly Death Wish as an ugly by-product of the new President’s America. Filled with scenes one desperately hopes are ironic but probably aren’t (giggly, buxom salesgirls espouse the pure joy of AR weaponry; Mexican valets rape college-bound white girls; African-American hoods deal drugs via neighbourhood kids), this update threatens to play as archaically redundant as its source material. In the new United States of Fear and Intolerance, however, Roth's alpha male-privilege fantasy may tap the emboldened 'alt-right' audience.

Bald and angry white-guy Bruce Willis effectively channels the rigid, one-note screen presence of Charles Bronson as vigilante Paul Kersey, the well-to-do middle class professional who comes to accept that lone-wolf justice is better than anything the cops or courts can offer. When Dean Norris’ bald and angry white-guy detective offers only excuses regarding the investigation into the murder of his wife (Elisabeth Shue) and brutal assault of his daughter (Camila Morrone), Willis arms up and hits Chicago’s seedy, nighttime locales to reek his own brand of heart-over-head vengeance.

Willis’ casting is crucial, not because he does anything remarkable with the character – Kersey is a meat-&-potato American ‘suburban dad’, offering Willis little scope – but because Roth’s coldly calculated if simple-minded thriller exists in a 80s action-movie world totally tone-deaf in today's climate. Our anti-hero is so of another time, he can’t text (despite overseeing a modern hospital’s emergency room) and the narrative relies on some ridiculous developments only the most undemanding Blockbuster customer would have ever fallen for (e.g., Kersey procures his first gun when it falls from a shooting victim in the ER, in plain view of several clearly blind hospital staff and long after ambulance medics have stripped down the victim). Little is made of Dr Versey’s relationship with his Hippocratic Oath, one of many missed opportunities in the formulaically constructed script by macho screenwriter Joe Carnahan (Smokin’ Aces, 2007; The A-Team, 2010; The Grey, 2012).

There are modern concessions that the 2018 production affords itself – Kersey becomes a viral online sensation, dubbed ‘The Grim Reaper’ when his first slaying is uploaded. But Roth falls back on another relic of times gone by, the talk-back radio shock jock, to act like a Greek chorus arguing (not very convincingly) the moral complexities of should-he-or-shouldn’t-he vigilantism. DOP Rogier Stoffers  (School of Rock, 2003; Mongol, 2007; The Disappointments Room, 2016) also recalls the bygone beauty of Winner’s film stock ambience, capturing the deep, dark shadows of a city at night in his lensing.

To your left-leaning critic, the politics of Death Wish are reprehensible. Roth has never displayed too much sensitivity or intellect, so it is unlikely he took on a revenge narrative as a means by which to encourage discussion; in his film, a bad guy with a big gun will be stopped by a decent guy with a bigger gun, one of many NRA bumper-sticker sentiments that seem to have inspired the plot. To die-hard advocates of Trump’s singular vision to return his nation to ultra-conservative white-man rule, however, it will play as if John McClane, one of cinema’s greatest American heroes, was always on their side.

Nevertheless, Eli Roth’s Death Wish is arguably his best work since…whenever; a slick, sick and admittedly watchable throwback to a brand of un-PC action/thriller when the unjustifiable yet, to some, understandable actions of a gun-toting, grief-stricken everyman, his heroic roots in classic Western films, still seemed pure movie fantasy. With ugly male privilege and toxicity in the spotlight, Willis and his director faced an uphill battle to make their lead character anything less than reprehensible; if that’s their only achievement, it’s a significant if questionable one.

CARRIBERRIE

With: Bangarra Dance Theatre, Dubay Dancers, The Lonely Boys, Anangu, Joey Ngamjmirra, Mayi Wunba, Naygayiw Gigi Dance Troupe and Hans Ahwang. Narrated by David Gulpilil.
Writer: Tara June Winch.
Director: Dominic Allen.

Reviewed at the World Premiere, held at The Australian Museum in Sydney on Thursday February 23.

Rating: 5/5

Indigenous tradition dating back millennia melds with the future of fully immersive filmmaking technology in the breathtaking virtual reality mini-feature, Carriberrie. A faithful extension of the art and craft of the spiritual dance narratives it captures, this glorious film premieres at The Australian Museum as an integral part of WEAVE, a month-long festival celebrating First Nation and Pacific cultures.

Deriving its title from the word ‘corroboree’ as spoken by the Eora nation, the traditional owners of the land upon which the city of Sydney now stands, the 15-minute 3D/360° rendering of First Nation dance and music represents a deeply humanistic focussing of the VR lens. Director Dominic Allen has employed the Jaunt ONE camera (a custom-built VR rig offering unprecedented image quality) to capture not only the majestic Australian landscape from Uluru to The Torres Strait Islands to The Harbour City, but also the unique complexities and beautiful artistry of native storytelling in song.

A white Australian of Irish ancestry, Allen spent two years working with indigenous elders such as senior Kimberley Walmajarri woman Annette Kogolo and Marilyn Miller, Director of the Laura Aboriginal Dance Festival and former Bangarra choreographer, to ensure authenticity and respect was afforded all the performers in the film. Several of the sequences, including the funeral performance “Kun-borrk Karrbarda” from the Northern Territory and a Kuku-Yalanji ceremony called “Mayi Wunba” that depicts the cultivation of Queensland rainforest honey, have rarely been glimpsed by the wider Australian population.

Contemporary First Nation culture is also represented, with contributions from the acclaimed work “Bennelong”, courtesy of the internationally renowned Bangarra dance company, and the anthemic rock song “The Hunter” from Lonely Boys, a six-piece band hailing from the Arnhem Land community of Ngukurr. A picturesque highlight is the all-women Dubay Dancers, of the Arakwal people from the stunning Byron Bay region of New South Wales, who dance a re-enactment of the seaside collection of yuggari (pippi) and jalum (fish).

Allen unites indigenous musical culture and the nations from which they hail with drone footage that frames the vast yet singular bond they share with the land, from deep within the red of the Outback to the green of the hinterland to the blue of coast. In and of itself much of this resembles high quality travelogue footage, to date one of standard uses of VR technology. In cohesion with the symbolic stories, however, the footage stirs with profundity.

The director’s other triumphant artistic flourish is his use of the 360° device, allowing the viewer to be at the centre of the dance rituals within the very environment from which they traditionally emerged. The sense of discovery one experiences with every turn of the head, with musicians in full flight and choirs in boisterous song often over one’s shoulder, will be revelatory to those new to the virtual reality viewing realm.

With Carriberrie, Dominic Allen, writer Tara June Winch and the production team have defined a new direction for the VR format – an affecting journey rich in ancient cultural significance, every bit as soaring as the viewing experience itself. It is a remarkable work.

CARRIBERRIE screens at The Australian Museum, Sydney, from March 2-27. Other states and venues to follow. Ticket and session times can be found at the venue's official website.

THE BBQ

Stars: Shane Jacobson, Magda Szubanski, Manu Feildel, Julia Zemiro, Frederic Simpson, Lara Robinson, John Stanton and Nicholas Hammond.
Writers: Stephen Amis, Serge De Nardo, Tim Ferguson, David Richardson and Angelo Salamanca.
Director: Stephen Amis

Rating: 3/5

Determined to bulk-up the DNA of their home grown comedy with as much Ocker iconography as possible, star Shane Jacobson and a team of five (!) writers tie the legacy of Captain James Cook to modern day suburbia by way of the titular outdoor oven in The BBQ.  Director Stephen Amis’ broad farce lands a few gentle barbs at modern Australian society but this likably silly romp, a sort of celebration of ‘Dad Joke’ humour, feels most at ease when it’s just having a bit of a laugh.

At times recalling both the good-guy sweetness and naïve befuddlement of the great John Candy, Jacobson plays suburban every-man Darren ‘Dazza’ Cook, a husband-and-dad who puts great stock in a lineage that he believes dates back to the first Englishman to land on these shores. From the deck of a backyard HMS Endeavour built to honour his ancestor, Dazza holds sway at a weekly neighbourhood BBQ, a tradition that goes horribly wrong when dodgy prawns lay waste to his guests, none more so than father-in-law bully Herb (John Stanton).

In real world terms, such an incident would be a minor moment in a suburb’s unremarkable history, yet in Amis’ brightly-hued version of reality it ups the stakes of the redemptive narrative when Dazza is humiliated on national television. With his reputation in tatters, the weight of his bloodline proving burdensome and tension in his marriage to the very tolerant Diane (a terrific Julia Zemiro; pictured below, with Jacobson, left, and co-stars Frederik Simpson and Lara Robinson), Dazza employs the mentorship of fiery Scottish maestro-of-the-meat ‘The Butcher’ (Magda Szubanski; pictured top, with Jacobson) to win an internationally flavoured BBQ showdown and regain his status, self-dignity and patriarchal perch.

Stephen Amis’ last film, the 2012 wartime fantasy The 25^th Reich, gave no indication of the naturally buoyant comedic touch he exhibits in steering a plot that takes some unashamedly daft turns. The BBQ never reaches the heights of suburban comedy slickness set by standard-bearer The Castle, but nor does it have that film’s slightly too acerbic take on our working class. The family at the centre of The Castle, The Kerrigans, were often the target of the script’s humour; Amis and Jacobson don’t judge their character’s middle-class idiosyncracies (a degree of respect also employed by the actor in his biggest hit, 2006’s Kenny), giving the film a tender warmth and sentimentality that helps smooth over some eye-rolling plot developments.  

The BBQ will play a bit too fast and loose with old-school racial caricatures for some, including but not limited to the cartoonishly arrogant French chef Andre Mont Blanc (TV celebrity cook Manu Fieldel), eccentric Indian neighbour Mr Chatterjee (Bashir Ally), Mr Miyagi-like Oriental shaman Mr Yoshimura (Kuni Hashimoto) and pompous Brit butler/butcher’s aide, Carver (Nicholas Hammond, channelling John Gielgud’s Oscar-winning performance as Hobson from 1981’s Arthur). But each rise to their own moment of triumph in a manner that respects them as individuals and not (or not just) broad stereotypes.

Others may rankle at the steady stream of real-world product placement deals done by the producers (the prominence of outdoor cooking retailer Barbeques Galore and Jacobson's and Fieldel's small-screen employer The Seven Network must have surely come close to paying for principal photography on the modest production), but one can't begrudge the sector finding funding wherever it can in this current climate.

If there is not a single surprising frame of film in The BBQ, it does not make the journey to its feel-good finale any less enjoyable. Our great backyard chefs can turn a charred chop into a culinary feast; with The BBQ, Amis and Jacobson turn a similarly unpromising premise into something just as warmly familiar and satisfying.

THE 15:17 TO PARIS

Cast: Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, Anthony Sadler, Judy Greer, Jenna Fischer, William Jennings, Bryce Gheisar, Paul-Mikel Williams, Thomas Lennon, P.J. Byrne and Tony Hale.
Writer: Dorothy Blyskal, based on the book by Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos, Spencer Stone and Jeffrey E. Stern.
Director: Clint Eastwood

Rating: 2/5

An instinctual act of remarkable heroism is afforded the least remarkable effort of director Clint Eastwood’s long career in The 15:17 to Paris. The overpowering of a heavily armed would-be killer on a European train by three square-of-jaw, broad-of-shoulder all-American types should have been bread-and-butter to the director of American Sniper and Sully, but Eastwood can’t overcome the inherent problem that everyday Joes like split-second heroes Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos and Anthony Sadler don’t necessarily have cinematic back-stories.

The production employs some good ol’ Hollywood stunt casting, having the three adult bros play themselves (the event aboard the Amsterdam-to-Paris Nord Thalys train took place in 2015, so their maturing posed no problem). The main focus of the narrative is the slightly more reflective Stone, the one who led the charge against would-be mass murderer Ayoub El-Khazzani, before Skarlatos and Sadler leapt in and beat the gunman into unconscious submission. None of the three have a natural screen presence and struggle awkwardly with first-time scriptwriter Dorothy Blyskal’s clunky dialogue; one senses a few scenes were improvised, which means a lots of “Dude, this is awesome!” and “Man, this is crazy!” dialogue.

Eastwood introduces Stone and Skarlatos as buddies growing up in Midwest homes steeped in Christian values, sharing an obsession with war and gunplay. Such a boys-own fixation isn’t so unusual, even when it extends to wearing matching camouflage duds to school. What is unusual is the poster for Full Metal Jacket on Stone’s wall; any dark irony that a pre-teen kid should heroically idolize Stanley Kubrick’s military horror show is lost on Eastwood. In what amounts to a directorial mission statement, some woodland war games conclude with young Stone overstating, “There’s something about war that forms a brotherhood.” Like never before, Eastwood feels justified in wearing his capital-R right wing ‘God, Gun and Country’ director’s cap to tell this story (which probably explains the muted, mid-February release here in Australia).

Skarlatos (who looks like a puffed-up version of Eastwood’s son, Scott, minus the on-screen charisma) and Stone enter into middling military careers. Stone’s trajectory amounts to one get fit montage, some hand-to-hand combat training and inevitable run-ins with his superiors. Sadler disappears off to college until some downtime brings them all back together for the fateful backpacking adventure in Europe, portrayed as a travelogue-style continental romp that takes up all the second act of The 15:17 to Paris. Scenes of the lads checking out scenery in Rome, drinking beer in Venice and nightclubbing in Amsterdam amount to nothing more than that; in one extended sequence, we watch Stone, Sadler and a girl they befriend discuss, decide upon and buy gelato.

The only interesting moment of this mid-section occurs when a nerdy, bespectacled tour guide chastises the group when they try correct him on the site and circumstance of Hitler’s death; when the guide barks, “You Americans are not the only ones who are able to overcome evil,” Stone and Sadler smirk and shrug off the observation with what plays worryingly like snide American arrogance. 

In an otherwise mirthless film, there is some humour in the casting of the support players, with a line-up of familiar funny faces that resembles less a Clint Eastwood ensemble and more a network TV comedy roster. Tony Hale (Veep) and Thomas Lennon (Reno 911) play uppity educators, with Jenna Fischer (The Office) and Judy Greer as the boy’s moms (the perennial bff is asked to pull off perhaps the new years’ worst line of dialogue, “My Lord is bigger than your statistics”). The actresses do all they can with stock parts in a film that affords no actress any worthwhile moments; Eastwood ‘s camera leers at the bodies of Italian and Dutch backpackers and partygoers with the eye of a dirty old-man cut loose in a Euro-disco.

The staging of the takedown aboard the train is, as expected, riveting, thrilling and terrifying. The film’s one-note thematic structure suggests that the boy’s stop-start journeys into manhood, bolstered by Christian values, will find worthiness in a single act of selfless courage. In that regard, Clint Eastwood’s The 15:17 to Paris gets its retelling of boring, meandering lives leading to one impactful, fleeting moment exactly right. For 95 minutes, it’s a plodding, directionless grind that sparks into meaning for about 180 extraordinary seconds.

THE CANNIBAL CLUB

Stars: Ana Luiza Rios, Tavinho Teixera, Ze Maria, Pedro Domingues, Rodrigo Capistrano and Galba Noguera.
Writer/Director: Guto Parente.

Reviewed at Pathé 4 Cinema, Sunday January 28 as part of the Rotterdämmerung section at the 2018 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)

Rating: 4/5

A South American genre film about cannibalism lands world cinema’s sharpest counter punch to wealthy global privilege in auteur Guto Parente’s seventh and arguably best feature, The Cannibal Club. Set against the golden sun and sparkling sand of the gated-community and private-beach life of upscale Brazil, the prolific 34 year-old filmmaker envisions a modern but no less decadent and disturbed version of Caligula’s court, with added people-eating.

Parente takes aim at the culture of the grotesquely well-off, one that affords them the luxury of having the poor to exploit. In the case of Otavio (Tavinho Teixera) and his young trophy wife Gilda (Ana Luiza Rios), this extends to the hiring, slaughtering and devouring of servants who come to their coastal mansion in the hope of steady work. In a frankly remarkable opening salvo of images both sexually frank and gruesomely detailed, the stereotypical ‘pool boy’ flirts with a willing Gilda, only to be disposed of mid-coitus by Otavio, fileted and served as the evening meal.

When Gilda witnesses the most influential flesh-eater of them all, cold-blooded capitalist/nationalist powerbroker Borges (Pedro Domingues) in a particularly compromising situation, she and Otavio soon find that their cocktail-sipping peers will willingly turn against their own kind to protect their lofty, self-entitled secret status. Parente’s rich are not the endowment-to-the-arts kind of charity patrons that western media often venerates; the wealthy of Brazil are lecherous, murderous pack animals who turn on the compromised, fearful that any weakness threatens their existence.

When not indulging in his own pleasures of the flesh, Otavio partakes of some ‘men’s only’ business as part of the titular soirée, who gather to witness acts that reinforce just how prevalent and heartless the exploitation of the poor underclass has truly become. Parente’s other prime target is the innately pathetic nature of rich society’s Alpha Male, who posture and rankle but mostly shrivel and cower when the patriarchy is threatened. In Ana Luiza Rios’ fearless performance as Gilda, the director identifies the feminine archetype that must navigate the duality of their existence; at once, feigning compliance to fragile male egos while always charting their own destiny, however bloodstained and immoral it may be.    

The Cannibal Club courses with a savagely scornful humour; if few moments prove laugh-out-loud hilarious (the general mood is too unrelentingly tense and often unpleasant for mirthful outbursts), Parente has nevertheless crafted a sly, stylish skewering of affluent disconnect. If the rich feeding wilfully off the working class is not exactly a unique notion, the theme has rarely been handled with such dark-hearted gleeful menace or strident intellect.

HAVE YOU SEEN THE LISTERS?

Featuring: Anthony Lister, Anika Lister, Kye Lister, Lola Lister and Polly Lister.
Director: Eddie Martin.

Screened at Cinerama 3, on Monday January 29 as part of the 2018 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)

Rating: 4/5

In artist Anthony Lister, filmmaker Eddie Martin finds another profoundly talented but deeply troubled genius to bolster his rogue’s gallery of fascinating documentary subjects. Compiled from twelve terabytes of the artist’s own personal archives, Martin crafts an often buoyant, occasionally bleak but always vivid portrait of the magnificent creativity and heartbreaking personal detours that have shaped Lister’s young life.

A Brisbane lad who connected with his innate talent and unique artistry at an early age, Lister is etched as a young man both blessed by and burdened with a psychology borne out of his suburban roots. His upbringing in a divorced household meant a strong father figure was not present, the ramifications of which resonate through the thematic core of Martin’s film. He is quickly on that well-charted course of many young rebellious types – a fearless pursuit of identity, the grasping of a creative destiny yet to be clearly defined but craved above all else. And, of course, a life of shared living, lots of booze and occasional and increasingly prevalent drug use.

Lister’s life with apparent soul mate Anika seems to be one of spiritual and emotional connectivity, but his ‘self-obsessed, self-destructive artist’ persona becomes all-consuming. Martin’s punchy, pulsating version of the couple’s time together - from Brissy teen sweethearts, to NYC bohemians, to struggling parents in inner city Sydney – makes for bold and brilliant documentary construction (aided immeasurably by the consummate skill of cutter Johanna Scott).

In his highly-acclaimed past works, Martin has respectfully peeled away the street tough, rebellious genius image of such enigmatic talents as graffitist Justin Hughes (Jisoe, 2005); pugilist Lionel Rose (Lionel, 2008) and skateboarding brothers Tas and Ben Pappas (All This Mayhem, 2014). The insight he affords the troubled, driven inner workings of his working class heroes, and the dexterity with which he formulates their on-screen lives, is a rare commodity amongst the current factual filmmaking community.

In telling this tale, a narrative about a young man’s unforgiving and demanding talent and its impact upon the journey into fatherhood, Have You Seen The Listers? demands Martin, a remarkably skillful and empathetic storyteller, now be considered amongst the finest filmmakers working in Australia.

Read The SCREEN-SPACE Interview with Have You Seen The Listers? director Eddie Martin here.

MARLINA THE MURDERER IN FOUR ACTS (Marlina Si Pembunuh Dalam Empat Babak)

Stars: Marsha Timothy, Dea Panendra, Egi Fedly, Yoga Pratama, Rita Matu Mona, Vayu Unru, Anggun Priambodo and Safira Ahmad.
Writers: Mouly Surya and Rama Adi, based on a story by Garin Nugroho.
Director: Mouly Surya.

Screened at Pathé 4 Cinema, Thursday January 25 as part of the 2018 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).  

Rating: 4.5/5

DOP Yunus Pasolang’s extraordinarily beautiful lensing is just one of the many unexpected virtues of Indonesian auteur Mouly Surya’s fiercely feminist rape-revenge ‘Eastern western’, Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts. A stylised arthouse horror/thriller that doubles as an elegantly intellectual think-piece concerning the region’s gender politics, Surya’s third feature confirms her status as one of Asian cinema’s most important and relevant voices.

Rife with cues as to the film’s origins in the classically male-dominated American genre (despite funding from non-Hollywood backers in Indonesia, France, Malaysia and Thailand), Surya introduces us to her protagonist as she mourns the loss of her husband. As per tradition, he sits wrapped in funeral cloth in the couple’s remote homestead on the atypically brown and dusty island of Sumba. Marlina (Marsha Timothy) has seen much death in this home; a gravestone reads ‘Topan’, who it is revealed was her stillborn 8-month child. Things do not bode well when a band of loutish brutes arrive to eat her cooking, steal her livestock and rape the stricken widow (the unfolding drama comprising Act I, ‘Robbery’).

With nothing left to loose but her sad life and staunch dignity, Marlina disposes of the five brutes, none with more efficient clarity than the leader Markus (Egi Fedly), whose head is freed of its bodily constraints in a particularly sublime moment of coitus interruptus. With her rapist’s head dangling by her side, Marlina sets off over the stunning countryside (Act II, ‘The Journey’) for the nearest police station (Act III, ‘The Confession’) with her similarly abused and heavily pregnant (Act IV, ‘Birth’) friend Novi (Dea Panendra) whose compelling subplot builds to a meshing of life/death magnitude in the final frames.

Timothy is superb as Marlina, her steely focus and unshakable adherence to her noble quest as perfect a reincarnation of the great frontierswoman of western lore as seen in some time. The evocative score by Zeke Khaseli and Ydhi Arfani harkens back to Ennio Morricone’s masterworks for Sergio Leone’s ‘Man With No Name’ films, though it is unlikely any one will forget the name ‘Marlina’ after sharing her odyssey.

Given the current global social climate is on the brink of a seismic shift against ingrained toxic masculinity and patriarchal dominance, the remote setting, cultural specifics and tight character interactions of Marlina the Murderer will be no hindrance to the film securing worldwide festival berths. This should in no way suggest that its politics alone ought to earn it passage abroad; on the contrary, Surya’s profoundly thoughtful and majestically wrought drama (which would make a great double-bill with Coralie Fargeat’s recent brutal sexual assault payback shocker, Revenge) will, like the title character herself, forge its own path through its inherent dignity, grace and determination.

BENDING THE ARC

Featuring: Dr. Paul Farmer, Jim Yong Kim, Ophelia Dahl, Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, Dr. Joia Mukherjee, St. Ker Francois, Adeline Mercon, Meliquiades Huauya Ore.
Screenwriter: Cori Shepherd Stern
Directors: Kief Davidson and Pedro Kos.

Reviewed January 23 at the Jetty Memorial Theatre, Coffs Harbour as part of the 2018 Screenwave International Film Festival.

Rating: 4.5/5

A 30-year campaign to provide poor nations with the means by which to save their populations from fatal contagions makes for an enriching, enraging and deeply emotional profile in Bending the Arc. Deriving its metaphoric title from the words of abolitionist and great reformer Theodore Parker (“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one…from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice”), the directing team of Kief Davidson and Pedro Kos have crafted a story of social heroism, fierce spiritual triumph and driven scientific determination.

The core of the documentary is the friendship that bonds Dr Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl (daughter of Raold) and Dr Jim Yong Kim. In the early 1980s, idealistic twenty-somethings Farmer and Dahl found themselves in Haiti, surrounded by dire poverty and a population still stricken with the archaic but deadly scourge of tuberculosis. The pair set out to alter the sad destiny of a small group of Haitians and, with Dr Kim joining their crusade, established a medical centre that drew 100,000s of frail villagers, some perilously close to death.

The movement grew into Partners in Health, a not-for-profit medical research charity whose aim is to establish educational facilities and hospital grade infrastructure in the poorest of regions. Secondary to this aim but no less rousing on-screen drama is the stoushes that the trio and their dedicated volunteers pick with Big Pharma and the rich healthcare systems of Western society, the dark overlords of which refuse to consider the health of poor populations worthy of consideration, let alone investment.

The directing duo’s lightness of touch creates a compelling narrative momentum (kudos to writer Cori Shepherd Stern’s solid structure) while clearly detailing the mountains the movement needed to climb to make real their goals. Utilising interstitial time-and-place cards, Bending the Arc charts initiatives that have combatted drug-resistant tuberculosis in Peru, the AIDS plague in Africa, the aftermath of the Rwandan civil war and the terror of the early days of the Sierra Leone Ebola outbreak. In addition to these grand scale undertakings, Davidson and Kos evoke the deeply emotional journey of all involved by tracking the route to recovery of patients who we meet at death’s door (the plight of MDR-TB sufferer Meliquiades and his reuniting with Dr Kim reduced your critic to heavy man-sobs).

Given the current administration’s callously racist disregard for the so-called ‘sh*thole countries’ that feature in Bending the Arc, the documentary takes on a volatile humanism-vs. -corporatism urgency that would most likely not have been on the filmmaker’s minds when the film wrapped just ahead of its premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival; it never preaches or takes a political stance, yet reveals the bastardry, greed and short-sightedness of the western medical-industrial establishment.

In the last half-century, the dedication and drive to make better the lives of those with whom we share this global community has never been more desperately needed; the epic struggles and grand achievements of the Partners in Health teams has remained truly heroic (none more so than the community health officials, charged with day-to-day administration in some of the most poverty- and illness-stricken corners of the planet). Bending the Arc, through its core ‘All Humans are Humans’ mantra, celebrates the soaring, empathic personalities that will continue to rebuild international society over the next half-century.

Donations to PARTNERS IN HEALTH can made via the organisation's official website.

BLEEDING STEEL

Stars: Jackie Chan, Show Lo, Ouyang Nana, Callan Mulvey, Tess Haubrich and Xiahou Yunshan.
Writers: Leo Zhang, Cui Siwei and Xiaohou Yunshan
Director: Leo Zhang.

Rating: 2/5

There is a special place in movie heaven for acts of such logic- and physics-defying cinematic lunacy as Leo Zhang’s Bleeding Steel, a momentously staged absurdity that almost endears itself through sheer relentless bombast. Largely shot in Sydney (or, more precisely, a graffiti-stained future version of the harbour city populated by basketball-playing American street teens, for some reason), this preposterous romp plays like a greatest hits version of star Jackie Chan’s most recognizable on-screen characterisations, but with dumbed-down dialogue, a garish colour palette and an audio track cranked to 11.  

Ripping huge chunks of inspiration from the likes of Luc Besson’s sci-fi spectacle Lucy, Chan’s own kiddie romp The Spy Next Door and…oh, let’s go with Roland Emmerich’s Universal Soldier, Zhang’s hyper-charged, hardly-coherent head-spinner is a star-vehicle concoction for both old and new generations of Asia’s favourite film stars. The ageing action legend plays special operative Lin, who has dedicated the latter part of his career to covertly protecting his daughter, Nancy (Taiwanese cellist starlet Ouyang Nana), while never being able to reveal his true self to her. Also in a mix to ensure broad regional and demographic acceptance is The Mermaid star Show Lo, the Taiwanese idol ok as the handsome but bumbling offsider Leeson, and Erica Xia-Hou as Lin’s strong-willed career cop 2IC.  

When a book is published revealing Nancy to be the missing link in a clandestine synthetic human initiative led Dr James (Kym Gyngell), the teen-queen Wolverine becomes the target of Andre (Callan Mulvey), a rotting Frankenstein-type behemoth who needs Nancy’s blood to regenerate. Despite barely being held together by his pale grey skin, Andre has amassed an army of black-helmeted alien types led by a leather-clad warrior-woman (Tess Haubrich, channelling Cate Blanchett’s Thor villainess; pictured, below), whose job it is to slay anyone stalling her quest to bring Nancy to Andre. That’ll do plotwise, suffice to say it spins in increasingly convoluted and largely indecipherable directions, with little regard for even the most basic action-movie realism.

Now well into his 60s and unable to dazzle with the same physical prowess he displayed as a younger action hero, Chan is nevertheless called upon to up the adrenalin for cast and audience (often with CGI enhancement); he occasionally appears somewhat bewildered by all that is unfolding around him. He has played this father/fighter/fumbler archetype before, most notably in his last three films (The Foreigner; Railroad Tigers; Kung Fu Yoga), all of which were far better suited to his age and talent. Chan’s signature large-scale stunt, the fight atop and spectacular descent from a big-city landmark (see his antics on Rotterdam’s Willemswerf Tower in 1998’s Who Am I? or the Hong Kong Convention Centre in 2004’s New Police Story) is dragged out again, this time perching him on the Sydney Opera House sails for some silly but spectacular fight scenes.

The most remarkable thing about Bleeding Steel (that awful title aside) is the tonal shifts employed almost frame-to-frame by director Zhang (who worked with the Chan clan on 2012’s Chrysanthemum of The Beast). Featuring broad slapstick humour, Bond-like gadgetry, Mission Impossible-type set-pieces, teen romance beats, some loopy science fiction tropes, schmaltz-rich sentimentality and, finally, knife-to-the-neck/chest-bursting ultra-violence, it is impossible to gauge what type of audience, other than the die-hard Chan completists, will feel wholly satisfied by this schizophrenic genre hodgepodge.

That Zhang and his cast play it with such straight-faced conviction at such a high pitch for all of the 110 minute running time does inspire in the viewer a ‘Stockholm Syndrome’-kind of respect for all involved, but that’s probably not what the producers (of which there are about four million) were aiming for.

SWINGING SAFARI

Stars: Radha Mitchell, Guy Pearce, Julian McMahon, Kylie Minogue, Asher Keddie, Jack Thompson, Alice Lanesbury, Georgia Mae, Jacob Elordi and Jeremy Sims.
Writer/Director: Stephan Elliott

Rating: 4/5

People of a certain age (i.e., me) love rose-coloured glassing what a freer, wilder, uninhibited time the 1970s was to grow up an Australian. As Richard Roxburgh’s dulcet tones confess in the opening narration of Stephan Elliott’s raucous ode to that decade’s suburban debauchery, such recollections are probably blown out of realistic proportion. In cinematic terms, that is called ‘artistic licence’, and while it will be the only time ‘artistic’ is used to describe anything about Swinging Safari, that won’t matter a bit to audiences primed for retro fashions, loose morals and capital-B broad comedy.

Playing like a boozy, floozy Antipodean mash-up of TV staple The Wonder Years and Paul Mazursky’s middle class mores romp Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), Elliott casts the terrific Atticus Robb as his adolescent alter-ego Jeff Marsh, a sensitive teenager whose obsessions know only two forms – movies and girl-next-door Melly (Darcey Wilson), an equally ill-at-ease tweenager barely coping with the madness that unfolds daily in their cul-de-sac existence. Jeff ropes in the neighbourhood kids to make life-threatening Super 8 action films under his ‘Deathcheaters’ banner, while Melly struggles with a Jan Brady-like life of perpetual moodiness and parental indifference.

While Jeff’s ‘backyard Spielberg’ narrative reflects Elliott’s early directorial flare, the bawdy adult exploits in Swinging Safari capture the essence of the filmmaker’s grown-up career output, as a maelstrom of sexual tension sweeps through the neighbourhood in the wake of a failed spouse-swapping incident. That antiquated alpha masculinity that plays as hilariously sexist in today’s climate is captured in Guy Pearce’s bottle-blond, moustachioed man-child Keith, Julian McMahon’s gaudily wealthy leer Rick and Jeremy Sims’ loud-but-decent third wheel Bob; their respective spouses are Kylie Minogue’s neurotic souse Kaye, Radha Mitchell’s sexed-up swinger Jo and Asher Keddie’s tightly-wound, image-conscious Gale.

Every one of the game stars plays to the back row with performances that demand the kind of largeness needed to dominate their director’s frantic pacing (courtesy of ace editor Sue Blainey) and raucous soundscape. Elliott’s work has favoured settings and circumstance rich in generally distasteful, occasionally funny comedy and characterisations as big as the Outback often, not coincidentally, filmed in the Outback (The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, 1994; Welcome to Woop Woop, 1997; A Few Best Men, 2011).

The red dust of Australia’s centre is replaced by the golden sands of Nobby Beach and shimmering bitumen of Wyong Place in Swinging Safari, but perhaps more than ever the mise-en-scène is the true star of a Stephen Elliott film. Every frame is filled with lovingly detailed recollections of the plastic period that will instantly engender that warm nostalgic glow in those lucky enough to have lived it. The fashions are the most obvious call back, but everything from Kentucky Fried Chicken TVCs, the entire K-Tel catalogue, moon chairs, Valiant chargers and cheese fondue sets are referenced. Colin Gibson’s production design, Jodie Whetter’s art direction and Justine Dunn’s set direction bring Elliott’s memories to vivid life in what must have been a dream gig; Oscar winner Lizzy Gardner’s costuming is, expectedly, a treat.

Even more resonant are the behavioural and social beats that Elliott skewers; parenting techniques and beach etiquette that seemed entirely appropriate in the day yet are now mined for instant hilarity. While some of his other pics have exhibited an occasionally bitter streak, Elliott seems to hold true affection for this time and place; despite its high-pitched shrillness, Swinging Safari is his warmest, funniest and most likable film since …Priscilla.