vicious circles

set in a template of the clichéd secular allure of the drug trade in sydney's outer west, serhat caradee's cedar boys is an exposition of racial prejudice & the blinding difference buried within sameness between east & west. where metaphor transposes the literal.

in a city divided by racial stereotypes none more visible than the integration issues of lebanese and australian cultures, this poignant tale from the POV of tarek [les chantery], a young lebanese man who eventually succumbs to the lifestyle pressures around him whilst motivated for the desire for an upward trajectory out of his atypical domestic environment & limited future prospects is a telling & sensitively handled perspective from the "other" side.

fueled by the need to break the crippling confines of his class when he desires the allegedly unattainable [an appeal for his incarcerated brother, love for a beautiful white uptown girl [rachael taylor], tarek eventually becomes embroiled with his friends [buddy dannoun & waddah sari] into the tangled self-woven snowballing web of drugs, deceit and a double life manifesting the tortured dichotomy of becoming everything that he & society most hates yet expects of him/them.

there's a wonderful relinquishment which occurs when one maintains separatism from the default line of misrepresentation but then finally surrenders into it. a tragedy of ethical release, a slow outward breath when resistence finally yields in spite of higher consciousness & lofty idealism that surroundings cruelly will not afford.

a beautifully crafted story, the journey at times is detracted from by some strange stylistic & editing choices but takes us through emotional terrain where character identification is unarguable. tarek's pain & temptation are very real.

his confusion tangible when finding his girfriend as a double operative complete with wig & stripper ensemble conducting private erotic dances for strangers behind a pole from her "interior design" office. the barrier of the projected screen & reality are diffused & rendered invisible. that bleeding heart was mine. his downward spiral is ours. and thus the cycle of violence is complete; for want of a nail the shoe was lost.

sadly when fellow punk monk, clare & i went to see this film, the cinema was virtually empty which is the sorry lot of most but the most hyped australian cinema.

this is a film perhaps more than all the beautiful kates, and australia's put together which should be granted a home audience. the moral & social fabric ring loud & true whilst deftly illustrating important cultural issues of marginalisation that are both locally & globally valid.

sydney film festival premiered cedar boys & both screenings were notably almost instantaneously sold-out. limited marketing resources for most australian films mean however that despite often being granted a theatrical release, they languish & disappear buried under the glossier campaigns for bigger budget films.

a must see reminiscent of scorsese's breakout "mean streets" with important issues brilliantly handled by a first time feature director who deserves more credit than what will probably be received from this gritty exploitation tale of a boy from the alleged wrong side of the tracks.

i cried. and will continue to do so when hoyts packs audiences into hollywood rinse repeat blockbusters whilst in the interim, empty cinema seats stare back at screens projecting stories of importance which justify soul searching patronage a thousand times more. see it now & support mainstream cinema houses actually showing a film worth seeing.

she’ll be right mate... drink up!

if william golding had grown up in the australian outback he may well have written wake in fright. instead kenneth cooke created a masterpiece which mirrors the reduction of human nature in a similar vein as lord of the flies did with a bunch of english public school boys on an island. except he did it under the paradigm of mateship rather than overt competition begging the question: with friends like these who needs enemies?

with director ted kotcheff at the helm who later went on to direct rambo first blood and more, the hobbeslike brutality dripping in leviathan red illustrating the nature of man [aided by a drink or two] is the nature of war is complete in a gratuitous no-holds barred raw ritualised flesh fest of brawn, blood, sweat & lust. it’s a base religious pilgrimage of sorts mirroring milton’s paradise lost with the descent of lucifer from heaven to hell and the bastardisation of fermented purity.

lost for almost 40 years after premiering as “outback” & nominated for a golden palm award at cannes, this 1971 rare film has been recently restored after two long lost copies were sourced & digitally remastered after being bequeathed to the australian film & sound archive as a result of a tireless quest undertaken by the editor’s [tony buckley] promise to a dying man… it only recently premiered once more at the 56th sydney film festival & currently enjoys a limited theatrical release in australia. i saw it tonight at the chauvel cinema.

this film is unapologetically beautiful yet brutal. savagely exposing the underbelly of the ubiquitous trademark misogynist australian culture propped up by an environment of repressed homo-eroticism fuelled by constant alcohol consumption, this indictment on what maketh a man in the most testosterone-filled culture on earth is insightful & uncompromising.

aussie stereotypes of masculinity are ruthlessly questioned & parodied with skilful subtlety in this outback expose which takes no prisoners. this film may have been uncomfortable when it first played but it still resoundingly rings close to the truth now. its relevance goes beyond the desert past broken hill from where it was originally conceived.

the protagonist, john grant’s behaviour is highlighted as questionable by the boys as they sink cans upon cans of beer because he’d “rather talk to a woman than drink”. the woman who he talks to is a slag, a slut, considered common property not only be virtue of her automatically assigned gender inferiority but because she allegedly has sexual encounters with more than one men who in turn are doing the same not just with women but potentially each other and the beasts which surround them. the question of beasts, bestiality and civilisation is broached by the doc [donald pleasance] in a drunken rant as he ironically quotes socrates’ demise.

two key things about "the yabba": 1. “sex is just like eating, it’s a thing you do when you want it” 2. "in yabba the water is only good for washing up. here, have a beer”. fare ye well eden…

with constant references to the "real" australia film which should have recently been made, there are no baz luermann cattle herding scenes but the harsh realism exercised in the kangaroo culling scenes was afforded through contributions with actual original footage of the mass shooting “control” campaigns which were undertaken by the authorities at the time. it’s not for the squeamish but the impact is unquestionable.

the shots [camera & gunshot], writing, merciless blowing apart & up of kangaroos all over the screen are, um, shockingly real. but it works. glamour of the kill is suitably deconstructed to its most base horror through the teacher’s [played by gary bond] eyes when he experiences brief moments of clarity through his constant peer pressured inebriation which is a symbol of his demise and degradation as he submits into a lifestyle he initially sneered at in his superior anglicised school teacher fashion. this in turn signals the success of the others to entrench & debase the aloof other into their rank.

the law of the bush is the ultimate leveller. the men are willing dark agents of his and their own squalid doom in the yabba which serves as an anti-religious sodom of sorts. the marqis de sade illustrated the degradation of 120 days worth, john grant manages to traverse the realm from heaven to hell in a short sweaty five. a road sign acts as the quintessential metaphor. heavily sprayed with bullet holes, it reads: signs are for your own protection please don’t use them as targets. there is no control, the residents run amok, a law unto themselves. there is no god here, the pub is the church.

still in the gutter depravity there is gritty self-awareness & wisdom. in a town which is acknowledged as being great by the locals but has a problematic suicide rate which the tacher almost adds to in a failed self-administered gunshot to the head an a comfortable recognition exists between the last two men standing: the teacher and his rapist, the doc. the doc knows and accepts his plight. he references his mutually exploitive relationship with janette [sylvia kay] “we break the rules but we know more about ourselves than most people do”.

in "plato today" which is discarded previously roadside with a bunch of other books when the teacher abandons his load to hitchhike with one remaining suitcase, socrates’s student would probably argue that the device of civilisation serves ineffectively through democracy because the concept of freedom for the masses overlooks the few/misfits. the lowest common denominator is overshadowed. indeed a whole town like yabba. perhaps even an entire country...

about last night

we shot a little film. it will play in a couple of days time for KINO KABARET which is an extreme filmmaking showcase.

all films featured are made in 48 hours. ours will technically be a bit over. due to crew/cast obligations we just couldn't shoot in the timeframe for my hyperreal staged concept which is a derivative nod to lynch in conjunction with the themed KINO screening this coming thursday night: a homage to "the man".

another punk monk, dermot [our lovely DOP] has a haiku screening tonight amongst loads of other intensive short films to see. to make up for blurred lines, i might just make another couple of films. that is, if anyone still wants to work with me...

only one death, five litres of blood-letting & a face-full of blown capillaries. insurance anyone? welcome to guerrilla filmmaking.

if you're in sydney please come to the red rattler theatre to see "the retweeted tale of annabel lee" & enjoy the punk monk propaganda lynch installation. the film screening commences 19:00.

the courtesan’s lot

skimming on a razor thin edge of the hooker with a heart of gold construct, the just ended sydney film festival delivered not one but two distinctly different but equally powerful films which explored with pathos the double edged sword that courtesans gracefully glide over when the worlds of business & pleasure collide. these two films were: the girlfriend experience [dir. steven soderbergh] and chéri [dir. stephen frears].

both films arguably delivered in a poignantly rich but cold environment the knowing detachment that is the pragmatic prostitute condition when regarding men in a contractual mode. this attitude inexplicably bleeds subtlely into the personal too. true romance comes at a price.

it is not the protagonists; cheri’s lea de lonval [michelle pfeiffer] or GFE’s shades of brett easton ellis’s patrick bateman, chelsea/christine [sasha grey] who are vapid or lacking in dimension: it is fundamentally their superficial relationship with their environment that the chilling separation stems from. like passing ships in the night they cannot afford to let the water breach their well-oiled duck's back seals. in the game of seduction it is dangerous to fall in love. there is an undeniable conflict of interest: the cost [financial & emotional] is high.

stylistically distinct and separated by timeframes/locations [chéri is set in early 20th century belle époque paris, whereas the girlfriend experience explores the wall street centric world pre-obama election win] both films deliver a visually stunning mixed bag of budget & cinematography style ranging from artistic verité, to jumbled chronological cuts, to classically choreographed mise en scène.

the two films are nonetheless so closely aligned thematically & similarly charged dealing with the emotional bankruptcy which ironically occurs in a world which is swathed in textural wealth. to the unfortunate detriment & decline of the women involved, there are no greater trade-offs. more often than not, the career choice, their life gamble, does not pay-off. winners of material fortune yet losers of idealism, despite being well-versed in the artifices of love. forearmed with this knowledge they still seek the impossible realm. for this reason, no other, they are fallen.

the men, clients/lovers, in both stories are rather inconsequential. their overshadowed almost caricatured weak identities lie where they must remain purely to illustrate their constant misdirected drain under another guise. the women’s alienation & strong internalisation renders the outside almost obsolete but at the same time the choice of the male characters illustrates the vulnerability and reality check that superwomen need not necessarily fall in love with supermen. they’re just "regular" guys with their own set of flaws. as are the women fundamentally.

these stories ultimately belong to the brave travellers who are the solo warrior women who dare battle in a loveless & socially misunderstood terrain. paradise is lost. beneath the polished veneer of nonchalance lies dire fragility & emotional heartache. like pandora’s box, it will probably one day be opened again.

love is the drug not even the artisans and purveyors of can avoid indulging in. they say one should never buy their own wares. it would seem in love we all want to believe. noone is immune. and nor should they be denied.

as lea de lonval says,"i'm probably making a fool of myself... but then again, why not? life is short!

both these films are extremely moving and compelling. they spoke to me and i hope others too in a way that realistically captures the dilemma which faces the much maligned woman of the night. she deserves to be humanised & allowed to stand basking in the light of her social achievements.

the greatest tragedy of the archetypal heroine, the tart with a heart, is the success of her projected illusion of happiness & glamorised independence. ultimately the greatest fear must be the reality of being completely alone.

[NB.all images are copyrighted to the relevant film productions]

sydney film fest finale

after the last piece of red carpet was rolled back up, the barn doors closed on lights as they were "struck" back down & hollywood tape had long since become unstuck, this is where the organisers, the journos, volunteers, and the people who made the sydney film festival happen, congregated to toast the success of the fest & well, get well toasted. some people were so exhausted, sentence formulation was a near impossible task [until the next wave hit]. hello josh.

this is what went down:

winner -- official competition award: bronson

winner -- documentary prize: a good man AND contact

[kudos to foxtel for coming up with the extra 10K to support a joint win and giving "real" documentary a go]

...or at least that's what i gathered in the gatecrashed pub as we all threw our wildly rampant opinions into the film critique pool. it all eventually rose to an unintelligble milieu but whilst our inner film wankers ran amok we all splashed about & had some fatigued fun.

there were some exemplary pieces of cinema to be enjoyed at this fest & some just had to be enjoyed vicariously through the experiences of others [sometimes real life just gets in the way of one's programme wishlist].

anything else was lost in the garble of the incessant exploitation of the drinks tab [nice pouring criterion]. what's not to love about free alcohol in an inner city 24 hour bar? alcohol does enrich the story telling experience just that little bit more.

for the complete wrap on this i'd strongly advise checking out tomorrow's new worse addictions podcast.

a good man

NB. this image has been illegally pilfered off the interwebs [thankfully documentary makers are too poor to sue let alone eat. thanks safini uberoi].

rachel rohrlach's mother doesn't believe in god anymore. holding her married daughter's hand with moist eyes meeting the camera she says "he either finishes the job or he makes them whole again". rachel audibly moans & the two share a visibly touching scene which strains the very core for its grit realism. these are the questions & answers which matter in life.

rachel's husband chris is matter of fact about his devotion to his wife of fourteen years. "the wedding vows were till death do us part." he shrugs with a grin in his voice "and we're both still here, unless she suddenly won't put up with me any longer". it's possible that not everyone would have maintained the commitment that he has demonstrated to his marriage.

chris is the self-titled good man of this film. essentially he's a rural NSW bush farmer who fell in love with the girl in town when they were both pretty fresh out of school. a man of incredible perception, wisdom & wit he jokes "you can't pull a bird in the bush without a holden ute" which is how he attributes to garnering rachel's attention initially at the beginning of their atypical small town courtship. everything was picture perfect until the day after they discovered and announced their pregnancy...

rachel suffered an incredible debilitating stroke overnight which has since rendered her as a quadraplegic without the power of speech. she communicates with the movement of her eyes and indiscernible moaning. there is no real likelihood of a change in her condition and they married with this knowledge late in her preganancy. "she's the one i fight with... the one i make love with..." says chris who loves his wife with a passion acknowledging his continued attraction for her although "things have changed" considerably between them in both a physical and emotional sense.

their's is a love story of epic proportions.

their story, their coping mechanism & how they've managed to produce and raise two children with the invaluable support of their extended family is an incredible standalone story as it is but then chris and his farming mate decided to open a brothel in the small sleepy town of inverell whose insidious underside didn't surface until this project became public & the shadows of the night were forced out into the limelight. you see they needed some extra money for their cash-strapped drought stricken farms & for rachel's ongoing medical expenses...

ever open-minded, decent & pragmatic chris says, "i don't want to be a house of ill repute -- i want to have a house of good repute [for service]." suddenly chris the farmer is embedded in the world of sexual politics in a ruralscape whose hypocritical conservatism is mind-numbing. and rachel is a madam...

this is a powerful tear-jerking feel-good lark of a flick whose raw delivery does not in any way detract but actually complements the DIY no frills essence which comprises the base foundations of humanity.

my pick for documentary prize for the sydney film festival. the impact of this beautiful awe-inspiring story has lingered on for days.

no more than a pretty face

avant garde darling tsai ming-liang is a man of deep reflection. he is also confused. as is some of his audience, that which still remains in the state theatre at sydney film festival [about 50%] after the australian premiere of his theta wave video art ensemble which is “visage” or in english, face. during the Q&A after his highly anticipated film has screened, tsai cites his confusion stems from why so many people do not stay till the end of his films. my confusion is why so many stayed…

art for art's sake and the question of imitation of life and art are old constructs. this film was commissioned by none less than du louvre & consequentially tsai holds a unique position seated amongst the masters who occupy this venerable honour. with great power comes great responsibility and although tsai acknowledges the enormous pressure which this represents as a brief, the end product as a whole fails to deliver. the sum is not greater than the parts.

this film within a film is a retelling of the lurid salome story which i know intimately having researched & built on it for what are two inconsequential experimental short films of my own.

whilst enjoying tsai’s trademark exploration of the unconscious conceptually & the utilisation of mysterious spaces within the deep sanctum of the louvre itself my huge expectations were of a orgasmic visual and aural feast. although there were drop dead gorgeous moments which slid down deliciously, i’m left hungry [but not for more] as if promised tetsuya’s, got to dish two of the fourteen stage degustation menu but was ultimately container shipped to the RSL buffet bar for mains and dessert. what the?

whilst i searched for fibonacci sequences demonstrating golden ratios on a per frame basis in the beautifully shot footage which is reminiscent of a wong kar wai directed chris doyle [visage’s cinematographer is actually award winning pen-jung liao [hei yan quan, bang bang wo ai shen] who demonstrates a similar apparently meditative partnership with tsai as the kar wai/doyle coupling] eventually realising that the pseudo intellectualism and the tangible derivation from the chinese proverb speaking of the flower’s reflection in water was just not going to cut it as a non-narrative stream rerouted by a giant hydro plant. the machine threatens to destroy the sanctity of the quiet waters denying the luminescent lily space to shine.

with a nod to yayoi kusama’s infinite space reflections & tsai’s continued obsession with francois truffaut the stag running wild in the mirrored tuilerie gardens is divine capped with the juxtaposition of the sublimely gorgeous salome [laetitia casta] decked in christian lacroix hewn narnia meets moscow mafia-esque ice princess garb singing chinese [i think] karaoke love songs is to die for gorgeous. archetypes are played out as the dreamlike drama leads us to highpoints which include the eroticism of salome waist-deep in sewers swathed in blood red drapes amongst the filthy water rising above it, singing, caressing the walls and that seductive dance sequence where sheathed in plastic & gauzed opacity she takes john the baptist's head.

sadly for me visage reminded me of this taoist proverb:

"we cannot see our reflection in running water. it is only in still water that we can see."

but not for tsai’s arguable intention which i propose is the illogical connections and shifting paradigms of the dream state set in a template of stillness where we can immerse ourselves in the vibrance. for me that burst tap washer never stopped running which disallows time to see…

perhaps as tsai suggests i need to see it a second time and that i actually understand and appreciate his work more than i consciously realise but with an illogical fear of shrimp cocktail with thousand island dressing will wait for the marinated crystal bay prawns with soy caramel which will most certainly come with his next course.

a surprisingly low 3 stars from me.

wanda-lust

robert bresson could have directed this film. it's so beautiful in so many ways. but he didn't. barbara loden did. in addition she wrote and starred in this film which makes this piece of enigmatic cinéma vérité even more outstanding on even more levels than it already is. sadly it's the only feature film she ever made. she died before she was able to make another. the world may well have been a different place if she'd continued with her skilful yet harshly poetic socio-political commentary.

not only is loden her own imperfect "model" portraying her protagonist, wanda, in a pseudo stream of consciousness documentative stylisation: wanda is the all knowing victim. wanda as a pre-feminist construct with shades of wim wender's jane henderson [nastassja kinski] who abandons her family to reshape her life & identity in a peep show in paris texas 15 years later.

wanda as willing vessel. wanda casually prostituting herself for a bed to sleep in, trading the only commodity she has, herself, in order to keep on moving, feeling, no matter how fuzzily. it's her own life to feel whatever whilst ironically falling into replicated relationship patterns she seeks to escape john cassavetes style... wanda as realistic anti-hero.

wanda is self-described as "being no good, the children are better off with him [her deserted husband]." her market value is limited for the era because she is arguably a bad wife and mother, the pre-feminist defining roles of womanhood. her husband in court complains that she drinks. smokes and lounges about all day without tending to dirty diapers & domestic duties. she turns up to court. late. smoking. nonchalant.

wanda is the precursor to ridley scott's thelma as she drifts embracing with reluctance submission a road trip to her compounded undoing but continues on because she's committed for the overshadowed ride. her constant is surrendered motion. her own peculiar brand of freedom. her choices are few. the bronte sisters commiserated these same issues without the benefit of 16mm film centuries earlier [wanda was shot on 16mm but later blow up to 35mm for art house showings... the imagery is very pretty as well as being an experimental faux-documentative masterpiece]. an unmarried woman with no means or dowry has little future to look forward to.

ironically loden's much overlooked masterpiece was released in 1970, the same year that germaine greer's female eunuch was first published. polarized stylistically they both still address the defining effect of social values which determine the culture which shapes womanhood and sexual roles & values in society. unconscious ideas of gender are stamped by passages of time.

wanda has a much earlier feel in terms of cultural values but as i watched completely captivated by the beautiful imagery and ideological satirical commentary there was such a disturbing familiarity which increasingly grew... although the world superficially appeared to be abstract and distant it was like entertaining view of god and watching my mother [b. 1951] act under the abusive values that housewives were indoctrinated with as a post war hangover.

the trickledown effect took a little while to distribute free love especially in wanda's pennsylvania and my mother's lyttleton, new zealand. the distance became uncomfortably less. fact transcended fiction. the mothers' daughters' inheritance lives on.

by virtue of the handheld long shots and intimacy with the camera where wanda's opening trek across the open cut coal mine mounds to procure cash from one of many random men who she sees as providers the scene embodies something as intimate as holly golightly going to the powder room but this time the prostitution is matter-of-fact unglamorous and there's no need to see a close-up physical coupling to understand wanda's subservience and abject slavery to the men throughout her journey by her own volition. neither of the players, wanda or the man who gives her money is close. in fact he encourages her to go get more money off someone else. the knowledge of her identity as collective chattel is implicit. the story of O, with less visible XXX's.

on a constant cycle of abandonment as she drinks and smokes her way through men/rides she finally lands one with some stickability, mr dennis. man as protector/provider no matter how unsuitable or undesirable. or unwilling. once warmed to the role and understanding the benefits of the odd coupling he exploits mercilessly the sexual political power which is beautifully portrayed by such gems as his unnegotiable directions to wanda: "i thought i told you to get a dress.... get in the back of the car and put it on... no slacks when you're with me, no questions, when you're with me no questions, and no hair curlers -- it makes you look cheap." and so she does, without hesitation or question...

wanda will not be burning her bra but her slacks are donated to the goodwill charity bin [by mr dennis]. he doesn't even refer to her by her name nor share his "i don't like nosy people, i don't like friendly people, don't tell me your name.." yet he steals her wallet, sucks up her identity and uses it when he acknowledges his dependency & needs to coax her to cooperate in the doomed bank heist which wanda will always assume culpability for despite the fact she is not responsible for the failure of anyone else. his much sought approval which she receives post bank manager hijack: "you did good. you're really something." is the only time he allows her to trangress from her sub-humanity.

her worthlessness will always be compounded by his and the other men's need to constantly step on her and maintain her surrender with the ongoing perception of her own inferiority. thus her role and theirs is secured. mr dennis says to her: you don't have anything, you don't want anything, you're not even worthy of being a citizen of the united states..." just like roman times with the sub class system. a woman's lot it would seem didn't alter much from early referential literature until germaine greer, adrienne rich and a bunch of middle class urban women of the haight park generation set their underwear on fire...

this film has been practically dead and buried for the last 40 years. thank you to my perceptive friend josh who convinced me that i needed to see it, the subject of his thesis in film theory, at sydney film festival. so far it's the only film i felt compelled to give five stars to and there have been some incredible films. i can't wait to read his dissertation once it's done because there's so much to say about the wonder of this wandering wanda and he will undoubtedly do it so much more succinctly yet expansively than i can here and now.

spectoracular spectoracular!

the agony and the ecstasy of phil spector is how i chose to begin my sydney film festival journey this year & there couldn've been a more perfect metaphor for what became an opening night of masochistic pleasure & pain [no i didn't go see ken loach's looking for eric, but then unlike my friend gracie, i don't particularly like football, or upstanding british comedic cinema no matter how allegedly gritty it is].

no, the rollercoaster ride was all self-induced, fuelled by the fabulous imagery of phil spector's hair [sometimes in pieces], aeon traversing pop culture anthems [to know, know know him, is to love, love, love him] and dapper suits, the turmoil of genius, catherine breillat's seductive shepherdlike but somewhat schlocky reimagining of a fairytale [la barbe bleue/bluebeard] and all that complimentary champagne at the after party, dancing to prince with kate whilst dermot planned murder in the cloakroom, oh and boys. so call me venus in furs, sit back and listen.

the evening cinematic highlight for me was undeniably hijacked by the spectre which is the phenomena of phil spector.

vikram jayanti's portrayal was simplistic but an outstanding piece of filmwork utilising the soundtracks [all produced by spector] that multiple generations have grown up & lived to. if you can go in to a film with a polarized perspective & come out with another or a massive question mark dangling, that is a powerful execution of the artform of documentary in my book. it doesn't matter what the question is. the answer according to spector is him [and i'm inclined to agree].

in a relaxed interview style a very self-aware spector pokes tongue-in-cheek fun at his peers [tony bennet's cocaine addiction, woody allen's relationship with soon-yi, brian wilson's inability to ever crack the be my baby hit formula] and candidly illustrates the impact he single-handedly has made on popular culture referencing his resistant wave-through [at john lennon's encouragement] of the unauthorised use of be my baby in mean streets [martin scorcese's breakout feature] would have been kill-switched at the 13th hour & with that potentially a whole bunch of spotlit careers including scorsese and de niro.

this is the kind of russian roulette mentality which has haunted & uplifted spector to hedonistic heights and lows throughout his blissfully tortured life. his surgically enhanced cabbage patch baby face reveals toupé framed eyes which proclaim arcane knowledge of the double-edged sword of methodic madness akin to the genius of da vinci, michaelangelo and galileo. these are his alluded to peers. he dared to be different and succeeded, wearing his school graduation motto like a nazi-enforced star of david armband, with tremendous pride.

this brilliance is what pushes edges and boundaries, which traverse the fine line between madness and sanity, death and life, a self alchemized gun in the hand... or mouth.

there can be no balance, for it represents mediocrity and with that there would be no songs: no let it be, no imagine, no rockin roll high school, no you've lost that lovin feeling, no da doo ron ron, no he's a rebel, no be my baby, no then he kissed me, no to know him is to love him, no rose of spanish harlem, and maybe the last forty years woud have been completely different. lennon attributes him as being the man who kept rock n roll alive while elvis was at war. spector unashamedly thinks so. pain, turmoil and jagged edges are a vital constant with the artistic condition of genius: yes phil spector is guilty. i wouldn't want him to be innocent.

and then...

my punk monkish peers who i also think of as running amok genii led me onto the back of a bus in their infinite adventurous wisdom and we hightailed it to dendy opera quays to meet more friends and soak up the tapestried french femme telling of a fable which allegedly demonstrates the fallen eve condition. of women and apples falling from paradise, of others with doors and dead bloodied wives...la barbe bleue. i'm obsessed with fairy tales & have been since childhood but then the early days of university political science where i picked up a few feminist studies papers and deconstructed like a woman possessed... andrea dworkin was my book bed buddy for a time.

there was too much set up involved with this french provacateur led production. whenever i'm that excited about a film it's destined for a fall. oh and how it fell for me despite the divine production design in parts which was horribly flattened by the decision to shoot digitally which just could not always do justice to the costuming and sets, excellent casting and the skilful painting of the sexual power relations are bodice-ripping material on and off screen in their implied erotic suspense. delicious...

BUT i resent being treated like a sheep and continually forced between intercut narrative commentary which initally served as an excellent device illustrating the dichotomous attraction and repulsion of a young girl to bluebeard but by the end i lost interest as i did with the overall narrative. yes, the girls are charming, but their overuse becomes increasingly annoying despite the fact we are invited to see the folk tale through their eyes. must we keep going back there? with a shotgun against our heads?

i do like the depiction of the girlish carnal sexual knowledge & the manifestation of greed and betterment of the younger sister's acute awareness of the sibling rivalry "i have to show my sister anne this dress, it was made just for me". she's a proverbial ladder-climber with her eyes firmly focussed on the ivory tower from the outset of the story.

the role reversion, oedipal manipulation and overtly subtle seduction of the gluttenous baron where the metaphor is poignantly illustrated that both girl and man are guilty of the same seventh sin. who is the monster?

the gorging feast scenes are sublime but feel stylistically forced. yes, there is ironic emptiness whilst surrounded by food but it feels unnecessarily two dimensional. whilst understanding where breillat was going with this, the overlayed edits & reused tower shots [of which spector would never approve] were alienating not so much because of the artistic decision but because it didn't go far enough and wishwashed between realism & fantasy to excess.

in a nod to renaissance art, breillat ends the film metaphorizing her reversed approach through the decapitated head of this grisly overlord of whom history tells us was a 15th century french serial killer on a plate at the hands of the cunning & resourceful virgin bride.

she escapes the same end as her predecessors but the cautionary tale fails in the sense of it's fable form in that her mapped qualities she shares with her deceased husband go unnoticed and unpunished. curiosity in this case did not kill the cat. nor should it, but her greed and gluttony wouldn't escape david fincher's john doe so easily.

and it's just as well the antagonist of se7en wasn't at the sydney film festival after party because with complimentary champagne flowing for the night um, i guess we all could have justifiably ended up with our heads in that gentileschi-esque painting. not least the eighty year old woman who pointedly told dermot that she'd "worked a cloakroom for forty years young man" whilst providing some hot etiquette tips. that's always got to be a showstopper of a party comment. god only knows what mine were.

luckily kate and i were distracted by the funky tunes and took over the dance floor at the establishment and lured the suits out to play [all whilst ky was locked out, 'forced' to drink more trademark whiskey with two boys on a date]... after ambushing various celebrity types and ruining their photos.

special thanks and mentions with standing ovation to my friend josh for his seamless implementation of OVSS. many thanks to carmel as well; all your hard work and missed engagements were worth it. the film festival opening was a huge success. you should really take the day off. i have and am still too afraid to look at the sydney morning herald today [or my NOKIA SMS sent box].

and no, you really shouldn't try any of this at home. none of it.

the 56th sydney film festival is running jun 03 - jun 14. the program is immense and jumping with incredible films. life suddenly got even more full and techno-colorful.

love grub

big veggie brekkie with free-range poached eggs, mushrooms, divine cubed potato hash, grilled tomatoes with basil, seared haloumi & steamed spinach on organic sourdough [15.00 AUD] is the perfect start to what will be a very long action-packed day.

[apparently the coffee is pretty good too]

i ♥ lovegrub.