ANZAC Day in Australia in retrospect

Massed Pipes and Drums Bands, Sydney, ANZAC Day 2015

ANZAC Day, the 25th of April each year commemorates the service and sacrifice of Australians and New Zealanders during war. This special public holiday has generally enjoyed widespread public support particularly with attendances at the Dawn Service and the March of veterans from all wars later in the morning. The choice of the actual date of ANZAC Day being the 25th April has, in more recent years, been something of a question as it commemorates the landing at Gallipoli for the Dardanelles campaign in World War 1 which took place on that date.  This particular campaign was a spectacular failure and led eventually to a retreat from the beaches after thousands of casualties in dead and wounded including 8,705 Australians and 2,721 New Zealand troops who were killed in action.

Why then choose the 25th April ? The choice of date originates from 1916 in the middle of World War 1 and it was selected to acknowledge the first military action of Australian and New Zealand Forces. However there were many more battles and campaigns yet to come and the outcome of the War was uncertain at that time. Acknowledging sacrifice via the commemoration of a poorly executed and mishandled campaign is highly debatable. There are other dates of significance which equally could meet the requirement for honouring bravery, sacrifice and loss - on 31 October 1917 the Australian Light Horse fought a hard battle to win at Beersheba in the Palestine Campaign which was a major turning point. The Battle of Hamel on 4 July 1918 is another significant date as the 4th Australian Division under Sir John Monash achieved a significant success which was followed by several other battles on the Western Front under the newly formed Australian Corps, the first time the Australian forces had fought together under Australian command. 45,000 Australian troops died on the Western Front and another 124,000 were wounded, often several times. This sacrifice far exceeds the Gallipoli campaign in both significance and impact. The 25th April as a commemorative date and a symbol of sacrifice and service is a misnomer with far greater events and dates occuring later in the history of WW1.

Sydney Film Festival 2015 - Film Review - Phoenix

Nina Hoss as Nelly in Phoenix

There have been many films since the end of WWII depicting various aspects and tragedies related to the concentration camps of Nazi Germany however few have addressed the question of the emotional issues, societal reaction and challenges if a Jewish survivor immediately returned to Germany after release from a camp. Director and screenwriter, Christian Petzold together with the late Harun Farocki has addressed this question with the film, Phoenix. The storyline is centred on camp survivor, Nelly (Nina Hoss) a former singer, who returns to the rubble of Berlin to try and reclaim her life. Disfigured from the last ditch effort of camp guards to kill her, Nelly has undergone facial reconstruction surgery and appears similar but not quite the same as her former self. She searches for her husband, Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld) whom she believes is still alive in Allied Occupied Berlin, discovering him at the Phoenix Club. Johnny does not recognise her and believes that his wife is long dead in the camps. Intent on gaining her considerable inheritance (as all of Nina's Jewish family have perished), he concocts a plot to pass off this woman whom he believes is a Nelly lookalike without realising that it is his real wife.

This is a film strongly focussed on its key characters and less on their surroundings and settings. Nelly's journey to rediscover something of her former life is not without considerable emotional pain and loss. The realisation that her husband had a role in her capture by the Nazis lays the ground for a powerful  and brilliant finale. Nina Hoss is well cast as the vulnerable Nelly reaching a position of strength as she plots the moment and method to confront her husband. 

Sydney Film Festival 2015 - Film Review - Australian Premiere - A pigeon sat on a branch reflecting on existence

A pigeon sat on a branch reflecting on existence - Opening Title

Described as a cinematic visionary, Swedish film director, Roy Andersson won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion for this absurdist humoured film which consists of a tragicomic series of vignettes which become increasingly bizarre. The film shifts between different time periods with a weird collection of characters, extremely strange in behaviour and appear with make-up creating ghostly whitened faces. With a singular vision and using some interconnecting themes and characters, each vignette of the film is set in plain, austere and drab matte surroundings reinforcing the minimalist context and the dark irony of the actors dialogue. Hence in short time, the audience have witnessed a series of funny deaths, a large suggestive flamenco dancer and encountered the numerous rejections of Sam and Jonathon, two travelling salesmen selling novelty items such as vampire teeth and hideous masks.  The 17th Century Monarch Charles XII of Sweden visits a 21st Century Stockholm cafe for a mineral water with his army while marching to war against Russia (and returns again after his defeat) while numerous scenes show people answering phone calls always commenting to the unknown caller, how nice it is to hear that they are 'fine'.

During Q & A, Andersson described the film as being similar to visiting 37 different rooms and so it is, no more and no less. Many of the settings and images provide cringe-worthy, if not recognisable social and personal moments while the range of feelings evoked stretch from humour to horror. This is a film for an alternative, fringe or film-as-performance art audience.  

Charles XII of Sweden in a Stockholm cafe before going to war with Russia

Sydney Film Festival 2015 - Film Review - World Premiere - Sherpa

Base Camp - Mt Everest

Documentary film-maker, Jennifer Peedom has brought an alternate view of the foreign expeditions who climb Mt Everest by filming through the eyes of the Sherpas, the local mountain guides who take climbers up the dangerous, unstable slopes of the World's tallest mountain. Following an angry mountain-high brawl between Sherpas and European climbers in 2013, Peedom and her team set out to discover the cause of the dispute. During their filming of the 2014 climbing season, they were on location for the greatest tragedy experienced on Mt Everest when a huge block of ice crashed down on the climbing route killing 16 Sherpas. This event again laid bare the great disparity and unequal relationship between the poorly paid Sherpas who risk their lives repeatedly traversing the mountain carrying supplies and the cashed-up foreign expeditions who climb for a hobby.

This is a stunningly shot social documentary using both film cameras and iPhone cameras (carried by the Sherpas themselves) to capture events and images on Mt Everest during the climbing season and in the villages which depend on the expedition income for their survival.  Peedom has brought a knowledgeable and sensitive insight (she has previously filmed on Mt Everest for her film Miracle on Mt Everest in 2008) to a largely unknown impact and one which gives pause to consider the disparity between wealthy foreigners and a local primary produce-oriented society. 

Sydney Film Festival - Film Review - Australian Premiere - The Daughter

Ewen Leslie, Odessa Young and Sam Neill - The Daughter

Another intense dysfunctional family drama. The Australian film industry never tires of this category of screenplay and The Daughter fits well within this genre. Simon Stone is another theatre director trying his hand at film-making and has brought his adaptation of Ibsen's The Wild Duck for the Belvoir St Theatre to the cinema screen. A very experienced expert cast do nothing to dispel the darkness that pervades every element of this film which involves a complex drama between two intertwined families. The story follows the impact created when Christian (Paul Schneider) returns to his family home for his father Henry's (Geoffrey Rush) wedding to a younger woman. Christian is a very damaged young man constantly haunted by the suicide of his mother many years earlier and with suspicions as to the cause of that tragedy. On his return he reunites with an old childhood friend Oliver (Ewen Leslie), an employee of Henry's timber mill which is now closing down, and Oliver's wife Charlotte (Miranda Otto) and teenage daughter Hedvig (Odessa Young). Through constant questioning and with a good dose of paranoia, Christian discovers that many years previously his father Henry, had an affair with Charlotte before her marriage to Oliver and this revelation sets the direction for another devastating tragedy to unfold.

These two families have many more hidden secrets to uncover during the course of the film showing how interconnected two generations have become. Geoffrey Rush, Ewen Leslie, Mirando Otto, Paul Schneider, Sam Neill and Odessa Young are well cast in their roles and the locations are atmospherically chosen. A clear deficiency with the plot line is the unresolved conclusion leaving the audience with little other than the personal devastation of the key characters in the film.

Sydney Film Festival 2015 - Film Review - Australian Premiere - Ruben Guthrie

Patrick Brammell - Ruben Guthrie

Playwright and now screen director, Brendan Cowell has brought his stage play of the same name, produced for the Belvoir St Theatre, to the screen. This is a unabashedly Sydney-centric film in settings, themes, culture and characterisation with a well-known Sydney based cast including Patrick Brammell, Alex Dimitriades, Abbey Lee, Jeremy Sims, Robyn Nevin, Jack Thompson and Harriet Dyer to name a few.

The storyline for this film follows Ruben Guthrie (actor Patrick Brammell), an advertising executive who leads a party-boy lifestyle, with a model fiancee, waterside house and a reliance on alcohol. After almost drowning in his infinity backyard pool, Guthrie faces a stark crossroad in his life - either give up the alcohol for a year or lose his fiancee, Zoya (Abbey Lee). He decides to take the year-long challenge despite the alcoholic temptations offered by his gay friend (Alex Dimitriades), his parents (Jack Thompson and Robyn Nevin), and his boss at the advertising agency (Jeremy Sims). Ruben Guthrie is quintessentially Australian with a strong Sydney flavour demonstrating that bogan lives are often not about money but about taste. Director Brendan Cowell deliberately set out to focus on the alcoholic influence and makes no apology for the emphasis shown in the film.  This is a old style 'Aussie' film which resonates with the 'mateship' theme and best 'Ocker' traditions.

Sydney Film Festival 2015 - Film Review - World Premiere - Last Cab to Darwin

Michael Caton - Last Cab to Darwin

Theatre director, Jeremy Sims, has brought this stage play to the big screen with very mixed results and a substantial number of clichés. Essentially this is a road film taking the viewer across the Australian centre from Broken Hill to Alice Springs to Darwin. The plotline for the film follows Broken Hill cab driver, Rex (Michael Caton) who has received a terminal cancer diagnosis. Rex has known of his illness for some time following surgery from an earlier diagnosis for the same disease. He does not wish to die in hospital like his father and on learning of law changes in the Northern Territory allowing euthanasia and the existence of a laptop device which manages sedative drugs, he resolves to drive to Darwin to end his life. Along the way, he picks up two travellers, a young Aboriginal man with football abilities and a young backpacking English nurse, who both accompany Rex on his journey. Rex however has an unresolved relationship with Aboriginal woman, Polly (Ningali Lawford-Wolf) which eventually draws him back to Broken Hill before it is too late.

Jackie Weaver is sadly miscast as the euthanasia campaign doctor seeking to assist patients to end their lives and does not convincingly carry the role. Aboriginal interaction with white Australians is shown in a typecast segregated manner more in common in the US or an earlier South Africa than Australia's Northern Territory in the current era. The film may well be suitable for a stage play but overall sits less comfortably on the big screen.