Film Review - Far from Men

Mohamed (Reda Kateb) and Daru (Viggo Mortensen) caught in the conflict

David Oelhoffen's Far from Men (Loin des hommes) is masterful film storytelling based on a short story by Albert Camus and set in 1954 French colonial Algeria on the eve of the war of independence. With a strong performance by multilingual actor, Viggo Mortensen, the desolate breathtaking imagery captured by cinematographer, Guillaume Deffontaines and the atmospheric music of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, this somewhat brutal road trip explores notions of exile, hidden identity and the juxtaposition of cultural differences over which individuals must cope with little direct control.

The storyline is centred on school teacher and reserve officer, Daru (Viggo Mortensen), living in quiet isolation on the edge of the Atlas Mountains, who is given the task of escorting alleged murderer, Mohamed (Reda Kateb) to the nearest town for his trial. The authorities are streteched thin due to the growing insurrection and there is no-one else to carry out this mission. Daru's task is complicated by family of Mohamed's victim being in pursuit for blood revenge and the two men find themselves caught in direct conflict between the French Army and the armed insurrectionists. Daru is torn between differing loyalties to both the French State and to Algeria as it transpires that many of the independence fighters are the former soldiers whom he commanded in WWII. Mohamed also strikes a sympathetic figure for, as Daru learns, the only way Mohamed can avoid an escalating family blood feud is for the French authorities to place him on trial and execute him.

This is a film which conveys how the individual can be overwhelmed by a violent system, the scale of events and an increasingly desperate reality. Yet in a small way, one man can still make a difference.

The Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prizes 2015 - Preview

John Baird - Bill - the late Bill Wright

The populist Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prize exhibition for 2015 will shortly open to the public bringing the usual surprises and amusement for the viewing public. The Archibald prize in particular is almost a spectator sport both in terms of whom is chosen as a finalist and the subject of their portrait. This year there are 47 finalists with a mix of well known and lesser known artists making the final cut. Artists such as John Beard, Peter Churcher, Shaun Gladwell, Robert Hannaford, Rodney Pople, Stewart MacFarlane, Jiawei Shen are amongst the better known names with almost a third of the finalists being virtually unknown. There is also a much broader selection of portrait subjects - artists Del Kathryn Barton, Judy Cassab, David Fairbairn; only two politicians, Bob Katter and Cory Bernardi; soldier Mark Donaldson VC; musician Daniel Johns; lawyer Charles Waterstreet, various self portraits and a nostalgic image of former AGNSW director Edmund Capon line the walls. Perhaps one of the most sentimental portraits is one of the late Bill Wright, former Deputy Director of the AGNSW and much loved art teacher from the National Art School who passed away in 2014. This is a very safe exhibition and unlikely to stir much controversy - unless the Trustees of the AGNSW select a winner and no-one can see why.

The Wynne Prize, for landscape painting or figurative sculpture and the Sulman Prize for subject, genre or mural painting attract far less attention and are smaller than the Archibald (Sulman has only 24 finalists and Wynne has 39 finalists) yet many of the works are from well established artists. This year Philip Wolfhagen, John R Walker, Aida Tomescu, Luke Sciberras, Angus Nivison are just a few of the better known names amongst the finalists. These are very much local Australian exhibitions with which the general community can relate and for that reason the popularity has never wavered over several decades.

Innovation and disruptive technologies - the new industrial revolution

Disruptive technologies - the new technologies which have the potential to disrupt the status quo have never been more prevalent in the last ten years than the earlier industrial revolutions which occured half a century or more than a century ago. The newest applications emerging during the information age continue to alter the way people live and work, rearrange value pools and create entirely new products and services. Of note rapidly evolving, transformative technologies are moving across the horizon and into deployment leading to significant structural change. These new technologies share four characteristics, according to McKinsey & Co which are as follows:

• The technology is rapidly advancing or experiencing breakthroughs: demonstrating a rapid rate of change in capabilities in terms of price/performance relative to substitutes or alternatives. Gene sequencing, and nano materials such as graphene are examples;
• The potential scope of impact is broad: the technology has a broad reach affecting companies, industries and a wide range of machines, products or services. The mobile Internet is one such example;
• Significant economic value could be affected: the potential to create massive economic impact is a key characteristic - advanced robotics has an estimated impact of $6.3b in labour costs and Cloud technology around $3 trillion in global IT expenditure;
• Economic impact is potentially disruptive: the potential to dramatically change the status quo is the fourth characteristic thus transforming how work and life are approached, changing comparative advantage for nations or shifting surpluses for businesses. New-generation genomics are a good example which impact health in both diagnostic and therapeutic uses.

12 of the potentially most disruptive technologies currently influencing the redesign of industries and whole economies are listed in the table below together with their estimated financial impact measured in trillions of dollars:

Technology	Description	$t impact
Mobile internet	Increasingly inexpensive and capable mobile computing devices and internet connectivity.	3.7-10.8
Automation of knowledge work	Intelligent software systems that can perform knowledge work tasks involving unstructured commands and subtle judgements.	5.2-6.7
The Internet of things	Networks of low-cost sensors and actuators for data collection, monitoring, decision making, and process optimization.	2.7-6.2
Cloud technology	Use of computer hardware and software resources delivered over a network or the Internet, often as a service.	1.7-6.2
Advanced robotics	Increasingly capable robots with enhanced senses, dexterity and intelligence used to automate tasks or augment humans.	1.7-4.5
Autonomous or near autonomous vehicles	Vehicles that can navigate and operate with reduced or no human intervention.	0.2-1.9
Next-generation genomics	Fast, low-cost gene sequencing, advanced big data analytics and synthetic biology.	0.7-1.6
Energy storage	Devices or storage energy for later use, including long life batteries.	0.1-0.6
3D printing	Additive manufacturing techniques to create objects by printing layers of material based on digital models.	0.2-0.6
Advanced materials	Materials designed to have superior characteristics (ie strength, weight, conductivity) or functionality.	0.2 -0.5
Advanced oil and gas exploration and recovery	Exploration and recovery techniques that make extraction of unconventional oil and gas as economically viable.	0.1-0.5
Renewable energy	Generation of electricity from renewable sources (wind, solar, tidal, biomass) with reduced harmful climate impact.	0.2-0.3

Source: McKinsey and Co.
  

Martin Aircraft jetpack under demonstration

The aircraft and airborne devices industry (including drones) is a highly competitive, global market with domination by the major industrialised economies (United States, United Kingdom, France, Russian Federation) and had tended to function with linear research and development. The concept of a functional jet pack which can operate in restrictive surroundings otherwise inaccessible to fixed wing aircraft or helicopters is one example of a disruptive technology development (as shown by the Martin jetpack). Whether it achieves commercial success with large scale take-up will determine whether this potential disruptor succeeds in altering small level aerial transport.

Disruptive technologies are already impacting many industries particularly bricks & mortar retail, travel and hospitality and the information industry. But is it all as positive as advocates would suggest thus empowering for the consumer, or is the impact actually shifting liability and risk under the guise of greater choice ? 

Latest Economic Conditions Snapshot from McKinsey & Company

Global management consultancy firm, McKinsey & Co have released their latest Global Survey of executives opinions on global and domestic economic activity. The findings confirm a neutral increasingly negative expectation has grown representing a shift from positions taken in December 2014 which were more optimistic.

In emerging markets (mainly developing countries) half of the respondent executives report that economic conditions at home have worsened over the past 6 months and this trend is expected to continue. Executives in developed Asia and North America also report waning optimism and are less bullish now about their home economies than earlier this year. Latin America has the most negative views about economic conditions since December 2013. Oddly enough executives in the Eurozone were slightly more upbeat despite fairly stagnant conditions and default concerns. McKinsey have also updated their four possible scenarios for long-term economic growth being:

• "Pockets of growth" representing uneven, volatile but high levels of global growth;
• "Global downshift" being a situation  in which growth is lower but resilient;
• "Global synchronicity" representing a period of globally distributed  growth and broad increases in productivity;
• "Rolling regional crises" which covers volatile and weak global growth.

Executives ranked "pockets of growth" or "global downshift" as the most likely scenarios over the next decade. The primary top threats have been identified as low consumer demand and geopolitical instability at a global level of which geopolitical instability has a staggering 75% support. Other primary risks to global growth are volatile exchange rates and sovereign-debt defaults which run as close seconds.

Access to food - a global problem

Corn field - a key staple food

As the world's climate changes and agricultural regions are affected, it's worth considering the current global situation for food access in order to forecast what the future demand may exist. Currently around a quarter of the world's population is undernourished despite considerable R & D advances in seed development, irrigation, crop protection, fertilising and cultivation techniques. Combined with insufficient food production in some countries there is also mass wastage in others. The Economist Intelligence Unit found on a global survey that 28 out of 109 countries surveyed had insufficient food stocks to withstand any crisis.  In contrast the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation estimates that a staggering 1.3 gigtons of edible food is wasted each year  representing over a fifth of total agricultural output across the planet. On current population trends, the World will, by 2050, have over nine billion people living on the planet requiring almost 70% more food than is currently consumed. How then will all these people be fed  and how will the world cope with changing climate patterns causing dislocation of current agricultural centres of production ? Countries with the capacity for change have reacted with varying degrees of initiative - Saudi Arabia has invested more than $10 billion in agricultural and livestock projects overseas in Argentina, Brazil, Canada and the Ukraine. Singapore has diversified its food sources and draws less fruit from neighbouring Malaysia and provided stronger incentives for locally produced vegetables, eggs and fish using new technology. The island state also now imports more from Australia, China and the United States.  These are small examples and similar ones exist in Brazil and Malawi yet the question remains, will this really be enough ?

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.