Frankie

australia on film

Kara schlegl gives us the lowdown on some top-notch aussie flicks.

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THE DRESSMAKER (2015) Directed by: Jocelyn Moorhouse. What’s it about? 25 years after being accused of murder and exiled from her small country town, the now internatio­nally renowned fashion designer Myrtle Dunnage (Kate Winslet) returns home to stamp out cigarettes in a sexy way – and to exact revenge. Myrtle is a classic femme fatale, scandalisi­ng the locals with an off-the-shoulder wiggle dress and seducing the only townie with abs (that’d be Liam Hemsworth). This is a comedy, a romance and a film-noir thriller thrown into a hessian sack and beaten about with a cricket bat. It’s a bit like watching the Reese Witherspoo­n classic Sweet Home Alabama, if that movie had been written and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Watch it for: Shock, intrigue, Australian celebrity glow-ups, and Liam Hemsworth’s abs (if that’s your jam).

CARGO (2017) Directed by: Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke. What’s it about? English fella Martin Freeman plays Andy, a baby-daddy who’s infected by a slow-acting zombie virus after his wife makes the rookie error of leaving self-isolation to go buy some chips. It takes two agonising days for the virus to set in, giving Andy little time to journey across middle Australia in search of much-needed childcare assistance. I won’t beat around the global pandemic: this is a relatable and harrowing watch. But the zombie apocalypse is only set dressing for a confrontin­g look at Australia’s treatment of Aboriginal people, and the horrors of colonisati­on. It might not give you jump scares, but it should probably keep you up at night. Watch it for: Martin Freeman’s magnificen­t dad energy, heart-wrenching landscapes, and tips on how to survive a (zombie) outbreak.

52 TUESDAYS (2013) Directed by: Sophie Hyde. What’s it about? Beholden to a divorce agreement, a recently outed trans man, James (Del Herbert-jane), and his teenage daughter Billie (Tilda Cobham-hervey) are restricted to seeing each other only on Tuesday nights. As you can imagine, this isn’t an ideal arrangemen­t, especially for two people who are, for different reasons, raging with hormones. Perhaps because the film is based on her own experience with her parents, director Sophie Hyde is almost tyrannical in her pursuit of realism, filming the actors each Tuesday over the course of an entire year. It’s an impractica­l production schedule that yields a fractured but mesmerisin­g story about gender dysphoria and the trauma of change. Watch it for: The exhilarati­on of watching teens act out, and one of the few gender-diverse actors actually cast in a gender-diverse role.

THE NIGHTINGAL­E (2018) Directed by: Jennifer Kent. What’s it about? During the ‘Black War’ in 19th-century Tasmania, a young Irish convict, Clare (played by Aisling Franciosi) sees her entire family slaughtere­d by a British officer. When she can’t secure justice, she decides to go on a white-man hunt, teaming up with an Aboriginal tracker named Mangana (Baykali Ganambarr) who, if you know anything about the Black War, has his own reasons for vengeance. From the director of The Babadook, this thriller charged out of a dark cave to show us Australian history in an unforgivin­g light. It’s so unashamedl­y bloody and brutal, Quentin Tarantino would probably have to shield his eyes. It hurts to watch, and it leaves behind a scar, but damn, it’s a helluva movie. Watch it for: The satisfacti­on of pure, fiery vengeance.

TOP END WEDDING (2019) Directed by: Wayne Blair. What’s it about?

Lauren Ford (Miranda Tapsell) is a city lawyer with a loving fiancé who has a hot English accent. Her extreme success should make her annoying to watch, but, annoyingly, she’s also a delight. Ahead of her wedding, in a level of passive aggression reserved exclusivel­y for the mother of the bride, Lauren’s mum goes AWOL, launching our hero into a journey from her Adelaide apartment to her mum’s country in the Top End of Australia. Aussies have a long history of making blistering rom-coms about outcasts: women who are still searching for their place in the world. This movie feels like a next step in that legacy. On the surface, Lauren might seem like she has her shit together – worlds apart from a Muriel Heslop (Muriel’s Wedding) or Fran (Strictly Ballroom) – but the joy of this movie is in watching Lauren get her hands dirty as she digs beneath that surface. Watch

it for: A blissful, scenic escape from your home office.

HOLDING THE MAN (2015) Directed by: Neil Armfield.

What’s it about? This unassuming, doomed romance between two private-school boys could’ve easily given us the saccharine melodrama we’ve come to expect from Hollywood films about the AIDS epidemic. Instead, what we get is a soft, witty period drama that could be transporte­d from the suburbs of Melbourne to Regency England with the simple addition of a bonnet. Based on a true story, it spans a 15-year romance during the ’70s and ’80s, when queer people were stereotype­d as promiscuou­s to a fault, and gay sex was still illegal in most states. Maybe it’s the sunshine-y hue of 1970s decor, or the fact that the star-studded cast is unbelievab­ly attractive and makes out quite a lot, but the tragedies in this film somehow never overwhelm the joys. Watch it for: Beaut 1980s fashion and the chemistry – oh, the chemistry!

SWEET COUNTRY (2018) Directed by: Warwick Thornton. What’s it

about? Sam Kelly (Hamilton Morris), an Aboriginal stockman, goes on the run from the law with his wife after shooting a disgruntle­d white man in self-defence. This is arguably Australia’s most classic entry in the western genre, fully committing to a frontier aesthetic, a gunslingin­g lifestyle, and a pervasive concern with justice. But by setting this familiar story in the Australian outback and giving us an Aboriginal cowboy, the rules are changed. The work of a stockman looks more like slavery, the lawlessnes­s of the frontier only seems to apply to white people, and a humble preacher, played by softboy Sam Neill, becomes a looming threat by virtue of the colour of his skin. Most worryingly, we can no longer rely on the comforting genre convention that guarantees victory for our hero, transformi­ng a stock-standard western into an effective stress test. Watch it

for: One of Australia’s best directors at the top of his game, and dat cinematogr­aphy.

THE INFINITE MAN (2014) Directed by: Hugh Sullivan. What’s it

about? Alone in a middle-of-nowhere motel, a recently dumped scientist builds a time machine. In an attempt to win his ex-girlfriend back, he inadverten­tly traps them both in an infinite time loop. This is a comedy, but the thought of being trapped with my ex in an infinite time loop is absolute nightmare fuel, and I will not be sleeping for weeks. Science fiction is a rare genre in this country, but this weird little movie proves that it shouldn’t be. It’s inventive and bruising, giving us a compelling argument against time travel, and a deliberate warning about the dangers of the obsessive courtship encouraged by romantic comedies. Watch it for: How about the fact that this is an Australian sci-fi. AN AUSTRALIAN SCI-FI. Who funded this? Where do I send this thank-you basket filled with assorted exotic fruits?

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