Mystery and voyeuristic suspense in an abstract and even distant way abounds most of "Corroboree"from its very beginning right through to the end. We are taken on a very private, aesthetically beautiful and tonal journey, the darkness prevalent but also the light of nature, of the magic of light. It is a strange film, a film of unexplained urges and inclinations, a very physical and adventurous drama of daring and unique intimations. The suspense builds because of the silence and paucity of dialogue at times, which makes the audience work all their senses at once. Many questions spring to mind but most importantly there is a pervasive and lasting thought that one must not raise logical questions for logic and rationality seem to be no longer present and appear not to even need to exist. The control of Conor, the feeling that he is suspending criticism of those around him and his overriding acceptance and non-resistance to this journey are cues to how we are to engage in the drama that unfolds. I thought of Ingmar Bergman's "Cries and Whispers" and Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice" with Bogarde and a beautiful young man I thought reminded me of Conor with the glory of unlined and glowing young flesh. As a painter of such beauty, at least knowing I could most sensitively paint that flesh, especially with the visually resplendent last image of blood streaming down the torso, so extreme and yet with so much control and silence, is a haunting vision that stays with one.
I am not sure I understood a lot of the film. It tore at all the logical and everyday humdrum notions of what films are usually all about or how predictable they are, in the way they appeal to the popular masses. Perhaps I could be critical about some parts of the film but only if I could truly come up with an alternative reality but that would ultimately only be subjective and not my prerogative, for I am a mere onlooker and observer.
Many questions are summoned to the forefront of my at times feeble consciousness.....as a lover of aesthetically beautiful and visual feasts, I would have to say that Conor afforded a lavish smörgåsbord of assorted visual treasures which the film takes with it, bringing Conor from an obscure unknown and unassertive stance into the drama which then unfolded in all its personal and yet impersonal and at times cold and abstract way... The distances are accentuated from person to person, the private dramas of some of the characters seem to create distance or there is a quality of estrangement from the characters in the film. A deliberately undeveloped feeling of the characters is created.
I found this quote which betokens a meaning I might ascribe to the film:
"I want very much to tell, to talk about, the wholeness inside every human being. It's a strange thing that every human being has a sort of dignity or wholeness in him, and out of that develops relationships to other human beings, tensions, misunderstandings, tenderness, coming in contact, touching and being touched, the cutting off of a contact and what happens then." (Bergman in John Simon's book Ingmar Bergman Directs, 1972)
I am not sure I understood a lot of the film. It tore at all the logical and everyday humdrum notions of what films are usually all about or how predictable they are, in the way they appeal to the popular masses. Perhaps I could be critical about some parts of the film but only if I could truly come up with an alternative reality but that would ultimately only be subjective and not my prerogative, for I am a mere onlooker and observer.
Many questions are summoned to the forefront of my at times feeble consciousness.....as a lover of aesthetically beautiful and visual feasts, I would have to say that Conor afforded a lavish smörgåsbord of assorted visual treasures which the film takes with it, bringing Conor from an obscure unknown and unassertive stance into the drama which then unfolded in all its personal and yet impersonal and at times cold and abstract way... The distances are accentuated from person to person, the private dramas of some of the characters seem to create distance or there is a quality of estrangement from the characters in the film. A deliberately undeveloped feeling of the characters is created.
I found this quote which betokens a meaning I might ascribe to the film:
"I want very much to tell, to talk about, the wholeness inside every human being. It's a strange thing that every human being has a sort of dignity or wholeness in him, and out of that develops relationships to other human beings, tensions, misunderstandings, tenderness, coming in contact, touching and being touched, the cutting off of a contact and what happens then." (Bergman in John Simon's book Ingmar Bergman Directs, 1972)