This film- of -the -book was directed by the book's author, local wunderkind [in his own lunchtime] Richard Flanagan. It was a big hit here in Tasmania, where it's set, and it's a good little story of a postwar migrant woman and her father's struggles in "pioneer" conditions in a work camp on Tasmania's rugged West Coast, and later in Hobart. Great photography and scenery. Anyone interested in this part of the world will enjoy it. A worthy addition to the handful of feature films made in Tasmania. N.B. ATTENTION: Location scouts.....
2 Reviews
Director knows how to frame a shot... but not how to reveal a plot!
rjackson728 December 2009
Warning: Spoilers
Yes this movie looks delicious and it's all dark and moody... but it's also a hodge podge, hit and miss affair. Kerry Fox can't really seem to understand her character or know where the movie is going. We share her confusion. The film is just a long montage, cutting back and forth to Sonja as a little girl being abandoned, a big girl growing up in a 'wog flat' with her alcoholic father, and an adult doing something so utterly inexplicable it just makes you screw your face up: She's visiting long lost relatives and family friends to tell them she's getting an abortion. Very bizarre behaviour, and the movie's stifling pessimism negates any possible sympathy we could feel for her.
It's just a long line of well framed, artfully lit, nicely crafted scenes that are each boring, harshly edited and barely coherent. The feverish inter-cutting serves no purpose given the triteness of the plot being unfolded. The movie begins to pick up some interest in the second half when we find out about Sonja's mum and what happened in "the war", but it is all totally unsatisfying, and the movie leaves you asking all the wrong questions: Did Sonja KNOW her mum was dead? Is that why she never even looked for her? Why was the dad so daft as to leave his girlfriend just because his 8 y.o. said to? Is that why he resented Sonja - this event is never referred to at all, just shown? Did they keep eating baked beans, or was it just that one time? WHERE is the father of Sonja's bub - hello? Can't the audience know *anything* about it? Or is that not 'arty' enough? And what did that embittered guy actually DO to Sonja in the car?? The scene where he makes an advance and she just walks out of the car just makes NO SENSE! The movie is so unsatisfying - life in the camps was just never explored, and there was obviously no budget to take us to WW2 Slovenia sadly. (I couldn't make out anything in that silly photo, and I have a BIG plasma...) It's been said that if any Aussie movie from the last decade was shown on a plane, the audience would still walk out - well you can add this movie to the list. It's so humourless and the climax leaves nothing resolved. The father's final gesture for his grandchild is touching, but ultimately serves only to highlight how vacuous the movie as a whole really is.
It's just a long line of well framed, artfully lit, nicely crafted scenes that are each boring, harshly edited and barely coherent. The feverish inter-cutting serves no purpose given the triteness of the plot being unfolded. The movie begins to pick up some interest in the second half when we find out about Sonja's mum and what happened in "the war", but it is all totally unsatisfying, and the movie leaves you asking all the wrong questions: Did Sonja KNOW her mum was dead? Is that why she never even looked for her? Why was the dad so daft as to leave his girlfriend just because his 8 y.o. said to? Is that why he resented Sonja - this event is never referred to at all, just shown? Did they keep eating baked beans, or was it just that one time? WHERE is the father of Sonja's bub - hello? Can't the audience know *anything* about it? Or is that not 'arty' enough? And what did that embittered guy actually DO to Sonja in the car?? The scene where he makes an advance and she just walks out of the car just makes NO SENSE! The movie is so unsatisfying - life in the camps was just never explored, and there was obviously no budget to take us to WW2 Slovenia sadly. (I couldn't make out anything in that silly photo, and I have a BIG plasma...) It's been said that if any Aussie movie from the last decade was shown on a plane, the audience would still walk out - well you can add this movie to the list. It's so humourless and the climax leaves nothing resolved. The father's final gesture for his grandchild is touching, but ultimately serves only to highlight how vacuous the movie as a whole really is.
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