The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

A good Western, like say, The Proposition, will push through its genre restrictions and clichés to touch on realistic human predicaments and carve a genuinely captivating story in a unique setting. For all its claim to be a ‘psychological Western,’ The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford does neither of these things. Based upon Ron Hansen’s novel of the same name, it is intended as a look beyond the sensational newspaper articles and dime novels that have characterised James and Ford as a simplistic hero/coward duo in America’s collective memory. The casting of the two men is spot on – Brad Pitt being ideally predisposed to portray the troubled charisma of James (America’s Ned Kelly), and Casey Affleck (who starred alongside Pitt in Ocean’s) being perfectly suited for the grating forwardness of Ford. The cinematography is spectacular, with the opening train robbery scene unarguably exhibiting flawless technical and artistic mastery.

And yet for all that there is to like about this film, it is as if the screenwriters failed to realise that not everything that works on paper can be simply transposed onto the silver screen. Affleck’s perfect portrayal of the ingratiating Ford grows increasingly difficult to stomach – reading about an unlikable character may be enjoyable, but when he becomes the centre of your visual attention it is not so easy to bare. The poetic visuals also sit uneasily. Just as you grow increasingly tired of Ford, you will also grow sick of endless wheat fields and dawn-lit countryside. Add to that the tedious rivalries of the James’ gang members, as well as the decision to carry the narrative beyond James’ death with a “six months later” section that is far too long to be an epilogue and far too short to flow on from the rest of the film, and what you have is a fairly average offering. Even Nick Cave’s soundtrack (written together with Warren Ellis) is, while solid, predictably melancholic and rather unimaginative. At nearly three hours, this film is just too much hard work if you aren’t a die-hard Western fan.

Rating: 6.5

Across the Universe

Reminiscent of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!, Across the Universe swirls 33 Beatles’ songs through a story of the love, loss and anti-war protests. It tracks the journey of the predictably-named Jude (Jim Sturgess), as he leaves Liverpool for Princeton in search of his birth father. While he may not find the paternal comfort he had been expecting, he does find a new direction after befriending Max (Joe Anderson) and his effervescent sister, Lucy (Evan Rachel Woods). Together, the three of them end up moving to New York to pursue a colourful bohemian existence, fuelled by music, art, energy and protest – where plot becomes secondary to the evocative sights and sounds of the sixties. By now the soundtrack has been well and truly focused centre stage, giving way to sprawling psychedelic sequences and fluoro animations set to recognisable Beatles’ classics. At this point, director Julie Taymore (Frida, Titus and the Broadway musical The Lion King) makes the risky decision to preference style over substance. And this is a risk that does not pay off.

Across the Universe’s colourful fantasy world feels inconsistent, forced and actually quite uninspired. All the usual sixties clichés are rolled out (Vietnam War, drug culture, civil rights protests), as if their presence alone should be enough to give the film some sort of deeper significance. Relationships are lost in the flurry of colour, particularly as the focus of the film swings schizophrenically through an entire range of incidental characters. Classic tracks are allowed to unnecessarily sprawl out at their full length where they would have functioned far more effectively as montages or snippets, particularly given the film’s rather painful length. The film’s tone shifts awkwardly from gritty realism and complex song interpretations to ridiculous theatrics and meaningless vocals (for example, “Dear Prudence” is sung to a character called Prudence with little actual connection to the narrative – Bollywood, anyone?). Essentially, this film becomes a mere showcase of the versatility of The Beatles’ music, rather than a sophisticated fusion of recognisable lyrics with fresh interpretations. It’s enjoyable – but only if conceived as a sequence of disjointed video clips set to some quite pleasing covers, rather than as a supposedly integrated whole.


Rating: 6.5

Interview with Sam Riley

Post-punk pioneers, Joy Division, are one “those” bands.. One of those bands that inspire a quasi-religious following and widespread reverence from fans and musicians alike. One of those bands that never seem to stop attracting new listeners, topping various “all-time best song lists” over years thirty years after their break-up. One of those bands with a frontman whose dark decline that has now become a pop culture legend.

It was, therefore, a big deal when production began on Control – a new, no-holes-barred biopic that charts Ian Curtis’s rise to success, and subsequent descent into personal darkness. From the outset, director Anton Corbijn made clear his intentions to look beneath the surface of Curtis’s facade, and to not shy away from his infidelity or battles with epilepsy and depression. Little-known actor Sam Riley (who ironically played Mark E Smith in 24 Hour Party People before his short role was cut in post-production) is happy to laugh about the pressure he felt taking on the role of Joy Division’s frontman. “It was out of my control,” he jokes, somehow not yet sick of a pun that he must have heard many times before.

“He wasn’t anyone I personally revered or idolised,” Riley eventually admits, “so it wasn’t until I went onto the internet and looked at a Joy Division forum that I started really panicking. After it was announced that I would be playing Curtis, I foolishly went back to look again and there was mass panic and fear. The fans were all looking at photos of me and commenting on how I looked nothing like Ian. Which I don’t think I do normally – no one has ever said I have done. And then the fear kicked in.”

Corbijn, however, obviously saw something that Riley didn’t. He claims to have seen “something of Curtis” in Riley the first time he laid eyes on the young actor. “I can’t imagine that to be true,” Riley denies, “I think he’s a photographer, and what he saw was a snapshot of me; outside, smoking and shivering in the cold, wearing an overcoat. No, I don’t think we have the same aura. Though I don’t know what his was, as I never met him.”

Either way, Riley’s performance has been celebrated by even the most devoted Joy Division fans, with New Order themselves applauding the film. Riley credits his success to the fact that Corbijn never asked him to play a “rock star.” He explain; “I could deal with the pressure because my instructions were to play a young man with an exceptional talent, who chased his dreams, fell in love with two people and then had it all get too much for him – not to play the son of God.

“After all, [Curtis] is not a classic in many respects,” Riley continues, “On stage, he isn’t the strutting rock star that a lot his heroes are. He looks very vulnerable at his most manic, and the clothes and the hair almost make him look childlike. And it’s not all sex, drugs and rock and roll – the rock and roll was his life passion, the drugs were prescribed medications for epilepsy, and the sex was with his wife and girlfriend, who he loved. So it’s not the classic rock story in any respect.”

Rather than merely replicating the exterior of the musician then, Riley dove into an intense research stage, focusing his attention upon the singer’s complex interior and writhing contradictions. He read and re-read Deborah Curtis’s novel Touching from a Distance (which details Curtis’s infidelity and was the greatest inspiration for the Control screenplay). “The book really gives you the most insight into him as a character,” he emphasises, “And it isn’t the most flattering look at a young man, but that didn’t put me off; that was just more interesting. He was very complicated, he was very young, and he was only a teenager when he got married. I mean that wasn’t so unusual those days, but it was still probably too early to make that decision. And he was petulant and moody, but also good fun and very compassionate towards people, from all accounts.”

In attempting to fully understand Curtis, Riley also drew upon his own experience as a musician, comparing it to Curtis’s. “There are actually some things we have in common,” he explains, “We both dreamt of being rock stars, we both came from the same place in England, and I understand some of his fears. I’ve never contended with epilepsy and depression, but once you start seeing the world through his eyes than it’s not particularly hard to understand the dilemmas and problems he was faced with. He wasn’t a conscience-free rock and roller who I might have had trouble relating to, he was a thoughtful guy and really resented himself for putting his wife and child in that position.”

It would appear as if Riley actually encountered more challenges in attempting to capture the more superficial details of Curtis. He recalls how he spent seemingly endless days watching the very limited selection of Joy Division video footage available today (totalling in just over one hour), in an attempt to appropriately gauge Curtis’s idiosyncratic dance moves. “The only connection we have musically is that the music I played was similar to the music that Ian looked up to, because I revered David Bowie and Iggy Pop and The Doors, just has he did. But there’s where the similarities end, in terms of our performance roles.”

Nonetheless, after many days of dance practise, Riley felt he had finally managed to grasp something of Curtis’s style. He also believes that the live music scenes (in which he actually sings, almost perfectly replicating Curtis’s distinct tone), just “clicked” because of the particular casting choices. “We loved playing together, we loved being a band,” he recalls enthusiastically, “and once we’d got our costumes on had our haircuts it all just fit. You’d have a tough time convincing us that we weren’t Joy Division, because we loved it.”

This sentiment ideally echoes the advice that Riley received from Bernard Sumner himself (guitarist and keyboardist in Joy Division), when several of the cast members made the most of an invaluable opportunity to meet New Order. He remembers; “The weekend before we were starting filming, they happened to be playing Liverpool, so they invited Anton [Corbijn], Samantha [Morton, who plays Deborah] and the boys [in the band] to go up and watch them play. Then we met them backstage, and everyone was talking to their counterparts, though mine wasn’t there of course. I spoke mainly to Bernard, who gave me confidence because he said that I had something about me that was similar to Ian. And he said that we should have fun, because they had fun being Joy Division. And that was the sum total of advice that we received from New Order, because that’s the way that they are. “

At this point Riley again mentions how happy he was to later learn that New Order “loved the film.” I point out that that is indeed a compliment of the highest order, and he retorts with another laugh, “Indeed! You could actually say that it was a compliment of the highest new order!”

Control, Eastern Promises, Waitress

Many biopics suffer under a pretty formulaic treatment. Director falls for musician; director idolises musician; director channels sloppy sentiments into movie; director portrays musician in an idealistic, and often very simplistic, manner. This, however, is exactly where Control shines. The cinematic debut of Anton Corbijn (previously famous for rock photography and music video direction) presents a realistically balanced portrait of Ian Curtis (Sam Riley), the enigmatic frontman of Joy Division. You’ll find no pedestals here; instead, the many varying sides of Curtis’s personality are laid bare, allowing audiences to form their own opinions. Charting his development from a bored recruitment officer to a tortured musical icon, this film closely examines his relationship with his wife, Deborah (Samantha Morton), and later his affair with Belgium journalist, Annik Honore (Alexander Maria Lara). The narrative’s inevitable pull towards Curtis’ disintegration and suicide makes it all the more enthralling viewing. Filmed entirely in black and white, this is a film that has truly succeeded in capturing the bittersweet tone of the period while simultaneously maintaining a captivating level of character complexity. Aside from some of Riley’s dance moves (that feel more robotic than the awkward motions of Curtis), this is a near-flawless film that should satiate film-lovers and Joy Division devotees alike.

Rating: 8.8

Canadian director David Cronenberg has long been polarising audience opinion through his extreme treatment of the human body. Under Cronenberg’s direction, the body is transformed into a piece of meat. If it is male, it will be thrown around the set with the set with all the weight of a worthless prop, inevitably ending up as a mass of slaughtered, bloody pulp. If it is female, it will become the star of an explicit sex scene, often being similarly treated as a prop that catalyses male pleasure. Cronenberg maintains this attitude in his latest thriller, Eastern Promises – a London-based tale of Russia’s global criminal brotherhood, Vory V Zakone, and the innocent midwife, Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts), who is inexorably drawn into their world. At long last, though, Cronenberg’s physical and sexual excesses do not feel arbitrary. Instead, these extremes work to develop the film’s dark and threatening tone, to explore the limits of the male characters and to further the tautly thrilling narrative progression. Even the performances feel far more even-handed than in Cronenberg’s previous offerings, with Viggo Mortenson ideally capturing the moral ambiguity of Nikolai Luzhin (the official chauffer of the brotherhood) and Watts perfectly articulating Anna’s conflicting emotions of fear and curiosity. Combine this all with a genuinely tense, interesting and fairly complex storyline, and what you have here is one of Cronenberg’s most mature and impressive offerings thus far.

Rating: 9.0

There are plenty of sweet little comedies out there, and while many may succeed in producing that familiar, warm, fuzzy feeling, few do so with the aid of characters that are as truly memorable as those featured in Waitress. Written and directed by Adrienne Shelly (who also acts in it), Waitress in set in America’s deep south, where Jenna (Kerri Russell) dreams of escaping her loveless, abusive marriage, until an unexpected pregnancy throws her plans of course. The pregnancy, which she initially sees as a curse, gradually evolves into a blessing-in-disguise, as it introduces her to the town’s new doctor, with whom she begins a risky affair. The film suffers a little from some uneven pacing, some jerky shifts in tone, and also from some unnecessarily repeated messages (a husband doesn’t need to shout “Make me my dinner” ad nauseum for us to understand that he’s a bad guy!). Nonetheless, though, Russell has made the most of this showcase, channelling a grace to rival Natalie Portman, while all the supporting cast members are equally memorable in their portrayals of the idiosyncratic characters that surround her. And don’t even get me started on the electric chemistry that sparks between Jenna and the doctor (Nathan Fillion). With a powerfully heart-warming conclusion, Waitress may well be the romantic comedy of the year.

Rating: 8.9

Interview with Elysia Zeccola

They say that Italians are all about family. Elysia Zeccola, the manager of this year’s Lavazza Italian Film Festival, jokes about the all-enveloping nature of her father’s “big Italian family, who made it impossible for her English mother to avoid adopting the culture and learning the language." Even work is a family affair for Zeccola, who has spent the last eight years organising the festival alongside her father, Antonio (the managing director), who actually proposed the original vision for an Italian film festival eight years ago.

“Back then, we saw how well the French one was doing and we just thought, ‘Why isn’t anyone organising an Italian festival?’ It seemed strange, because Italy has got such a long established and well respected film industry and so many fantastic films, so we decided to start organising one ourselves,” she reflects, “In the first year we picked up a selection of films and screened them only in Melbourne and Sydney, and pretty much from the second year onwards we’ve just expanded, because there seems to be such a demand and people just enjoy those films so much. We’re getting more and more films and also expanding at each individual location. In Perth it was just at Paradiso initially, and it’s moved to Paradiso and Luna on SX.”

Zeccola makes no claims to understand the festival’s ever-growing popularity, but she does emphasise the particular power that film can have over Italian migrants living in Australia. “So many Italian films touch on immigration themes – and whether they’re talking about immigration to Canada or America or Australia, they’re looking at experiences that all migrants can sort of connect with,” she stresses. “Even for second or third generation migrants, these are films about people who have moved from small villages and travelled across the world to live in another country, and as you watch them you realise that that’s what your parents have also done and it’s quite interesting.”

Zeccola herself certainly used film as a means to connect with her own Italian identity. From the age of 11 she worked a foreign film cinema and reflects fondly upon the days of “sitting up the back watching the film, once you’ve ripped everyone’s tickets.” It was in this dark space that Zeccola first tasted Italian celluloid, and quickly found herself hooked. “I’d definitely watch a lot of these films, and slowly it became so important for me to learn Italian,” she remembers, “because after I saw all these Italian language films I felt very much that I had such a strong connection with the country.”

This year, the film festival programme presents a wide range of Italian films, all of them united in box office success. “They aren’t all blockbusters, but they are all films that have reached a certain level of success and have gained good reviews in Italy,” Zeccola explains. “It’s a combination of factors. Some of them have stars and actors that people are interesting in seeing, while some are just films that have really succeeded in touching hearts through their themes.”

There is certainly a diverse range of subject material on offer. Personally, Zeccola recommends Manual of Love 2 (Manuale D’Amore 2), the sequel to Italy’s record breaking romantic comedy, that returns once again with four more interconnecting love stories. She also speaks highly of One Hundred Nails (Centochiodi), the final fiction film from Palme D’Or winning director, Ermanno Olmi, who has decided to from now on only produce documentaries. This film delves into the heavy themes of theology, love and friendship, after a country librarian awakes to find 100 rare manuscripts nailed to his library floor.

“They’re all so varied! There’s such a great mix there because Italians are always churning out so many great films, which makes my job easy,” Zeccola laughs. “People say that Italian films are always about passion and infidelity and adultery, and there certainly is a lot of that going on, but there’s also so much more to it.”

The Night Before Exams, One Out of Two

This year, the Lavazza Italian Film Festival presents a range of Italian box office hits, including the light-hearted The Night Before Exams (Notte Prima Degli Esami). After witnessing the first five minutes of this film, you’d be forgiven for thinking that you’d accidentally stumbled into a subtitled version of John Hughes. Its introduction bares all the classic hallmarks of American eighties teen comedy – from fluro leggings and novelty shirts through to sweeping aerial shots of enthusiastic adolescents engaged in synchronised partying around a glittering backyard pool. And, like any respectable teen comedy, Luca (the awkward-looking teenager who directs the story with his reflective narration, played by Nicolas Vaporidis) is simultaneously facing girl and teacher troubles. He is in love with the beautiful Claudia (Cristiana Capotondi), who may or may not remember his name, and he’s just gone ahead and insulted a literature professor (Giorgio Faletti) before realising that the teacher will actually be sitting in on his oral exam. What a conundrum!

Beyond this predictable exposition, though, The Night Before Exams does carry some endearingly European characteristics. For starters, this film features a lot of breasts. That’s right; like any foreign film worth its salt, it’s just that little bit racier than its American counterpart. Also, there’s a fair amount of actual drama. Rather than simply dealing with high school stereotypes and the real people beneath them, this film is tinted by some more serious themes like teen pregnancy, loyalty, respect, trust and death. These dramatic developments sit comfortably alongside the comedic antics of the main characters, appropriately conveying the teenagers’ swinging emotional states. This film is nothing spectacular, but the narrative is simple enough to easily enjoy, and deep enough to actually respect a little, while the colourful eighties milieux provides solid entertainment value. After all, if a film’s dramatic conclusion is accompanied by “The Final Countdown,” then you know it must be good value.

A more serious offering, being showcased as part of the same film festival, is One Out of Two (Uno Su Due). Following up on his reputation for realistically representing contemporary Italian life, director Eugenio Cappuccio introduces us to the high-flying corporate lawyer, Lorenzo (Fabio Volo), without making any attempt to direct our sympathy towards him. The film essentially begins when the seemingly-invincible Lorenzo suddenly faints and ends up in hospital, only to wake up and discover that he has a malignant brain tumour. Forced to wait several weeks for the results of his biopsy, Lorenzo grows increasingly enraged – at the perceptive cancer patient he is forced to share a room with, at his usually-meek business partner and at his caring girlfriend. Having fought hard all his life in order to climb the ladder of financial prosperity, Lorenzo does not react well to this sudden bout of special attention, no matter how well-intentioned.

This film takes a while to truly gain momentum. The first half mainly charts Lorenzo’s growing irritation as he awaits the test results, which is frustrating for audiences. Perhaps exactly because the film so accurately captures Lorenzo’s impatience, you’ll find yourself sharing it and genuinely willing the tedious wait to come to an end, which is a not altogether desirable effect. Once events begin to speed up, though, and as Lorenzo finally begins to grow as a character, the plotline does deliver some genuinely touching developments. It’s also hard not to notice Volo’s outstanding turn as Lorenzo, which just seems to grow stronger as the film progresses. Volo was actually awarded Best Italian Actor at the Rome Film Festival for this part, and rightly so. He subtly injects the character with an overwhelmingly rich complexity, conveying a multitude of contradicting emotions through a single look. His performance is a definite highlight in what is otherwise a fairly unremarkable offering.

The Night Before Exams: 6.7

One Out of Two: 5.9

Year of the Dog

Anyone who has every forged an emotional connection with a pet will find it very difficult to dislike Year of the Dog. Few films have so subtly and accurately captured the relationship between human and animal, and the catastrophic feeling of loss that accompanies the death of a pet. Without sliding into any clichés or predictable character developments, screenwriter Mike White (in his first original screenplay) represents the sometimes hysterical, sometimes pathetic and sometimes sympathetic journey of the relatable receptionist Peggy (Molly Shannon), after she finds her beloved dog Pencil dead in her neighbour’s yard. Having previously relied upon Pencil as her sole companion, Peggy is suddenly thrust into the world of human interaction once again, with a mixed bag of results.

Thanks to both White’s writing and Shannon’s performance, the representation of Peggy as a character reaches an intriguing level of complexity. As she becomes increasingly obsessed with animal welfare campaigns, we are positioned to feel simultaneously angered, alarmed, alienated and approving. We are at once laughing with her and at her, and are thusly forced to reconsider our own personal positions on obsession and depression. It is undeniable, though, that White does get a little carried away at the end of the film, veering the narrative towards extremes that really only serve to confuse the audience. Indeed, it could be said that the film’s disappointing conclusion significantly reduces the rich complexity of the rest of the story. If it had ended just fifteen minutes earlier, before several unnecessarily dramatic developments, the film would have been remembered solely for its complex characters, quirky stylistic devices, and touching mix of pathos and humour. Instead, this is will be remembered as another film that began promisingly, but sadly (and messily) disintegrated. This is probably one to see on DVD, so that you can decide when to stop watching.

Rating: 7.2

The 11th Hour

These days, it’s all too easy to get lost in the crazy haze of environmentally themed documentaries. Many a documentary is bound to disappear unnoticed, swept under the ever flowing current of inconvenient truths, electric cars and oil production bell curves. On the other hand, though, it’s really not that hard to guarantee yourself a place in popular consciousness. Essentially, all you need is a superstar narrator, and a collection of household names who can step in as your interview subjects. This formula is best exemplified by The 11^th Hour – a documentary that is hosted by none other than Leonardo DiCaprio, and features interviews with David Suzuki, Stephen Hawking and Mikhail Gorbachev. Throw in a frighteningly sensationalist montage of apocalyptic visions (more reminiscent of an action film than a documentary) and you’ve pretty much sealed the deal.

There’s certainly a lot left open to criticism in this film. Yes, the arbitrary choice of interview subjects is woeful, and the hysterical introduction is aggravating. And yet, there is another, far more impressive reason, to see and remember this film. The reason is that, unlike the mainstream of environmental documentaries, this one pushes through its own sensationalist agenda to deliver a note of hope. While An Inconvenient Truth merely skirted over the surface of potential solution, this film explores and celebrates our ability to alter the course of the future. It looks at environmental design, alternative fuels, and simple day-to-day savings that can make a difference, becoming, in the end, an uplifting and empowering celebration of both human and environmental potential. Here is a film that will not only get people talking, but will hopefully also inspire them to start doing. Try to see past Leo, because it really is worth it.

Rating: 7.8

Interview with Nicholas Maksymow

No film student worth their salt could deny Russia’s epic influence upon cinema history. It was here that montage techniques were first pioneered and refined, and it was here that some of film history’s greatest masterpieces were born. So many years and one iron curtain later, and Russia is again eager to reassert its position on the international cinema landscape. The 2007 Russian Film Festival Russian Revolution is a tribute to Russia’s fast growing cinema industry, and, this week, it makes its way into our part of the globe.

“Russia’s film production is increasing at an incredible rate!” exclaims the festival director, Nicholas Maksymow, “Firstly, there are lots of private bodies who provide funding for budding filmmakers, and if that does not work there is always the state funding board. What’s happening there now is similar to what the AFI did in the late seventies to revive the Australian film industry. There’s this strong, creative reenergising.”

Luckily, Russian filmmakers are also enjoying a lucrative success at the Russian box office. This year they are expected to retain over one quarter of the total national box office takings. “Unlike Australians, Russians don’t really experience that kind of ‘cultural cringe’,” explains Maksymow. “There really isn’t a pressure to be Western, because Russians are so proud of all their art and above all their cinema… Films like Daywatch and Nighwatch and Wolfhound are obviously Russian films trying to copy Hollywood, but there is still this unique ‘Russianness’ about them, and there’s no pressure to get rid of that. In fact, that’s why people seem to enjoy them so much.”

Maksymow connects this sense of “Russianness” with the Russian artistic drive to paint realistically complex pictures of daily life, that accurately scan the whole range of the emotional spectrum. “For instance, in one movie you might cry, you might laugh and you might feel scared,” he emphasises, “There is so much emotion going through one film and that’s what life is like in Russia at the moment, because it’s so unpredictable. In everyday life people go through both laughter and hardship, and Russian film is all about capturing that realistically.” At this point, he laughs about how the highest rating Australian film to have ever been screened in Russia was Lantana – a fact that he attributes to Lantana’s complex, realistic, and unquestionably dark, treatment of human emotions.

If there is one section of human life, though, from which Russian cinema steers clear, it is contemporary Russian politics. While the world reels in response to news about Russia’s (often brutal) censorship of political journalism, the film industry is safe in its detachment. Maksymow explains, “The journalists get into trouble because they’re overtly political, and trying to push a certain view, while cinema is still seen as a democratic form of the arts, in the sense that it’s not really political at all. Filmmaking doesn’t really touch sensitive political issues in Russia; it’s more about making fun of the old politicians and examining our past than looking at the contemporary situation.”

Cinema and politics therefore enjoy mutual support and respect in Russia, a phenomenon reflected by the fact that Vladimir Putin (the Russian first head of state to ever visit Australia) officially opened the festival in Sydney last week. Significantly, Putin’s visit to Australia (for the APEC summit) corresponds with the 200 year anniversary of Australia’s relationship with Russia. Maksymow ponders on how all these aspects work together to strengthen international cultural understandings, as he reflects, “While obviously our relations, and Putin’s visit, have been mainly political and economic… festivals like these fill in the cultural aspects… I believe that what we’re trying to do by having Russian film festivals in Australia is giving not only those of Russian heritage, but also Australian citizens, a chance to see something they would not usually see.”

Interview with Megan Spencer

Megan Spencer is the perfect poster girl for GenerationX. She reifies pop-culture as a deity, she explodes with awe for those who dedicate their life to the cultivation of an obsession and she finds poetic beauty in the seemingly mundane. “Pop culture replaced our god,” she laughs, without a hint of irony. “It replaced our children and our mortgages – for a while, anyway. And pop culture, in a sense, has replaced art. I don’t mean to sound like a philistine but I guess I find the most artistic gratification and profound poetic experiences usually through pop culture.”

Certainly, as Spencer herself admits, it takes a significant dose of “crazy one-eyed fandom” to centralise an entire career around a love of cinema, which is exactly what she’s done. In fact, Spencer has skipped through the entire spectrum of Australia’s film industry – as a reviewer for both radio and television, as the artistic director of Perth’s own Revelation Film Festival, and as a filmmaker in her own right, specialising in a raw, ‘guerrilla style’ portraiture.

No prizes for guessing the kind of subjects that Spencer chooses for her own documentaries. So far, she has consistently focused upon exploring the lives of passionate, unique individuals devoted to their personal obsessions. From fanatical AFL supporters to professional dominatrixes, Spencer has no qualms about entering social spheres that are far removed from her own, and from the realities inhabited by most of her viewers. In her latest DVD release, Lovestruck: Wrestling’s #1 Fan, she tracks almost ten years in the life of Sue Chuster, Australia’s most devoted wrestling fan.

Chuster doesn’t fit the expected demographic of a wrestling fan, and yet she’s dedicated the last 35 years of her life to the sport, has travelled to America twice in hot pursuit of wrestling superstars, owns over 4000 wrestling DVDs and videos, and has plastered her house shift in a make-shift wallpaper composed of over 4000 wrestling photos. It would have been dangerously easy for Spencer to adopt a condescending or ridiculing perspective with this film, but instead she has injected it with a warm, heartfelt and emotionally sensitive tone.

“If it was a superficial look at her, then it could have been become that, but that was never my intention. I wouldn’t want to make a superficial film about anyone. And I was determined to dig deeper with Sue and hang in there until that deeper reason presented itself. She is a bit more of an extreme figure… But I admire the way people can take something that is seen as banal or everyday or of no cultural value and turn into something that has enormous value, even if it’s just personally to them. I think those sorts of stories are really valuable and really entertaining and really reflective of who we might actually be.”

Unfortunately, Spencer believes that the heartfelt honesty with which she represented Chuster is also the reason why she had so much trouble obtaining funding from broadcasters and public boards. In the end, Spencer was restricted to releasing her television-friendly fifty-minute film through DVD – a not entirely regrettable decision, because it did allow her the space to include over thirty minutes of special features.

“I think [broadcasters] are scared of real people, and of not presenting them in a controlled way,” she elaborates. “In parts of Lovestruck, sometimes the subject is making the film and I don’t put in any voice-overs telling you how to receive it or react. And I think we have a pretty generic, formulaic approach to television documentaries in this country. I am generalising [but many directors]… try to clean their films up, and they end up second guessing their audiences which is something I refuse to do and don’t need to do and don’t want to do, and if it keeps me on the margins then I’m happy to stay there.”