Art Smitten

Casey Affleck has been in the paper a lot recently for not the right reasons. Without getting involved or placing an opinion of the alleged allegations against Casey Affleck, I believe his career in Hollywood and acting should not be judged by his actions outside of acting. This is my own personal viewpoint, and shall be throughout my review of Manchester by the Sea.

Directed by Kenneth Lonergan, Machester follows the events from the perspective of Joe Chandler, a handyman from Quincy, Massachusetts, after he receives a call of word that his brother is having a heart attack. Arriving too late in Manchester, Joe is given the guardianship of his brothers son Patrick. The majority of the film is in the present day as Joe tries to figure out what to do with Patrick, whilst having a total disconnect to the town itself. For the rest of the film, flashbacks are used as exposition to explain why Joe is the way he is, and how he came to leave Manchester to live in Quincy in the first place. Without spoiling anything major, this film is very dark, brutal, and cold. The events which occur in them are quite shocking and depressing, however they are also bookended by some truly hilarious black comedy, and situational moments. Not many people agree with me, however I see Manchester by the Sea as a black comedy drama rather than just a drama, as almost all of the comedic moments in the film are perfect, timed well, and make light somehow, of the very sad slice of life mentality the film holds.

Lonergan hasn’t directed since 2011, the film being Margaret, but it’s like he hasn’t been out of action at all. The directing skills he has show in the film, each staging of the shots and actors positions are smooth and sublime, whilst the acting itself is fantastic. Affleck needs to be talked about solely as this is easily a career best for him. His lack of emotion as Joe is heart wrenching, especially when intercut with scenes from his past where you can still see the light in his eyes, the love in his voice, and his boyish charm. His present self is slow, uncaring, and saddening. You don’t need to be told what he’s gone through as you can just tell from looking at the way he acts. Special mention must be given to Lucas Hedges as well, as his performance as Patrick Chandler is a perfect example of a teenager forced to deal with adult situations. The character of Patrick is very brutal and rare itself, and seeing him interact with a much younger Joe in flashbacks provides further moments of the realisation of the tough lives the pair lead.

Moving away from the plot, the actual production and planning for this film must be given credit too due to the length of time spent trying to get it made, and overall development of such. The film was produced by Matt Damon, who originally was meant to star in it as well in Affleck’s role. However, this changed to having John Krasinski as main actor a bit later, before Casey Affleck was finally locked down to be the main star. With pre production of the film beginning all the way back in September of 2014, it's brilliant to see how far the film went through development to finally air worldwide in 2017. Manchester by the Sea is also filmed in its namesake, Manchester by the Sea, which adds to the realism to the film, as the plot is quite natural and easily could happen in real life. Additionally, the music by Lesley Barber in this film is marvellous as well, being an eerie mix between ethereal and hallowing tones. It's hard to discuss the film in detail without dropping too much about plot, so I urge anyone who is capable of withstanding a brutal 137 minute sitting to go and see this film. Currently nominated for 6 academy awards, with Affleck being the frontrunner for best actor, Manchester by the Sea deserves the praise it's received, as it’s a both a film and example of the hardships in life.

Written by Hamish Vallance

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Gill and Molly discuss their thoughts, feelings and impressions of Aaron Posner's play Stupid Fucking Bird, before, after and during the intermission of its new production byLightning Jar Theatre, playing at the Brunswick Mechanics Institute until February 26.

Click here to listen to our interview with director Peter Blackburn

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Andrew and Molly interview Adelaide Fisher, Ariel Cameron and past Art-Smitten host Will Dawson about their brand new community arts festival Happenstance, taking place along the Merri Creek in Coburg North on Saturday February 25.

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Molly, Andrew and Jim chat to actor, producer and director Shane Savage about North of Eight's production of Mark O'Rowe's play Terminus, on at The Courthouse Hotel until March 11.

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Andrew, Molly and Jim chat to theatremaker Nicole McKenzie about one-person show, Being a Good Person is Bloody Hard Work, now being performed at Hares & Hyenas in Fitzroy as part of the Sustainable Living Festival.

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Christian interviews Rosie Jones, director of the documentary The Family which premiered last year at the Melbourne International Film Festival and is now in limited release.

Click here to listen to Christian's review

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Molly and Andrew chat to Angela Conquet, the Artistic Director of Dancehouse, about their participation in the upcoming Dance Massive festival, which runs from March 14-26.

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Andrew, Gill and Hamish chat to Gary Hillberg, one of the two artists behind the video art exhibition, Montages: The Full Cut, 1999-2015, now showing at the Shepparton Art Museum until May 19.

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The Family is Rosie Jones and Anna Grieve’s ominously titled documentary about a bizarre Australian cult that was finally discovered by police in the late 1980s. Consisting mostly of corrupt doctors and forcibly adopted children, its leader, Anne Hamilton-Byrne, proclaimed herself to be the female reincarnation of Jesus Christ. She had prophesised a coming apocalypse and was desperately trying to build a master race of bleach-blonde stolen children that could survive it. Anne’s sect had the numbers, the resources and the influence to secretly spirit away 28 children from teenage pregnancies to her remote property in Eilden, Victoria.

Anne could tell any member of “The Family” who to marry, who to divorce, where to work, where to live, and when to drop everything and relocate to avoid detection. She told them they would be punished for eternity if they dared disobey her. Her “children” never questioned this, since being starved, beaten and bullied with the promise of eternal life was all they had ever known. Many adult and even teenage members of the sect were drugged with LSD in a psychiatric hospital in Kew until they too believed that Anne was the Messiah. One of the few people who dared to defy her was told that when he went home that night he would die of a heart attack, and, unsurprisingly, he was so terrified that he did exactly that.

Jones’ direction paints Anne as a demonic figure shrouded in myth and mystery, largely because this is what she was to Detective Lex de Man, the officer who spent the better part of his life tracking her down and trying his hardest to get her convicted. He would have had to sift through mountains of distraught testimonies, filled with wild stories and exaggerated claims, to get to any defensible truth about who she was and what she was doing to these people. Jones’ film contains countless pieces of wordless home footage showing her smug, pretentious smile, something the detective would have also seen repeatedly as he was working to take her down.

I’m not sure what I find harder to believe, that she was never brought to justice or that she is still alive now, even as this film is being released: a 93-year-old living with dementia in a Melbournian nursing home. Naturally, the suburb it’s in is never mentioned, most likely for her own safety. Jones and Grieve’s interviews with the surviving members of the sect answer most of the many questions that immediately spring up, and I’m sure those that the film doesn’t get to are addressed in the book Jones co-wrote with Chris Johnston. The residents of Eilden did hear screams and cries for help coming from the property, and eventually someone did call the police. They came in to question the children, but with Anne present the entire time. They asked the children if they were being fed properly, to which they replied “‘yes” simply because they were still alive and didn’t know any better. The Family was even visited by the Department of Education, during which time Anne and her husband, Bill, had dressed everything up to look like a legitimate school, with desks, chairs, and a blackboard full of impressive looking equations, which was all enough to fool them apparently.

For years, none of the current or even past members of The Family were willing to speak out against Anne. Some were convinced that she really did love them, and that she deserved their love in return, but most of them were afraid of what she could do to them, spiritually or physically. This twisted obsession is something that Jones conveys very strongly, perhaps even too strongly, throughout the film’s 98-minute duration. The home footage of Anne, simulations of LSD hallucinations and aerial shots of the forest surrounding the property are all underscored with psychedelic compositions by Amanda Brown. While sometimes they feel justified, they aren’t always needed. By all accounts, Anne Hamilton-Byrne, a woman of humble origins, loved to be the centre of attention, and by building her up in this way as someone larger than life, the film might ironically be giving her what she wanted, even as it is exposing her for what she truly was.

However, there are still scenes here that recognise the most disturbing part of this story. What’s even more chilling than the things Anne was able to do is the fact that she was able to do them, the fact that Australia’s legal system, education system and medical system all allowed this cult to thrive for as long as it did.

The Family is at its best when it’s not spending too much of its precious running time on Anne and remembers what’s more important to show here: the life-long trauma of the victims and the broken systems that let them all down.

Written by Christian Tsoutsouvas

Click here to listen to Christian's review with director Rosie Jones

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Theatre review, An intimate look into the human cost of China’s decades long one child policy. Playing at the Malthouse A’beckett Theatre, Melbourne.

A tale of two cities one family, and the reflective story of a billion, Director Wang Chong navigates the immense human consequence of the One child Policy, with an ambitious production, that overthrows many old stage techniques in favour of relevance to the 21st Century.

The story in which our characters navigate is one that is highly symbolic, frequently changing between English and Mandarin and contorting time and space to convey states of mind and connection between the characters. For instance Kevin speaks to his mother Diane via the phone her face projected onto the backdrop, but she speaks to him directly through the tapestry which backdrops the set, to punctuate a particular point and thus breaks the illusion of distance, as though it were always an illusion. There is a rhythm and timing to this play that is wonderfully executed.

The play begins with Kevin our protagonist recalling his early childhood. An illicit second child, he his sent into hiding, to boarding school and ultimately to Melbourne to study economics, or so his family thinks.  He is actually attempting to direct a play, about China’s one child policy. A point that certainly draws parallels with this play's actual director  His, sister Alice, and mother, Diana, still reside in Beijing, expecting Kevin to visit them soon. Their hopes are squashed however when he refuses out of fear for their expectations and in fear of what they represent, exile, distance and rejection. Alice, his sister, is older than him at 31 and is constantly under pressure from society and particularly Diana, their mother, to find a husband.  Lachlan Phillpot is careful to not simply write her off as the nagging mother, however, her pushing and chastising comes from a deep worry and concern that her children will be terribly unprepared for their lives, her diagnosed cancer underpins every word she says, with a hidden urgency.

The conservative Chinese values and gender expectations of Mao’s China instilled in Diana has been diluted with an increasingly globalised world and 21st century values and technologies. The values of Diane’s China are frequently at odds with Wang Chong’s use of technology. Live cameras are used for the characters to communicate over vast distances, their image projected onto the back drop as though through video call, though this trope begins to deteriorate as the play progresses.  It comes to follow the characters on stage and follows their faces, providing multiple different perspectives on stage at once, showing literally many sides to each character.

Lachlan Philpot has done a brilliant job of magnifying the human element so easily lost in stories of far-reaching politics. Without necessarily providing us with answers he asks us to recognize the humanity of these characters, and the many more that they represent.

The play masterfully uses lighting to convey frames of mind and delineate when Kevin is directing his play, or experiencing some deep troublesome thought. Emma Valente in this instance has done particularly admirable work. The set is entirely within a pool of water, ankle deep, the rear of which is separated by high hanging tapestries of letters, ads written by family members for their offspring, particularly young woman not yet married, desperate to secure them success in life via marriage. Characters frequently traverse behind and through this tapestry however as though crossing the veil between the two cities of Melbourne and Beijing, and from the most immediate thoughts of the characters on stage.  

There’s a beautiful story in the play that Alice shares with Diana, of the lakes just outside Melbourne where tea leaves fall into the water and turn them brown. Rather than an ugly sight, people flock to them, because the water is healing. And as the tea leaves fall down into the water, toward the play's end you get the sense of what this story is all about. Remembering, acknowledging the stories of the past, the individuals, the forgotten children,  the play doesn’t suggest a solution, though it guides us towards a more thoughtful approach and aspires to be the clarion call for healing.

Wang Chong’s Play Little Emperors, is an important play, a must see. It burns slow but crackles into a powerful ending. Three, out of five stars.

Written by Matthew Toohey

Image by Tim Grey

Click here for our interview with cast member Alice Qin

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