Art Smitten: Reviews - 2017

The Dancer (or La danseuse) is the feature debut of French director Stéphanie Di Giusto starring Soko as the revolutionary dance pioneer Loie Fuller.

To start with, this film is beautiful. In the locations, in the cinematography, in the dance - the film itself captures and mirrors the longing of the protagonist Loie Fuller for the beauty she is searching for in dance. The film opens in the American Rocky’s where she is living in the wilds with her mad french father who encourages her love of art and her seemingly odd desire to become an actress. There are some charming scenes of a wild maned Soko soliloquising into the air or at taxidermy, perhaps as a set up as the humble roots of greatness but to my view represented a sheer singleness of mind on focused on stardom.

Men are quite appalling throughout the film and it is shot in such a way that Loie is suggested to only find ease and success in the companionship of women. There are some amazing scenes of her and her troupe of dancers frolicking through the grounds of her patron Louis’s house, suggesting true joy and abandon of the type that I imagine Stevie Nicks to have in her well protected female world.

When it comes down to it though, the film is a sports film in genre and construction. There are attempts to hide this under the veneer of beauty it presents the story through but its adherence to sports film tropes give it away. Loie is an american/french underdog, poor and practically orphaned. She gets a selection of coaches - well the support of her infatuated if ether addicted patron Louis and the Folies Bergère manager Marchand and his working partner Gabrielle. Loie is a proud and determined upstart and though she achieves success, it is not without struggling with her own physical and mental limits.

Then enter the antagonist - a young Isadora Duncan, played here by Lily Rose Depp in a charming performance that perfectly vilifies her. Loie falls in love with the young dancer but feeling threatened by her plays games with her. The film does not cast Loie as an overbearing infatuated employer, jealous of her protege, but on quick reflection that does seem to be the case. However, it is really nice to see a film that portrays a female sexuality repulsed by but sometimes accepting of men and alternately infatuated with women - and doesn’t draw that much attention to it or even question it.

The dances themselves - they are breathtaking. Loie’s performances of her famed serpentine dances at the Belle Epoch Cabarets and eventually the Paris Opera are paired with Beethoven in the film which, while evoking associations with Chef’s Table (and her outfit does look like a beautiful billowing table cloth which doesn’t help), gives real power to the performances that highlight the intensity of them for Loie and the audience. Soko gives a spellbinding performance and with such intensity one cannot take their eyes off of her.

This film as a biopic is startlingly inaccurate and perhaps bares only the faintest right to the claim that it is “based on a true story.” However as a film, it is about a dancer’s search for beauty in the perfection of their vision, and this is does quite well.

The Dancer is being screened around the country as part of the 2017 Alliance Franchise Film Festival. It is being screened in Melbourne across Palace Cinema’s locations between the 8th and 30th of March.

Written by Gill Langford

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Sandra Thibodeaux’s The Age of Bones is an ambitious, playfully political Indonesian-Australian coproduction now being hosted by La Mama in Carlton.  For a play that extols (and some might say preaches) the virtues of working together across national and natural borders, it’s very pleasing to see how the production itself has exemplified this cultural harmony at every stage of its development. It also comes to Melbourne as part of the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts festival, which, for some of the younger audiences of La Mama, might be delivering them their first taste of surtitled theatre, except for maybe opera.

This will certainly be a very gentle introduction for them. About half of Thibodeaux’s dialogue is performed in Indonesian, while the other half is performed, unsurprisingly, in English. It also makes magnificent use of puppetry and projections as a backdrop to this story of a 15-year-old boy, Ikan (Imam Setia Hagi) who is lost at sea. Lost because that is the last place that his mother, Ibu (Imas Sobariah) and his father, Bapak (Budi Laksana) knew that he was going. Ibu doesn’t know if he is lying dead at the bottom of the ocean, or in the belly of a whale, like Jonah. Fortunately, he’s very much alive, and hasn’t been swallowed by a literal whale, although a “metaphorical whale” is a different story. Like so many Indonesian boys of his age, Ikan went to work on a fishing boat carrying refugees headed for Australia. In his community there is simply no other way to feed his family, although they hardly knew he would be risking incarceration.

Ikan’s story is told as a fantastical, deep-sea satire, with the whale apparently representing an oppressive bureaucratic system, while a host of other underwater characters have much clearer allegorical allusions. Even though a lot of the conflict takes place in the depths in the ocean, the political symbolism is very much on the surface, intentionally and endearingly obvious. It is narrated, in English, by two of its most comedic characters, the Old Man (Deri Efwanto) and his young friend, Dalang the puppeteer (Mohammad Gandi Maulana). Dalang delights in spicing up the story with dramatic Indonesian shadow puppetry (walang), which Maulana is certainly very skilled at. Meanwhile, the Old Man, who does most of the talking, is a very charming anchor to this wild tale, even if some audience members might struggle to understand his accent.

The pair of them watch and commentate as Ikan is picked up by a pair of “divers,” who are about as helpful (or unhelpful rather) as the ones in Finding Nemo. They imprison him at the bottom of the ocean for two long years. He shares a cell with a hammerhead shark (Kadek Hobman) a hilarious Aussie bloke stereotype, who has great comic chemistry with Ikan. A much less effective stereotype is the white saviour, Ikan’s lawyer (Ella Watson-Russell) who succeeds in getting him released, but not without sounding incredibly self-righteous. Given she appears as a white pointer shark, directors Alex Galeazzi and Iswadi Pratama were probably aware of the cliché, but don’t really do anything subversive or entertaining with her.

The Age of Bones’ beautiful sailing ship set design by Dann Barber, dazzling oceanic projections and impressive puppetry are so entrancing that whenever the dialogue and performances are less than spectacular, it’s very easy to get distracted from the actual plot. Fortunately though, this is a genuinely moving story, told in a way that, despite its faults, still pointedly reveals just a few of the many things we need to reconsider about how we do things in Australia.

Written by Christian Tsoutsouvas

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The Homosexuals, Or Faggots, is a new stage production at the Malthouse written by local theatre maker Declan Green, of Sisters Grimm, and directed by Griffin Theatre Companies artistic director Lee Lewis.

I’ve been a fan of everything I’ve seen of Declan Greens works, and The Homosexuals, Or Faggots is no exception.

It is a contemporary farce, set in a luxury apartment in Sydney owned by a married gay couple Warren and Kim,  played by Simon Burke and Simon Corfield, Kim and Warren are both white cis gay man, Warren is a journalist and Kim is a university lecturer on gender. The events of the play take place over one night, during mardigra, Warren is setting up to do a photo shoot with a young male model Lucacz, played by Lincoln Younes when Kim unexceptedly arrives home from a conference after being ‘cyber bullied’ by a student Bae Bae played by Mama Alto, Bae Bae, publicly critisized Kim for using the term ‘biological gender’ during one of his lectures. Warrens friend Diana arrives, played by Genevive Lemon, a older trans woman, and is keen to get to a party with Warren. Warren then is informed that he will be interviewing Bae Bae, and it all goes a bit wild from there. Pam, a young woman who Kim and Warren have a past with is also chucked into the mix, who is also played by Mama Alto.

The performers work together beautifully as an ensemble, but Mama Alto, for me, was the stand out performer. Her unique performance style was extremely refreshing to see on a mainstream stage.  If you see this show just for Mama, it would be worth it!

The Homosexuals is pretty full on, and at times I felt like it was too much for me, I actually had ‘nightmares’ that night about myself somehow being homophobic and transphobic and being ostracized by my friends, which is funny because I identify as queer and trans. I wonder what reaction cis, hetrosexual people had to this piece, I’d be interested to know because it really stuck with me. On a subconscious level at least, it evoked feelings of fear of being politically incorrect and hurting people.

I find the show quite difficult to explain and talk about maybe because of its complexity or maybe because I’m scared of saying the wrong thing, or maybe both or another reason completely different, but it was a hell of a journey, which left me feeling exhausted, intellectually stimulated and generally satisfied with what happened, even though I’m not quite sure what happened internally for me, it was a clever story and very engaging. I was definitely invested in what was going to happen.

This is a fast paced, intense, riot of a show, and it on at The Malthouse Theatre in Southbank until March 12th.

Written by Finley Fletcher

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Smithers reviews actor turned writer Camilla Blunden's solo show All This Living.

Click here to listen to our interview with Camilla.

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Aquarius is a three-part feature film depicting the life and struggles of its central character Clara, an ageing music critic played by Brazilian actress and former Golden Globe nominee Sonia Braga.

The film opens in 1980, where Clara lives with her family in Aquarius, an elegant nineteen forties apartment on the beachfront of Recife, a seaside town on Brazil’s east coast.

During a family celebration, it is revealed Clara is a breast cancer survivor.

Flash forward thirty-six years, Clara is a 65-year-old widow, addressed as Dona Clara, who faces disaster when developers threaten to tear down the old building and replace the Aquarius with a modern luxury condo.  

As the last remaining tenant, Clara is faced with increasingly sizeable offers from the company headed by Diego, a young ambitious business graduate.

Attached to the apartment’s sentiment and memories, Clara refuses to leave despite obvious pressure from her three children, who are keen to bolster their wealthy late father’s inheritance.

So begins an epic battle against the developers to retain her apartment block, where Clara faces a series of harassment, intimidation and abuse from Diego’s company in a bid to force her out.

Director Kleber Mendonca Filho spends much time delving into detail, often with intimate close-ups portraying Clara’s everyday life and the close relationships she develops with her family and long-time housekeeper.

Clara’s deep passion for music and eclectic taste ranging from samba to Queen is often depicted through her dancing alone in the apartment to various vinyl records.

The film’s opening sequence reveals Clara models her life on Aunty Lucia, the adored 70-year-old aunt with a girlish appearance and long hair.

As the film progresses, the women’s passion for life and their legacy appears to be passed on to Julia, the young girlfriend of Clara’s nephew.

Aquarius also highlights the deeply entrenched societal divisions in Brazil through its portrayal of racial tension, class conflict and family.

In a scene where Clara and her housekeeper confront Diego, the young businessman bluntly states it would have been hard for Clara and her family to achieve success due to her dark skin.

Audiences are shown multiple facets to Clara’s character, where her formidable manner and appearance is matched by an equally vulnerable side and pain from her past.

The nightmare scene where a maid-thief recurs in Clara’s dreams is a revenge of sorts, as Clara is shown to have a lifelong habit of deriding servants and speaking as if they were invisible.  

It can be argued Aquarius is a metaphor for Brazil and the country’s contemporary political tensions.

The film’s debut in the Cannes competition last year was accompanied by cast members protesting Brazil is no longer a democracy.

Aquarius ends in a rather abrupt and unexpected manner, but nonetheless paints a superb portrait of a woman who defies the boundaries of age and time.

Written by Caroline Tung

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The Love Witch is a 2016 release written and directed by Anna Biller. It follows the story of a young beautiful witch Elaine, played by Samantha Robinson, who uses spells and potions to make men fall in love with her and ultimately kill them. The movie itself is shot on 35 mm film and is visually a homage to technicolour 1960s and 70s sexploitation cinema. The use of this film gives the movie a soft visual quality and sort of decentralises it in time - this is emphasised by the 70s costuming but with modern cars and mobile phone technology. 

The film opens on Elaine driving away from San Francisco with her narrating how she had to leave after the overdose and death of her first husband. This scene uses rear projection photography to film her driving from the bonnet of the car - much like in Hitchcock’s The Birds. This allusion to a period thriller and the blood red of her car, outfit and lipstick suggest that there in something sinister afoot. She is then pulled over by a police man - raising the tension of the opening yet again - but he only informs her that her tail light is out thus returning the scene to a state of calm but with a sense of foreboding none the less. This is just the first example of director Biller playing with the audiences expectations to create the suspense that permeates this thriller. 

Elaine has left San Francisco to stay at her friend Barbara’s apartment, who is also a witch, and is met there by Trish the real estate agent and they go out to tea together. Both the apartment and the tea parlour are absolutely beautiful sets. The apartment is painted in bright blues and purples, the walls are covered in paintings of witches in rituals or tarot inspired scenes. The tea house interior is pink - pink walls, chairs, tables - and all of the customers including our protagonist and her friend are costumed in pink and lace. Both of these sets are deeply feminine and visually represent the female world in which men are only visitors or are absent all together. It is here that Elaine tells Trish that she knows what men truely want and is willing to do anything if she can find a man who loves and worships her. She seems obsessed most of all, not with men, but with love - the idea of being in love and being loved. 

She soon meets her first victim - A university literature professor and self confessed womaniser Wayne - she doses him with her love potion and seduces him causing him to fall deeply in love with her. However, the effects of the potion escalate out of control and it seems the concoction was poisonous and he suffers a heart attack and dies. In the scenes in which Wayne has been dosed the cinematography employs kaleidoscopic effects on the lights and on Elaine which aside from being beautiful are also a throwback to the 70s that really add to the charm and the feel of the film.

Wayne is the first of her 3 victims and they only get grislier as she goes along - the finale involving police questioning, horseback riding and a staged wedding at a renaissance fair. 

Samantha Robinson does a fantastic job as Elaine in an acting style that is somewhat out of date and out of favour in modern films. Sure Elaine is villainous, but also in this ultimate battle of the sexes you cannot help but be on her side. She is the perfect performance of femininity and she punishes and destroys those men that privilege her for it. Witch craft in this film is a symbol of feminine power synonymous with sexuality - perhaps as a metaphor for sexual liberation in which women desire sex and to be loved but do not necessarily care about the men themselves. This is a surprisingly enjoyable feminist twist on the sexploitation and camp horror genres and enjoyable by anyone with a sense of cinematic nostalgia. 

The Love Witch is being shown at the Lido Cinemas in Hawthorn from the 16th of February until the 1st of March.

Written by Gill Langford

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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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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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