Australia

“A mysterious doctor travels through a surreal landscape of paranoia and despair in director Thomas Nöla’s of his own novel. Haunted by his seemingly dead former patient Miss Marilla Huxley (Lindsay Todd) and mournful over the death of his deceased wife (Melissey Castevet), the doctor is locked in a constant state of fear as a result of the pierrots and constables who hold an iron grip on his homeland. As madness begins to take hold, the frightened doctor will attempt to break the invisible chains that bind him and look inward to discover the secrets of death and nature.”Read More »

“What is Pearls Before Swine? Is it a controversial and iconoclastic look at the rise of a new form of fascism? The new film from Aussie director Richard Wolstencroft of Bloodlust fame? A rip-snorting ode to violence and sex in the tradition of A Clockwork Orange? The first feature film starring musician and philosopher Boyd Rice from NON? A radical change for the better in the recent lacklustre Australian film industry? A kick ass philosophical thriller about an assassin who is hired to kill an author of subversive literature? The answer is all of the above. And more.”Read More »

PLOT: At 17:00 every day, Andrew, a middle-aged man, drives home from work through Melbourne’s outer suburbs in peak-hour traffic. Occasionally, he offers a lift home to a younger colleague, David. Over a year, their tentative small talk gives way to a warm friendship and open conversation within the confines of the vehicle, incrementally revealing their lives.Read More »

At the turn of the twentieth century, three Australian army lieutenants are court-martialed for alleged war crimes committed while fighting in South Africa. With no time to prepare, an Australian major, appointed as defense attorney, must prove that they were just following orders and are being made into political pawns by the British imperial command. Director Bruce Beresford garnered international acclaim for this riveting drama set during a dark period in his country’s colonial history, and featuring passionate performances by Edward Woodward, Bryan Brown, and Jack Thompson; rugged cinematography by Donald McAlpine; and an Oscar-nominated script, based on true events.Read More »

One of the great unseen political epics of Australian TV, True Believers was an account of the Labor Party in the decade after World War 2, focusing on the towering political personalities of the day, Ben Chifley and H V Evatt, and their nemesis Robert Menzies. Starring Ed Devereaux and a host of other iconic Australian actors, the series was written by the great Bob Ellis and marks a high point in political television drama.Read More »

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Desire as persistent and intense as the sunshine on a bright summer day is what teases out madness in Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock. The objects, or goals, of these desires are disparate, though they all spiral out following the 1900 disappearance of three young women and a teacher from the Appleyard School during a trip to the small titular ridge on St. Valentine’s Day. The vanishing of these women is central to the plot, but Weir’s film is never as fascinated with the reasons for this absence as it is with the characters left in its inexplicable wake. Cliff Green’s script, adapted from Joan Lindsay’s novel of the same name, never goes about teasing what could have happened to these women at Hanging Rock, instead focusing on the wild cupidity that erupts in the surrounding community in reaction to the mystery.Read More »

If you agonized through “Amadeus”, cringing at the depiction of a giggling buffoon and his featherbrained Constanze, shuddering at the underlying premise that God gave the gift to the wrong man for reasons we just can’t understand, then this film may provide you with a pleasant antidote. Filmed in 1955, probably in anticipation of the bicentenary of his birth, it gives a totally different view of the composer, and recreates the last year of his life on a more intimate anti-blockbuster scale. But though it is an engaging effort with many fine points, it doesn’t succeed in redeeming Mozart from the fictions of Milos Forman’s travesty, because it is itself a fictionalization that distorts in its own way the character of the composer.Read More »

A blood-stained cleaver, the hurried departure of a farm worker. A town with a lust for revenge…

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This Australian fox-and-hounds melodrama concerns an intensive manhunt for a suspected murderer. Polish immigrant Mark Gaweda is accused of killing a rancher’s wife. Heading the posse is police officer Wyn Roberts, who hopes that by catching Gaweda he’ll be able to live down an earlier tragedy caused by his negligence. John Waters, one of Roberts’ men, begins to believe in Gaweda’s innocence, and ends up defending the fugitive against his accusers.Read More »

‘Emma’s War’ is the turbulent tale of a young girl’s coming of age in Sydney during WW2.

From OzMovies.com:
Emma’s War is a 1987 Australian drama film starring Miranda Otto and Lee Remick. Clytie Jessop made her debut directing, producing and writing this film. It was completed in 1986, and released there in 1987-88. This was the last feature film for Lee Remick and David Cahill.Read More »