Assignment: Folio
With a focus on Australian film, I had to write extended responses to the following prompts:
One piece written as a response to one of the films screened with reference to the accompanying lecture.
One piece written as a response to one of the weekly readings, identifying the writer’s central claims and supporting arguments, and an assessment of the writer’s application to examples of screen media.
One piece that uses one of the weekly readings as a way of providing an analysis of a film of your own choice.
Grade: 73/100 - Distinction
One piece written as a response to one of the films screened with reference to the accompanying lecture.
The curious question that stemmed from the screening of Balibo was can an Australian film be Australian if not set in Australia?
Balibo was an innovative film in that it resembles a folding box of timelines in regards to Juliana telling her story and following the journalists in both past and present. It resembles the historic screening of the Vietnam war in that camera footage was grainy – it felt like 1970s film – and in saying that, great care was taken to replicate the original footage. It takes no shame in showing deaths in graphic detail, nor emphasising how emotions run wild and how tense atmospheres are during times of war.
In Australia’s history, Britain oppressed us – in the story of Balibo, are we not the oppressors? The fact that East Timor has reached out to the Australian government for help and received no answer echoes the British mentality during war. An important distinction here is that it was the Australian government who did not help, not the Australian people.
Is this an Australian film even though it’s not set in Australia, or is our national cinema more than our landscape? The archetype of Australia mainly lies within our people, and that is all we see in the film. The larrikin journalists fighting a good fight to discover the truth; another journalist, older and wiser than the first bunch, filled with courage and resilience, willing to head into dangerous territory for his fellow people. These concepts of mateship, resilience, courage, and the old larrikin story epitomise what it means to be an Australian, even without the landscape surroundings.
Whilst watching this film, however, the landscape may be vastly different to look at, but it’s still just as dangerous as in Australia. It had the capacity for danger and terror, not just from the Indonesian’s but also from the wilderness itself. It was untouched by human hands, it could be brutal if one stepped in the wrong direction, and at the end of it, were the journalists not transformed after venturing into its thick domain? I saw many parallels between Australia’s landscape and Timor’s throughout the movie.
One of the more interesting aspects of Balibo was the finishing quote of “I’m Australian”. What does this mean to international citizens? It was shouted by the journalists in the film as though it was going to grant them immunity, make them safe from death. It could easily be interpreted as a glorified death, pertaining to a courageous death by captors. As the journalists died on their knees or running away, it could have been a saving grace of sorts, of dying with a sense of pride. Perhaps it meant that they didn’t want to die on international soil, rather on the heartland. It is all up for interpretation.
Balibo is based on a true story and yet it is not a widely known one. Certainly there are aspects that Australia should be ashamed of, but why has it not been turned into a national myth like Gallipoli or Ned Kelly? Would Balibo turn to legend and thus into a national myth of Australian people being good, truth seeking people? Or will it be forgotten, as the truth of Balibo is that Australia let them down, and that contradicts how the imagined community perceives Australia?
One piece written as a response to one of the weekly readings, identifying the writer’s central claims and supporting arguments, and an assessment of the writer’s application to examples of screen media.
Week 1 Reading: Higson, Andrew (1989) "The Concept of National Cinema", Screen 30:4, p36-46.
Higson argues that the term ‘national cinema’, whilst correctly used to describe films produced in a particular nation state, can be used in other ways, and is in fact not the most appropriate way of using the term. This statement alone opens up the very broad question, what is national cinema, especially to Australians? The concept of national cinema is used prescriptively rather than descriptively, according to Higson, and this makes me curious: does the phrase ‘national cinema’ come with a set of expectations, or is it an adjective, poorly used, because the definition of national cinema is so vague?
Higson believes that “the parameters of a national cinema should be drawn at the site of consumption as much as at the site of production of films…” This highlights the important factor of national cinema – the audience. Who is watching the film? This is a pretty straightforward concept, however when put into practice it is much more complicated than that. If a film is set in Australia and has Australian actors but is produced by Americans, is it an Australian film? If the lead is a Brit but set in Australia and seen by Australians, is it an Australian film? There are so many variables of national cinema that this statement is a little too strained.
Thankfully, Higson moves away from this simplistic viewpoint and delves into national cinema through economic, text-based, exhibition-led and criticism-led approaches. Simply put, an economic viewpoint is concerned with the money: who has it, who’s using it, who’s pushing for the film to be made. The text-based approach considers the culture of the film; the plot, the world view, the characterisation – how they present a sense of nationhood. Exhibition-led, or consumption-based, is focused on which films audiences are watching, and particularly, the number of foreign films. Lastly, the criticism-led approach tends to reduce national cinema to the terms of quality art cinema, a “culturally worthy” cinema, that appeals to the “high-cultural and/or modernist heritage of that country”, rather than one which appeals to the desires and fantasies of the popular audiences.
Personally I find that dividing a concept so complex into categories is a little pretentious. The idea of film being digested into such small compartments is insulting. After all, a nation state itself cannot be so defined in history. Although, that may be the point: Higson says further in his article that the “process of identification is thus invariably a hegemonising, mythologising process”. I therefore only add that for the most part, national cinema is often egotistical; each country wants to put out a front that is much better than the truth. Australia hasn’t ever been like that.
Australia as a state finds self-confidence and success and a typical hero somewhat repulsive in our films. We are, generally, more invested in the unexceptional, the ordinary, the ugly. We are enraptured by the underdog and amused by the bogans and thrilled by the larrikins. Is that, therefore, a reflection of who Australia is? Or who we want to be? Is it supposed to appeal to the international community – because if this is the case, it’s not really ‘national’ cinema, is it?
Higson finishes with the quote, “For what is a national cinema if it doesn’t have an audience?” I would counter it with thus: What is national cinema if the nation doesn’t relate?
One piece that uses one of the weekly readings as a way of providing an analysis of a film of your own choice.
Week 6 Reading: O’Regan, Tom (1989). “Cinema Oz: The Ocker Films”. The Australian Screen. O’Regan, Tom and Albert Moran (Eds). Penguin: Australia. p.75-98.
Love Serenade, screened in the week of ocker comedies, perhaps missed the mark in its genre. Ocker? Certainly. It is vulgar, it is embarrassing, it has a focus on sexual themes, and the characters are flawed and far from well-rounded. Comedy? Perhaps not as much.
The idea that Love Serenade is an Australian comedy feels like too much of a stretch. It is, visually, an Australian film. It clearly demonstrates the vast Australian outback and a small country town; of the desolate, boring life that rural Aussie’s deal with (and as someone who grew up on the Murray River, the imagery of Sunray really resonated with me). However, what else other than the landscape was Australian? The actresses, the director, the production, sure. But this still doesn’t feel enough to earn the title ‘Australian’.
Typically, Australian films are enriched with traits that are shown in men on-screen: easy-going, kind, a strong sense of friendship and loyalty, and always up for a bit of fun. Despite the leads of Love Serenade being female, why did they not have the same dynamic? The animosity between the sisters and the lack of distinct dialogue really let the film down. Ocker films are the supposed to contain “linguistic coarseness”, not snappy retorts.
Perhaps it was the British aspects of humour that made it feel less Aussie. Vicki-Ann’s mere “Well there goes that” at the death of her dream man is severely dry humour, and very deadpan – all trademarks of British comedy. Dimity’s smile in the background is what makes the scene work, as it is awkward and out of place and a little bit crazy. That uniqueness is Australian.
The unbelievably awkward sex scene between Dimity and Ken Sherry was arguably the best moment of the film. Not only did it feel completely and ridiculously unbelievable, but it also set it firmly in the definition of ‘ocker’ film. The ocker films were produced in “a 'sexed' cinema in which sexuality: its hydraulics, its surfaces, its positions, were opened up for exploration and narrative motivation”. The director’s decision to explore the intimacy between a 45-year-old man and a 20-year-old virgin was arguably creative genius. It was similar to watching a train wreck and being unable to look away - mesmerising. But the twist of Ken being a fish was unexpected. It felt like a random idea that was thrown in at the end, the plot not really thought out. Australian comedy is usually much wittier than that.
Ocker films were in its prime in the 1970s, and Love Serenade was released in 1996. Perhaps the generational gap is what makes today’s audiences not fully appreciate what was a popular and a wacky alternative. The lack of “good role models, traditional heroes, nor a warm sense of national pride” was a crucial aspect in my reception of the film. Nowadays with films reaching an international audience constantly and national cinema taking the back seat, the fact that “ocker films were made for Australian audiences” is an outdated goal and therefore, for contemporary audiences, seems out of touch.
Perhaps Love Serenade feels like a failed ocker comedy simply because I don’t want to think that it resembles Australia. In which case, Love Serenade is the perfect ocker film. But as a comedy, I feel like it didn’t meet that mark. Love Serenade felt more like an ocker drama.