Can a film be judged a success if you need to read a booklet afterwards to really appreciate what you saw on screen? Maybe it didn't matter for those who had read Tim Winton's original collection of short stories, but I hadn't, so I found most of the (long) running time heavy going. Seventeen different stories, many with the same themes and incidents: two amputated fingers, two marks on the face, lots and lots of young boys gazing adoringly at women they don't have the courage to approach, several alcoholics, a law student and a lawyer, some wife beaters, lots of boring life in small town WA where you'd better fish or surf or you'll wind up a boozer.
Then, reading the booklet, I discovered that the repetition was deliberate and there were several times were different actors were meant to be playing the same character. Looking back there were hints at this but I would have enjoyed the movie a hell of a lot more knowing it going in.
But at the time I didn't, and I found this agonisingly slow - the segments kept coming over the mountain, like watching one AFTRS short after another, with similar AFTRS virtues (stunning photography, excellent locations and set design, the occasional famous person) and faults (lack of narrative). Very few stories had a beginning middle and end, which I think may have been the point but I think if you go in to watch it you should beware of that. Has there ever been a feature film with seventeen segments? Seventeen? And where the segments kept hitting the same beat?
The ones I thought were good: the opening animation, Rose Byrne finding religion, and Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh have a day out with Robyn Nevin, and the one where the little kid kept tuning out and living in his own world; Warwick Thornton and Justin Kurzel's were at least stylistically different. Some were amateurish, such as Susie Porter and the missing earrings (it felt like a scene from a soap), others felt undercooked like the cop and journo looking for the missing hiker, and others pointless, such as Hugo Weaving as the drifter.
This does get points for at least trying something different, it looks marvellous and there are some terrific actors; hopefully it will launch some new film careers. But I found it a hard, hard slog to get through.
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