Movie review - "Innocence" (2000) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 Many of Paul Cox's films were up his own backside but he had a very endearing affection for older people as demonstrated in A Woman's Tale and this which is about two former loves who find love later in life. Charles Tingwell and Julia Blake get a lead role in a feature which must have tickeled them pink.

The kids are played by Marta Dussledrop (his) and Robert Menzies (hers). The show is stolen by Terry Norris who plays Blake's cuckolded husband. Cox had a soft spot for cuckolds - they pop up in My First Wife and Golden Braid. 

I love the nding where it builds to Tingwell dying of cancer... and then Blake dies. That was very smart.

This gave Cox a late period hit and helped him going for another decade or so. A quite lovely movie.

There's 8mm flashbacks of course and appearances from Chris Haywood and Norman Kaye. And smoe nudity from the Julia Blake film in flashback.

Movie review - "Molokai The Story of Father Damien" (1999) **

 I don't know why the hell the Belgian producers thought they'd have an easy time with Paul Cox, the man was always his own box and had a long tradition of whingeing. I'm sure the producers were annoying too.

David Wenham tries his best but the sing song accent gets on the nerves. Location filming in Moloka helps marvellously. The stuff with the lepers is very effective and it's clear that this probably should've been done a lot cheaper just with Wenham and lepers.

Various names in the cast - Kate Cebrano (very charismatic), Peter O'Toole, Leo McKern. Aden Young plays a doctor probably wishing he had the lead. There's a scene where a doe eyed native girl is hot for Cox that feels old school Oz movie Cox. 

I found it boring. None of the reationships Damien had were interesting. I kept waiting for the subplot of the leprosy local who inspired him. I guess there was Peter O'Toole and Chris Haywood.

But it doesn't touch. At least not me. Catholics might like it. They love Damien because he was such an admirable figure.

But personally I couldn't wait until this film was over. It's two hours.

Movie review - "Cactus" (1986) **

 Paul Cox's run of art house successes enabled him to get $1.5 million and an imported star (Isabelle Huppert) for this but response wasn't that strong. It's not one of his better films although there's plenty of good things - it looks gorgeous, has a pleasant mood, Robert Menzies makes an impressive star debut.

I agree with co writer Bob Ellis that the basic set up is silly - Huppert is visiting friend Norman Kaye when she has her accident and sticks around in Australia to get better. If she was having lots of operations or had a job out in Australia, signed a contract or something , I'd get it, but she doesn't seem to work.. It's the sort of irritating, easy to fix script problem that marked many Cox movies.

Huppert has star factor but she's a debit to the movie, I feel - she doesn't seem engaged, whether it's being friends with Normal Kaye (why are they friends?), or going blind, or falling for Robert Menzies. I kept thinking "Wendy Hughes would've been better in this". I understand the useful ness of having an imported star, I just wish they'd gotten one whose presence made more sense and who was more connected to the story. French movie stars don't have a great track record in Australian films.

Other Cox movies have intriguing subplots that are typically under exploited. Not this one. Norman Kaye and his wide are dully. There's an extended scene where they watch some old ducks including Maurie Fields sing songs. I did like the satire of the community meeting. That felt very real and funny. 

I liked the scene where Menzies revealed Huppert was his first girlfriend. That was touching. Really the film should've been about him - a blind man falling in love for the first time. That has stakes. Huppert doesn't seem to care. She's required to go nude of course just a little.

 

Movie review - "A Woman's Tale" (1991) **** (warning: spoilers)

 Paul Cox in selfless mode, a tribute to Sheila Florance. This is a litte mean but I could take or leave her acting but it's just so wonderful she's got this starring vehicle and she was dying and is making a film about a woman dying. I can't resist that showmanship!

There's a lot of love - for Florance, for the old, for life, Gosia Dobrowolska as a kind nurse who is using Florance's flat to root her married lover (this plot feels as though it's undercooked - Cox routinely under-services his subplots), Chris Haywood as her daggy but loving son, Norma Kaye as a dementia riddled neighbour (Kaye later had dementia), the shifty landlord. 

Occasionally it lacks focus but it holds because of the reality and the ending where the nurse kills Florance in her bed which is so logical and true.

Movie review - "Golden Braid" (1991) **

 David Stratton loved this movie, possibly in part because Gosia Dobrowolska takes her kit off and hooks up a lot with Chris Haywood. He runs an antiques store, gets a lot of sex according to him, has a deadbeat brother (Robert Menzies) and is having an affair with married Salvo, Dobrowolska. He finds some old golden hair and gets turned on by it.

Dobrowolska is married to Paul Chubb who is so amiable and lonely I didn't really like her for cheating - marriages don't work out, fine, but she's dragging the poor dude along.

Like many Cox films he has characters whisper thoughts on the soundtrack - the recording of Dobrowolska doing it was really irritating the volume was too high or something. He once more has fascinating support characters (Menzies, Jo Kennedy, Chubb) who could have used more screen time instead of the leads. He's also got all these women serving the needs of the male lead.

I just didn't care about the leads.

Looks gorgeous, like the ambition, can't fault the actors. Just disliked it.

Movie review - "Force of Destiny" (2015) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 Paul Cox's last feature. It starts off powerfully with sculptor David Wenham discovering he's got terminal cancer. This all feels real like you'd expect it would from a director who went through the same thing - a series of casual appointments, doctors being reassuring and not making eye contact, trying to be positive. Jacqueline McKenzie is excellent as the ex wife looking to re-insert herself in Wenham's life.

Like so many Cox films he lets himself down as a writer by not servicing his set up well enough. Wenham has a daughter but she is bright and lovely and that's it. They don't do anything with her, or his friend Kym Gyngell, or the other patients in his ward, or most damagingly McKenzie, who has terrific potential.

Instead he spends most of his time with Wenham and his dream love interest, Shahana Goswami: a gorgeous, calm, loving marine biologist - the Perfect Person. Oh and she's spiritiual too. And she cares him, loves him, gets along with daughter... then he gets a transplant. Yay!

Really, Wenham should have died and McKenzie should've caused more trouble. A Woman's Tale works because Sheila Florance dies. Wenham gets a happy ending. I'm sympathetic to Cox wanting to do that but it lessens the film's impact.

Yet the piece has power. It's well directed, the actors are solid, it has this incredible personal connection.

Movie review - "The Nun and the Bandit" (1992) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

 I think Paul Cox ran out of personal stories in the 80s so he turned to novels, which was an ideal step. This involves some brothers, led by Chris Haywood, who kidnap the granddaughter of a rich relative (Norman Kaye) but also pick up a nun (Gosia Dobrowolska).

Most of the film is Haywood being horny for Dobrowolska who is clearly not into it - Haywood is pudgy and sweaty basically trying to coerce Dobrowlska into sex. Cox plays the reality of it so we don't get trashy fun of the nun really wanting to be rammed by this hot criminal.

The film tackles interesting themes - class, sex, money. The character of the kidnapped girl isn't much - she's a kidnapped girl (played by Haywood's daughter). Haywood and Dobrowolska really commit.

Cox sets up a galaxy of potentially terrific support characters - black brother, mentally handicapped brother, slimy rich Kaye - but doesn't do anything with them.  It's at least 40 minutes of Haywood coercing Dobrowlska into sex, she seems to do it and is clearly traumatised. Then he's shot dead. The end.

What's done is done well I just wished once again Cox had used a co writer because the script is so easily to edit - reduce the core couple, cut away to others.

Still, worth watching. I'm surprised how much I'm enjoying these Cox movies.

Oh and for all his endless complaining about mortgaging his house he spent almost $2 million on this film. The Australian taxpayer gave him a lot of money. I'm sympathetic, truly, but his films didn't have a great rate of return.

Movie review - "My First Wife" (1984) ***1/2

 There's a genre of films called "here is my penis" movies made by auteurs who stand naked in from the camera going "here is my penis". This is one of them. That's not to say the films aren't good - this is very good, exquisitely acted, done with honesty, it's just Paul Cox standing nude in front of the camera. John Hargreaves even has a Cox style beard.

He goes balls to the wall as does Hughes. The behavious is unsettling - Hargreaves is self centered, violent, sulky, a lousy husband and father. It's no mystery why Hughes cheats on him and leaves him.

The lack of concern by the police when Hargreaves abducts his daughter is all too believable as is Hargreaves' focus on Hughes' infidelity rather than her problems.

Hughes goes naked as she seemed to be legally required to do so. But it's a very good performance even though Hargreaves is the one who carries on.

I'd be inclined to go with four stars but the dude really should have had more of a comeuppance.

Movie review - "Exile" (1994) ***

 Liked this more than I thought I would. Slow, but gorgeously shot, great locations. Aden Young in exile, Beth Champion visits, Claudia Karvan is his ex. Prob needed more of a bang - role of Karvans's guy was mis used and Karvan is missed in the last thirty minutes. But i liked it.

Movie review - "Kostas" (1979) ***

 Early Paul Cox film benefits from simplicity - a romance between a Greek immigrant cab driver (Takis Emmanuel) and an Anglo (Wendy Hughes). It helps that Emmanuel and Hughes can carry the screen - Hughes is so gorgeous and Emmanuel a solid performer.

His character's backstory is interesting, as we see him being beaten up by Greece for his politics (he was a journalist). So the film has an edge.

Appearances from what would be Cox's stock company - Norman Kaye (a BBC expat), Chris Haywood (annoying man at dinner party), Graeme Blundell. Kris McQuade is in it too.

A bit rough but I liked it. Cox doesn't over-reach, the Greek milieu is well depicted, he knows what he's making a movie about.

Movie review - "Lust and Revenge" (1996) ***

 Paul Cox goes back to the Man of Flowers well only instead of Alyson Best posing nude it's Nicholas Hope (which is maybe why he film didn't do as well, sorry Nicholas) and instead of cultured Norman Kaye watching he's a model for a sculptor (Victoria Eagger who was Chris Haywood's lover in Flowers) who is gay. She's working for Claudia Karvan the nepo daughter of pharmaceutical dude Chris Haywood (very funny) who is doing it for a tax deduction. Gosia Dobrowlska is Hope's wife and is into a new age guru Norman Kaye.

Some nice comedy courtesy of John Clarke, with easy yet funny jabs at the art world. Lovely odd touches like Wendy Hughes in drag and John Hargreaves as a sleeze in a gallery. Karvan is very sexy and disrobes as does Dobrowlska. The plot were basically women are made horny by being roofied (Karvan, Dobrowlska, Haywood's secretary) hasn't aged well.

I didn't like this as much as I once did back in the 90s but it has charm and a lovely musical score.

Movie review - "Man of Flowers" (1983) ****

 Paul Cox's biggest hit perhaps - a film made with his own money, or at least so he said, about things he was interested in set in a world he knew, with his friends. Norman Kaye has the role of a lifetime as a cultured man who enjoys watching Alyson Best be naked.

The film has a strong support cast - Barry Dickins as a lively postman, Ellis as a whining shrink, Chris Haywood superb as Best's egotistical artist boyfriend, Sarah Walker as Bests' friend who falls in love with her.

The film became an arthouse hit, in part because of all the nudity - Best, Walker, Victoria Eagger, even Norman Kaye. Werner Herzog makes a cameo. 

I mean it's made by dirty pervs. You can sense that. But it's got a solid story and pay off.

Movie review - "Island" (1989) **

 Paul Cox can't write. Good setup - three women on a Greek island. Man arrives turns ex druggie Eva Sitta into drugs. Deaf mute friend Chris Haywood kills guy. They cover it up. Nothing done with it. No betrayal, or other baddie coming. Lots of hanging around a pretty island. Sri Lankan character who is noble and wails. Irene Papas as Greek woman full of fire. Norman Kaye is in it and Takis Emmanuel. It just sort of ending. 

Good on Cox for making his movies. He made a lot. I think he struggled outside his comfort zone, i.e. urban Melbourne. There's a difference between hanging out in a place and living there.

Seven AFI nominations. Seven!