Puzzle pieces lie strewn across a dusty table in the suburbs of Perth. They form an incomplete geography: crude continents assembled from matching pieces surrounded by isolate islands, shards without a partner. The camera lingers on this puzzle; we know it will never be completed. There are mere hours til the immolating shockwave of an…
In Objet d’Art, we take a look at the use of inanimate objects in film and music and their changing meanings, aesthetics and emotional purpose in different contexts. The bicycle is a potent, versatile symbol of freedom. It’s a symbol of the freedom of unconfined, joyful movement – in The Muppet Movie, the miraculous freedom…
When you turn up to your local multiplex and fork out for a bucket of popcorn and a couple of tickets to Hercules, you’re not going in expecting a cinematic masterpiece. This is, after all, a film about Greek demi-god Hercules with The Rock – sorry, he goes by Dwayne Johnson now – in the…
Princess Mononoke’s recent release on Blu-Ray provided me an opportunity to truly appreciate the gorgeous animation of Miyazaki’s seventh feature-length film. My previous viewings of the film had been low-quality (pirated) versions – in fact, I can distinctly recall watching the film at a friend’s place on a burnt DVD when, halfway through, the disc…
Within Charlie’s (David Gulpilil’s) sorrowful gaze is an encapsulation of a people denied the land and culture that is theirs. The discourse around this denial and its ramifications is generally driven by white people under the assumption that Indigenous Australians are a problem to be solved. The draconian “intervention” is the largest example of this ideology…
Denis Villeneuve’s collaboration with Jake Gyllenhaal has produced two films thus far: last year’s preposterously-plotted yet consistently engaging thriller, Prisoners, and now, Enemy. There aren’t a great many similarities between the two films; the former was literal and methodical while the latter is elliptical and abstract. Prisoners solidly held to genre conventions while Enemy takes…
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes rejects the modern blockbuster’s inclination towards weightlessness; for a film about super-intelligent monkeys, this is a surprisingly heavy picture. While its predecessor, Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Rupert Wyatt, 2011), half-heartedly feinted at social resonance before shrugging and descending into frivolity, Dawn unapologetically bears the burden…
Is there anything more reliable in cinema than the crime drama? We have our middle-aged, grizzled police officer. He chain-smokes, drinks heavily, and seems to send his shirts to be custom-ruffled daily. He doesn’t get along with people – he’s taciturn, gruff, and so forth – but, dammit, he gets results. You will be shocked…
The Lunchbox marketing promises a kind of Indian take on Sleepless in Seattle, where two strangers – through the vagaries of chance and India’s carefully-orchestrated, but not flawless, lunchbox distribution system – begin a correspondence and fall in love before they ever meet. You know, the kind of frothy, featherweight romantic comedy that makes the…
Someday World is the child of two parents: two musicians, Brian Eno and Karl Hyde, who would each likely appear in my own personal top ten favourite musicians. It’s pointless to try to summarise the breadth of Eno’s inimitable musical career within the confines of a mere music review; suffice to say he contributes his…
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