Two Australian Movies

I try and watch as many Australian films as I can so this week I finally caught up with two movies I had wanted to see for a while, Proof and All my Friends are Leaving Brisbane.



Proof came out in the early 90s and stars the always excellent Hugo Weaving as Martin a blind photographer who distrusts everyone and is locked in a dysfunctional relationship with his housekeeper, Celia (Genevieve Picot who reminded me very much of Isabelle Huppert). Martin takes pictures so he can have proof of what is around him. Celia is obsessed with Martin, a fact he makes use of, in turn she takes her pleasure in both coming on to him and tormenting him in subtle ways. When Martin meets Andy (Russell Crowe), he takes to him and they become friends. When Andy starts interpreting Martin’s photographs, Celia is threatened and seduces Andy. Since this is not a French film with Huppert (Ms Huppert’s films do not allow for tender sentiments), her revenge doesn’t quite work and eventually Andy and Martin re-establish their friendship and Martin learns that the world may not always be interpreted truthfully but is at least interpreted faithfully most of the time by the people close to us. Proof established Jocelyn Moorhouse and this movie is so good that it’s a pity that her particular way of film making didn’t quite work in Hollywood. The cast is on pretty top form in this three hander, even Russell Crowe (an actor I have never really taken to). It’s a small perfectly made film and I kid about the French film comparison – it’s for the better that this movie has an undercurrent of warmth.

All my Friends are Leaving Brisbane is a much slighter film that deals with a dilemma familiar to anyone a few years out of graduation – to stay or to leave? Brisbane is a small city and opportunities, both professional and personal, often lie elsewhere. What do you do when your friends up and move and when your own life feels stagnant? There are no surprising answers in the film about two best friends (played by Charlotte Gregg and Matt Zeremes) who have never got to the romance stage and are questioning where their lives are heading but it is not a movie that is looking for surprising answers. It’s disarming in its sweetness and even if its ending is conventional, it doesn’t feel forced. Its Brisbane setting is incidental – I could see a number of parallels with people a few years out of IIT and working in India for e.g., the discussions on whether to stay or leave, the one cussed person who refuses to and the like. On the other hand I lived in Brisbane for awhile and part of the charm of the film for me lay in how acutely it captured the cosiness and boredom of the city.