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Cinematic gems from Down Under

By Hannah Brown

13 June 2004 - While it's no secret that a lot of good films come out of Australia (My Brilliant Career, Gallipoli, and Rabbit-Proof Fence to mention a few), an Australian Film Festival is long overdue here.

Now, lovers of Aussie film can rejoice, because an Australian film festival is starting this week at the Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv cinematheques, and will run until the end of the month.

It opens on Wednesday in Tel Aviv, on June 19 in Jerusalem, and on June 20 in Haifa. Eleven recent Australian films (most of which have never been shown in Israel) will be presented, as well as a program of short films.

The festival is sponsored and organized by the Australian Film Commission, the Australian Embassy in Tel Aviv, and the Australia-Israel Cultural Exchange (AICE).

It all kicks off with Two Hands (1999), directed by Gregor Jordan and starring the young Hollywood heartthrob Heath Ledger (he's appeared recently in Monster's Ball and A Knight's Tale) in one of his first roles.

Jordan has also gone on to make some high-profile movies since he made Two Hands, directing Ledger and Orlando Bloom in the period gangster film, Ned Kelly.

Two Hands is a particularly Australian take on the Quentin Tarantino-inspired caper movies of the late Nineties. Ledger plays a public relations man for a strip club who decides to earn the money for a better life by making a delivery for a local wise guy. It's no surprise that this doesn't work out, and Ledger's character finds himself on the run.

A disproportionate number of Hollywood's young, handsome actors have come from Australia, and you can also see Russell Crowe, the biggest star of all to emerge recently from Down Under, in The Sum of Us (1994).

Crowe, who has appeared in such blockbusters as Gladiator and Master and Commander, where he plays take-charge, macho men, here has the role of a young homosexual living with his father. The twist is that his father completely accepts his sexuality, and even tries to help his son find a partner.

The movie, based on a play, received mixed reviews, but praise for Crowe was universal.

Another current Hollywood hunk, Hugh Jackman (Van Helsing) stars in Erskineville Kings (1999) - the story of two brothers from a troubled family trying to work out their differences. Jackman won the Australian Film Critics Award for this performance.

In recent years, Australian movies have begun to deal with the issue of relations between the Aboriginal and white populations, and tensions within the Aboriginal community, in complex, interesting stories.

Stephen Johnson's Yolngu Boy (2001) is one of the latest examples of this genre. Yolngu, pronounced "Yol-noo," is the name of an aboriginal tribe. The film is a coming-of-age story about three teens from this tribe. As children, they dreamed of being the best hunters, but now are more interested in football, girls and hip-hop. When one of them gets into trouble with the law, all three cross the Outback together to consult a tribal leader. Johnson, a first-time feature director, struggled for a decade to make this film.

The moody Lantana (2001) played here so briefly that few had a chance to see it. Directed by Ray Lawrence, it stars Anthony LaPaglia, Geoffrey Rush and Barbara Hershey in several intersecting stories of lives touched by crime and marred by alienation in Sydney.

Floating Life (1996), directed by Clara Law, is an example of what's now called "Fourth World Cinema" - movies about people from the Third World making new lives in more developed countries. It tells the story of Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong trying to settle down in Australia.

These are only a few of the varied movies in this festival, so check your local cinematheque for schedules and programs.

Source: Jerusalem Post

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