Carol/The Revenant/Spotlight

I've been listening to the BBC's Kermode & Mayo's Film Reviews on podcast for sometime now and it's got me thinking how much I enjoy listening to conversations about films. I think I like listening to them even more than having actual conversations myself.

It was on Kermode & May's program that I heard Cate Blanchett describing working with Todd Haynes on Carol, Leonardo DiCaprio disclosing the 'transforming' experience of working with an 'artist' shooting a 100 minute film with dialogue that covered half an A4 sheet of paper for The Revenant and my new Hollywood Husband Mark Ruffalo - sorry Edward Norton, you've been displaced  - on ensemble acting in Spotlight. They were all wonderful subjects: serious, engaging, generous, totally committed to their craft and getting their films seen. I can report in the world of professional film people at the top of their game seem to try hard and give it their best.

I know that probably sounds cynical, it's not intended that way. Some days I just feel like the distance between our private and public selves is a gap so wide it pulls apart logic and sense. I got to thinking about this recently reflecting on my feature film rewrite which was a herculean effort. Writing every day for a month was gruelling. Doing it with two monkeys on school holidays with Christmas in the middle felt like a folly of the highest order. Moving between work and home was something akin to daily time travel, right down to edgy camera shakes to signify the awkward transition. It was discombobulating in every way and felt harder with each passing day. The needs of small children –  their moods and variable temperaments – and the exhausting detail of domestic life, as well as the demands of a complex and large creative project almost broke me, except it didn't. Even virtual strangers stopped me to tell me "Looking gggreeeaat". Go figure.

It's even stranger to consider that writing is an imaginative interpretation of the space between those different spheres - our public and private selves - and how we feel and behave as we inhabit them. Off air at BBC headquarters maybe Mark Ruffalo kicked himself for describing himself as an 'activist' - and not just a wealthy movie star. Cate Blanchett could have disconnected and thought "Banging on about the theatre, AGAIN". Leo? I couldn't even speculate. What I'm imagining is not really for sharing publicly. It's staying private.

By the way they were all fine films. All three of them.

Gayby Baby

We always get to a film during school holidays. The obvious choice would have been Oddball, the new Australian film about the unlikely friendship between a penguin and a labrador, but Otto – already ten years of age – remembered the trailer for Gayby Baby (Maya Newell, 2015) from our Jim Henson fest at the Nova some time back, and had it in his sights. I could see its appeal. The documentary features four kids aged between 9 and eleven as they navigate life – school work, sibling relationships and passions – in family's with same sex parents. It tells the story of Gus, Ebony, Graham and Matt, and their relationship with themselves, their parents and the world outside their font door as they negotiate acceptance and their own sense of belonging.

In each of the stories Newell has found a satisfying narrative: Gus' campaign to persuade his mums to accept his passion for crazy-ass WWF wrestling; Ebony's audition and hopes to be accepted into a socially progressive performing arts high school; Graham's struggles with literacy, the legacy of a heartbreaking early childhood; and Matt's unenviable situation – working out whether he believes in Jesus when his church considers his mother, a lesbian and full-on Christian, a sin against God.

I was expecting an interesting film but I was surprised by its beauty. Newell's sure sense of craft is evident at every level, from casting to cinematography, editing and sound. Gayby Baby also uses setting to create contrast: messy bedrooms, rain soaked sports ovals, the fecund tropical gardens of Fiji. Newell's approach to narrative – focusing on change and moving between the individual and collective, the private to public – borrows from fiction films to superb effect.

The drama is not in the same-sex relationships: the relationships represented, what we see of them, are all loving and functional. It's in the struggles all parents of children face: negotiating difference, relegating resources, providing support and boundary setting. What stays with me – other than the kids irrepressible sense of fun – is the ordinary and yet moving portraits of family life, the love and hopes that parents have for their children and what effort familial love inspires. Gayby Baby finishes on an uplifting note and the joyful celebration of Madi Gras. No shame. The shame is mine, for this country and its cruel, outdated laws.

Open the door: Noah Baumbach's When We're Young

Noah Baumbach's new feature, When We're Young, opens with a quote from one of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's plays from turn of the century – that would be the 20th century. It carries the age-old sentiment of a middle aged generation not understanding the one that follows it. In it the sceptic is urged to "Open the door" on the young. I was left wondering about this piece of advice after leaving the cinema. Was it a really such a good idea? Judging by the film – a wry intergenerational satire – I wasn't so sure. It starts out promisingly. Josh, a documentary filmmaker is approached by the twenty-something Jamie (Girls' Adam Driver) after delivering a lecture on documentary film and quickly initiates a friendship based on his admiration for Josh's rarely screened documentary. Jamie introduces Josh to his wife, the ravishing Amanda Seyfried, and along with Josh's wife, Cornelia (Naomi Watts) they become inseparable. Baumbach captures the romance of new friendships as the pairs borrow mannerisms, style tips and ideas from one another. There's no doubt Josh and Cornelia are enlivened by the relationship. It comes at a critical juncture; Cornelia is making peace with being childless as their best friend's adjust to life with a newborn. Josh is at a creative impasse after a decade working on his documentary about war and the American "system". His rough cut sits at six hours. He's not sure he can cut anything out. But what do newlyweds Jamie and Darcy get from the arrangement? While the older couple envy the young pairs energy and openness, Jamie most certainly covets Josh's ready-made life that includes a well connected film producer wife. I don't think its any kind of spoiler to say it ends in tears. Adam Driver is a terrific foil for Ben Stiller, the difference in height, already comedic. Driver brings a physical expansiveness to the role that sits well beside Stiller's contained presence. The film belongs to them. It's not simply a matter of performance. Baumbach fleshes these characters out. The climax – played out at a swanky award ceremony overlooking Manhattan – is between these two and about the nature of documentary. When it comes down to it Josh and Jamie are fundamentally different. Baumbach you feel sides with the principled Josh while making it clear that success comes to the Jamie's of this world. When We're Young finishes on a cute upbeat note. I was thankful for it but it was not enough to offset the swirl of conflicted emotions inside of me or the sense that middle age is a shit sandwich and, all things considered, I would still prefer to be young and feckless than old and weary. 

The Godfather I, II, III

Over the past few years during the Christmas season, specifically the days between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day I've noticed how receptive I am to film. I can't really account for it other than I know in this demanding and volatile emotional period I find myself on the couch with the remote in my hand looking to decompress from the interpersonal intensity of the festive marathon. I'm usually congratulating some nameless individual (the programmer) for their excellent choices. This year, for instance, I fell into a grateful trance watching The Godfather I, II and III over three nights muttering "Genius!" to myself. Is there another series of films more perfect at expressing the wiggy dimensions of family life – its pleasures, obligations and horrors – than this classic trio from America? When I studied Cinema at university in the mid 1990s Francis Ford Coppola was considered a giant who had lost his touch. No one could take the 1970s away from him but, prevailing opinion held that his later films were not as successful. While Martin Scorcese was moving onto Raging Bull and Age of Innocence Coppola was making strange episodes for television and ordinary children's films (The Black Stallion, anyone?). When The Godfather  III was released in 1990 – the only one I saw in the theatres – I remember being disappointed by its flatness. Revisiting it, I was more forgiving. Here is a film preoccupied with regret, legacy and wealth (most likely mirroring Coppola's own life-stage dilemmas) and not the aggressive, energetic turf wars of two decades earlier. I found it closer in theme and texture to Wall Street and Pretty Woman in its reckoning with material excess. Sure, The Godfather III doesn't come close to the inventive and elegiac tone of its predecessors. The straight, steely first instalment with its superb cinematography framing actors on a horizontal or vertical plane and Coppola's use of props; a lighter, a bag of oranges, to intimate psychology or as metaphor – and its ambitious, heartbreaking sequel from 1974. I was in awe of Coppola's nerve watching The Godfather II  especially the set pieces with a cast of thousands, the film's slightly hysterical atmosphere and marvellous casting. Three short years later Coppola would make Apocalypse Now. Like I said, a giant.

Gaps

David Rosetzky and I have been working on a feature film for as long as it takes to learn to speak, crawl, walk, sleep, eat and take up the violin. I can say this for certain because the project's inception  coincided roughly with the year of Hazel's conception. Given Hazel is on on her way to school next year, I would have thought it would have progressed further but I've been writing for long enough to know creative writing, as practised by moi, is painstakingly slow work. Occasionally thinking on it is cause for a grade 'A' funk but I've come to view it as a correction. I chew through other kinds of work at a scary clip. I am almost reconciled to the fact that I am unlikely to view my work in a cinema (I should have been born a decade earlier and taking my small, indie films into production back when Steven Soderbergh was fretting about the sexual mores of Andy McDowell and the Kino was the only art house cinema in town). For this reason I took extra pleasure in seeing David's 30 minute video Gaps at ACMI since I played a part in its creation. Officially I am down as co-writer though I am the first to admit that's a stretch given not one of the words uttered by its fabulous cast were familiar to me. Drawn loosely from material developed by us, it is a beautiful, hypnotic exploration of similarity and difference. I found it warm and graceful thanks largely to Stephanie Lake's earthy choreography which shifts speeds and plays with movement in simple, affecting ways and the sound track that is twangy acoustic. That I had a hand in this lovely work is a testament to magical thinking. 

Gaps at ACMI until February 2015 (though the long screening time is no excuse to miss it!)

Angelica Mesiti's The Calling

Before visiting ACMI last weekend I would have said that DreamWorks Animation: The Exhibition would be hands-down more entertaining than Angelica Mesiti's The Calling. I am pretty sure I don't have to explain the DreamWorks studio (creators of feel-good animations including Shrek, Madagascar, Kung-Fu Panda etc). The Calling is a half hour non-narrative multi screen artwork about whistling. And yet despite DreamWorks' pleasures – and there were many including several  interactive opportunities, delightful dioramas, masterful illustrations and informative documentary shorts that outlined the creative process – Mesiti's beguiling artwork won out.

Me and the monkeys sat glued to our bench seat captivated by the action as it unfolded across three screens. We saw goats on a hill side, old ladies picking tea leaves, a tourist bus stopping at a restaurant, children in a classroom. The settings shifted between Turkey, France and the Canary Islands. Each sequence showed, at some point, whistling conversations between people separated by distances. We were intrigued by so many different things: the ambiguous relationship between footage that created a strong sense of suspense; the different whistling techniques; the rituals and routines of rural life in different parts of world.

I appreciated the calming sense of space that it opened up internally. I only ever feel like that after practicing yoga, a trip to the country or an hour with the psychotherapist.

The Calling
Angeica Mesiti
ACMI
4 February – 13 July 2014
Entry free

Still from Angelica Mesiti: The Calling 2013-14.

The Sullivans

When I think about representations of family life and home and my own experience of family life and home I am often, make that always, struck by how life bears so little resemblance to its fictional and documentary counterparts. Why is that? Is it the imperative of narrative and its forward momentum? The constraints of genre? An emphasis of things going to shit for the sake of 'compelling' drama? To be honest I don't really mind. I am not looking for a mirror. But recently I saw a short film Our American Revolution – a portrait really – of a family called the Sullivans made by the talented Keri Light, that did something really nice. It presented the Sullivans, writer Robert Sullivan, his wife artist Suzanne and teenage daughter, through the prism of their house and their found, collected and made objects.

The objects – a porcelain rendition of crossing the Deleware river, a dragon fly, wisdom teeth, a glass jar holding the wooden shavings of a dear friend's house, a birds nest (with eggs) found in Suzanne's family home back in Portland, Oregon, dried flowers and branches picked up here and there, home-made books, artworks and musical instruments – fill the house like a cabinet of curiosities. Robert and Suzanne recount the story of their first meeting and of falling in love twenty four years earlier, taking it in turn to add detail to the story. There was something deeply moving about the life they had made together and a relationship with home that it expresses. Robert, under the spell of Henry David Thoreou (1817–1862) describes it as the 'poetry of the everyday'. When I think on family life, mostly the pleasures of family life,  its always against the backdrop of home – how we live together sharing stories, meals, the veggie patch, music. I am describing a pretty common experience but Our American Revolution made it seem new.