OZ

Australia, 1976, 103 minutes, Colour.
Joy Dunstan, Graham Matters, Bruce Spence, Michael Carmen, Gary Waddell, Robin Ramsay.
Directed by Chris Lofven.

Oz: an Oztralian rock/road musical in the Hair/Rocky Horror vein, and aimed at the adolescent audience, with the Ross Wilson music and capitalising on a four-letter freedom that may date it in time to come. m e conception of transplanting the Wizard of Oz to an Australian setting isn't bad at all and the parallels are quite interesting and entertaining, if frequently heavy-handed. The fantasy, fake Wizard and moralising are kept in tune with the style of the whole film. Bruce Spence's surfie/scarecrow is kindly and the cowardly lion/bikie is a good idea. But of limited appeal.

1. Audience interest in this film? The audience it was made for? The nature of the appeal?

2. The importance of the film as a Rock Musical? The quality of the music, singing? As reflecting the trends of the seventies?

3. The quality of the film as a road picture? The road pictures of the seventies, heroes and heroines wandering, journeying, destination? Picaresque adventures and episodes? The significance of travel and the vehicles for travelling on the road?

4. The quality of the plot in itself? The significance? The grouping in search of something, the ordinariness of life, the crash, the visualizing of fantasies, the moralizing about life?

5. The theme of fame and fortune, the realization of the heroine that fame and fortune were destroyers? How convincing was the moralizing? Or was the moralizing exploiting what had gone before?

6. The detail of the plotting? The reflection of the Australian situation, styles and interest in bikies, mechanics, surfies...?

7. The role of fantasy and its effect? The parallels of the characters in real life and in the fantasy? The heightened nature of fantasy? Dreams as being the creation of ourselves? What light did it throw on the heroine, and her understanding of people? What she really wanted?

8. How interesting and ingenious were the parallels with the Wizard of Oz? The initial story, the heroine, the fantasy, the moralizing? Comment on the detail of the parallels in terms of character? The two Dorothys and their quests? Wandering the countryside and a fantasy countryside? The surfie and the scarecrow and the details of making them parallel? The tin man and the mechanic without a heart? The cowardly lion and the bikie? The good fairy and the gay atmosphere? The Wiz as a phoney pop singer? How interesting was the paralleling? In comparison with the basic plot? The paralleling of places and the quest? The focus on Melbourne and the pop concert? The focus of themes in terms of the good fairy managing success. the scarecrow and his brains. the kindliness of the mechanic and his heart, the cowardly bikie learning some courage? The Wizard being revealed as a person who could not really sing?

9. Where did audience sympathies and interests lie? Were the characters sympathetic?

10. The atmosphere of rock, especially in the concert and its presentation? The atmosphere of the seventies in permissiveness, language? The ambiguities of sexuality in the seventies, bisexuality and the gay overtones? How much an allegory for the times? The quality of the music and the songs in this context?

11. What value has a film like this as entertainment? As reflecting the times?