Displaying items by tag: Eric Bana

MEMOIR OF A SNAIL

Australia, 2024, 94 minutes, Colour.

Sarah Snook, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jacki Weaver, Magda Szubanski, Dominique Pinon, Eric Bana, Nick Cave, Adam Elliot, Tony Armstrong, Paul Capsis.

Directed by Adam Elliot.

Quite a striking experience. However, the title might be a bit offputting to some audiences, especially those with a fear of snails, Molluscophobia (seeing ‘snails and slugs as slow, writhing anomalies in a city full of things that flutter, stomp or scuttle’. But, reassuringly, snails here have some heroic status.

Melbourne animator, Adam Elliot, won an Oscar for his short film, Harvey Krumpet. His animation style is stop-motion, and he uses clay models, giving his films a distinctive look, and, combined with his idiosyncratic characters and their stories, something of a unique position in animation. In 2008 he directed Mary and Max (admirably voiced by Toni Collette and Philip Seymour Hoffman), the story of two lonely characters’ correspondence between Melbourne and New York.

Which means that his new film is visually distinctive and admirably voiced. Adam Elliot’s visual world is dark, often misshapen, touches of the sinister, a great deal of sadness, rare moments of joy. And the story is told by Sarah Snook who is able to engage the audience completely.

Actually, the memoir is of Grace Pudel, having experienced some sadness with the death of her good friend Pinky (Jacki Weaver at her best). Grace has a vast number of collectable snails on her shelf and also cultivates actual snails, especially Sylvia to whom she confides her story.

It is a very sad story, Grace’s mother dying in giving birth to herself and to her twin brother, Gilbert (Kodi Smit McPhee). There are some happy moments with their eccentric French father, Dominique Pinon, an animator but who falls on hard times. , t thenhere is the fate of orphans, and foster homes. They might be described as 21^st-century Dickensian, on the one hand a kind of hippy, freethinking couple inherit G between race trying to affirm her now and then  their escapades. But, worse, Gilbert is sent to Perth to a fundamentalist religious family, and a horrendous mother, Ruth (absolutely ruthless), Magda Szubanski bringing her frighteningly alive. And Gilbert suffers. These sequences of their ferocious moments of criticism of this kind of self-righteous religious cruelty.

Some of the dialogue is very witty. And there are some very happy cultural references, the books that the young Grace and Gilbert read, including Lord of the Flies, and, twice, the family watching with delight The Two Ronnies.

But, back to Pinky. She is a wonderful neighbour, caring for Grace, a surrogate mother, but moving into dementia, trying to warn Grace about the charming Ken (Tony Armstrong) who courts her but has his own terrible secret.

By this stage, Grace finishes telling her sad story to Sylvia. But, while Adam Elliot constantly reminds us that so much of life is sadness and suffering, he is not without hope and by the final credits he he provides Grace with a bit more happiness than we might have anticipated.

1. Work of Adam Elliott? His Oscar? Mary and Max? His reputation and awards?
2. His visual style, stop motion, the attention to detail, the clay and the characters, the creatures, the settings? Colour tone, darker? The distortions in the faces, the situations, the settings? Distinctive, the effect for the audience? The tone communicated? And the musical score?
3. The Australian voice talent and styles?
4. The title, the focus on snails, Grace at the opening, a love for the snails, the collectibles, the shelves, the actual snails in the containers and the growth? Her love for Sylvia?
5. The episode with Pinky, her appearance and voice, sad, dementia, dying, Grace attending to her? The decision to tell the story?
6. Grace and her telling the story to Sylvia, Sarah Snook and her voice-over, the audience being continually attentive to her voice, tone, pathos? The family background, the visuals of the home, Grace being born, the effect on the mother, the birth of Gilbert, the mother’s death? The children growing up, playing, the books and the reading, watching television, The Two Ronnies, their father, his injuries, French, the background of animation, his deterioration?
7. The Dickensian touch with the foster homes, the permissive family and their style, free, trendy, sex and partners, but all the awards for Grace and her achievements, the posters? Finally going off to the nudist colony in Sweden? The contrast with the Appleby’s, the religious fundamentalism, Ruth and her domination, husband, the children? The hard work, the religious language, the tyranny? The treatment Gilbert? The letters between Grace and Gilbert? Ultimately too much, Gilbert and the fire, completely destroyed? The severe brothers and the contrast with the friendly little brother, Ben? The critique of fundamentalist Christianity?
8. Grace growing up, neglected by the parents, the friendship with Pinky, the kindly neighbour, the conversations? The friendship with Ken, her eating, becoming heavier, Ken and his devotion, courting, marriage, her discovery of his scrapbook, the fact that he was using her, feeding her, his fetish? His being ousted?
9. Grace, the years passing, the sales, the letters from Gilbert stopping, her sad memories? The continued support of Pinky? Pinky and her decline, her warnings about Ken? Her positive affirmation of Grace? Her dying, the cry about the potatoes?
10. Grace, in the garden, the various vegetables, dawning her about the potatoes, digging, the tin, the letter, the money?
11. Grace, getting a hold of herself, slimming down, starting the work on animation, her film, the screening, very few there, Gilbert revealing himself, the happy reconciliation?
12. Grace and Gilbert, the sadness of their lives, getting a new opportunity to make something of themselves?

FORCE OF NATURE

Australia, 2024, 120 minutes, Colour.

Eric Bana, Anna Torv, Deborra-Lee Furness, Robin McLeavy, Sisi Stringer, Lucy Ansell, Jacqueline McKenzie, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor, Richard Roxburgh, Tony Briggs, Kenneth Radley, Archie Thomson, Ash Ricardo, Ingrid Torelli, Matilda May Pawsey.

Directed by Robert Connolly.

Novelist, Jane Harper, has had considerable success, critical and popular, with her detective stories featuring Federal Police investigator, Aaron Falk.

On screen, writer-director, Robert Connolly (Balibo, Blueback) directed Jane Harper’s novel, The Dry, popular with Australian audiences – and overseas. It introduced Eric Bana as the detective, in the desert outback of Northwestern Victoria, the complexities of life in the town, family relationships, murder.

While Force of Nature is advertised in the media as The Dry 2, that subtitle does not appear in this film at all. In fact, the temptation must have been to call this investigation The Wet or The Damp (not attractive marquee titles). Rather, there is the force of nature in the mountain terrains where the action takes place, filmed in the Otway Ranges, the Dandenongs just outside Melbourne, the Yarra Valley. And, the scenery is often beautiful, moments breathtaking, mountains, forests, valleys, creeks, waterfall.

The occasion for the action is one of those team-building retreats popular with some corporations. This time there is a focus on a group of women employees in an international company which, in fact, is under investigation by the Federal Police, donations to charities but also the funding of human trafficking, money-laundering… An the face of the company for the film is veteran, Richard Roxburgh.

However, it is his wife, played by Deborra Lee Furness, strong-minded, employing the women, testing them, leading them out into the mountains, wanting to bind them together. But, at the film’s opening, Aaron Falk receives a phone call from one of the team members, cut-off. The audience then sees some of the members of the group emerging from the bush, onto a road, hailing down traffic, but the revelation that one of the team is missing, the woman who made the phone call, Alice.

The screenplay for the film, by Robert Connolly, parallels the structure of novels, bringing one episode to a climax or moment of tension, then moving to another aspect of the story, then another, and back, developing the narrative, creating issues because this is a police investigation.

We are invited to concentrate on the women on their walk, their personalities (well developed for our understanding of them), bonding, clashes, getting lost, struggling in the dark, finding an abandoned hut (and the screenplay indicating a story of a serial killer in the bush 40 years earlier). While Jill, the leader, is a strong personality, the focus is on Alice, played by Anna Torv (reminding audiences that she can play dominating, tormented, sometimes self-doubting characters as in her award-winning performances in The Newsreader).

There is also the threat of plot with Alice, an informant to the Federal police, financial difficulties of her own, pressured to get information on the company, clashing with her close friend, Lauren, also on the trek, and their daughters both going to the same exclusive school. When Alice disappears, her friend spent a lot of time standing on the top of a fast waterfall, looking and hoping for her return.

But, keeping it all together is the investigation by Aaron Falk, Eric Bana once again an engaging screen presence, supported by a tough Jacqueline McKenzie as his partner. What enhances his presence is a stream of flashbacks to his boyhood, accompanying his enthusiastic bushwalking parents into the mountains, learning a great deal about bushcraft, the stars and directions, searching for his mother after an accident in the bush, standing in for in good contribution as the search for Alice proceeds.

As with all good mysteries and investigations, there are some unanticipated twists in the plot – but, the audience sporting a clue halfway through and wondering where it will lead, unexpectedly bringing the investigation to a satisfying conclusion.

1. The popularity of Jane Harper’s novels? The impact of the film version of The Dry? This story as a stand-alone story?
2. The title, the visualising of nature, mountain ranges, hills and valleys, treason paths, rivers and creeks, waterfalls, the seasons, rain, storms? The musical score?
3. A federal police investigation story, the role of Aaron Falk, audience knowledge of him from the previous film? Eric Bana and his screen presence and performance? The focus on him and his work, partnership with Carmen, no personal background story? The contrast with the back story of his childhood, his travels in the mountains and forests, drawing on his learning and experience, his father teaching him, the support of his mother, his mother lost, the accident, finding her, the rescue, hospital? His finally telling the story to Carmen? His background enabling him to help in the search to find Alice?
4. The corporate business story, the role of Alice, the desperate phone call from the mountains, her work in the company, stealing the money, paying for her daughter’s education at the privileged school, Aaron and Carmen and their hold over her, her filming the documents, the meetings with the two, her fears, resistance, the fact of the filming, the USB stick, her going on the retreat, the meeting with Daniel and the misinterpretation, his wanting the information from her, her dominating personality, bullying, disagreeing with people wanting her own way, hiding the USB stick? Her relationship with Lauren, the past, school, their daughters, the bullying, Lauren and the clash, Alice not apologising, the attack, Alice hitting her head, her death?
5. The retreat story, the company, Jill as leader, hiring Alice, keep an eye on the staff, hiring Bree and Beth, the retreat for team making and building, her personality, her relationship with her husband, suspicions about Alice, her role in the retreat, leadership and decisions?
6. Daniel, the company, charities, money-laundering? His presence, the meeting with Alice? Suspicions? Not wanting Jilll to talk to Aaron without a lawyer? Jill talking, their secret? His final confrontation with Aaron, the role of the police, Aaron and his hostility, and the final victory with the recovery the USB stick?
7. The intercutting of the women, the trek, the manager, his leadership, the information about the tracks, the flags on the trees, the nightly shelters and provisions? The portrait of the women, Jill and her leadership, Lauren and her experience, Alice and her domination, always quibbling, expectations, the two sisters, the revelation about Beth and the drugs, stealing from her sister, the revelation that her sister informed the police, Bree and her moving the body, thinking that Beth had killed her? The funnel-web attack? The women and their secrecy, Lauren standing at the waterfall waiting for Alice to come back? The two sisters, one thinking the other guilty? Jill and supplying information? The visualising of the fight, Jill being punched, Alice and her leaving, the revelation of the confrontation with Lauren, the phone call to Aaron? Her death? Her relationship with her daughter?
8. The intercutting of all the themes, the local police, traditional methods, finding Aaron intervening? His skills, connecting with the camp organiser, the story of the serial killer and his victims, the women finding the hut, the dog’s burial, the mound? Aaron, finding the hut, burial place, and consolation for the families of the victims of long ago?
9. The pieces all coming together, the business aspects and the USB stick and the federal police investigating Daniel in the company? Lauren and her fall over the waterfall, Aaron rescuing her? Taken into custody? Her future? The two sisters and the reconciliation? The two daughters and their future?
10. A satisfying blend of a variety of themes and stories and strong delineation of characters?