Australian confabulators: Unfolding Florence & Hunt Angel

Unfolding Florence [Gillian Armstrong, 2005] has interesting parallels to the more recently made Hunt Angels (Alec Morgan 2006), about Australian film-maker, Rupert Kathner. Both films are idiosyncratic docudramas about Australian confabulators and artistic identities who weren't averse to lying and grandstanding in order to achieve their goals. Both explore themes of identity and art, and innovative approaches to compositing visuals of actors, animation, archival footage and photographs.

While Hunt Angels' Kathner lived on the run in order to fraudulently finance his film-making, Florence Broadhurst lived on the run from herself. She regularly denied her rural Queensland origins while reinventing herself as an English artist. Whether she was searching more for her true creative identity or for acceptance by the social elite remains unclear. Best known for her wallpaper design career which she began at 60, her framed designs are used as backdrops for a series of interviews about her many personae as a singer, dancer, painter, fund raiser and socialite. In the background is her mysterious, brutal death in October 1977 at the age of 78. Director Gillian Armstrong says she wanted to find a solution to this crime, but the film is foremost a lavishly retold life, with her death an abrupt and puzzling finale.

The screenplay draws on Florence's letters to construct the semi-fictional narration by Florence about her own life and death. The frenetic (sometimes too frenetic) imagining of her life, including animations created from old photographs and footage, is interspersed with the ominous recreation of Florence's last walk to her design studio and factory in Paddington.

Old friends and socialites annotate Armstrong's account of Florence's life with a generally uncritical tone. But other reflections, including her neglected son's perspective, round out the impression of a woman both generous and self-absorbed. She lived in a world sometimes even more fantastic than fiction but had a decisive impact on the real lives of people around her, for better or worse. It is a compelling, although at times unflattering look at the world of the social and artistic elite into which she fearlessly forced entry.

While films like Unfolding Florence and Hunt Angels may not be of huge interest outside Australia, they are a welcome reminder that our own artistic heritage and possible futures are forces to be reckoned with. And they leave the lingering question: how far would you go to get what you want?

3.5 flims.

Kill Bill Volume 1

Synopsis: The Bride, a sword-fighting assassin, goes on the warpath against her former colleagues and boss after they slaughter her wedding party and leave her and her unborn child for dead. [Quentin Tarantino, 2003, USA, Rating R, Running time 106 minutes]

Volume One of Kill Bill is an extravagant, indulgent assault on the senses. It’s a slice-and-dice homage to more films than you can poke a stick at. Tarantino fans can rejoice at the stylistic and editing strengths that echo elements of Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Jackie Brown. Sadly, the machine gun dialogue of these earlier films does not take the foreground, but perhaps the martial arts purists will find this a good thing.

The main preoccupation here is the violence of vengeance in many gritty and parodied representations, ranging from live action to mind churning manga, using everything from saturated colours to over-exposed black and whites. To Tarantino, the ability to communicate violence in all sorts of increasingly visceral ways is one of the main entertainments and strengths of cinema. The Greeks may have coined this ‘catharsis’. Tarantino calls it fun.

Kill Bill dallies with fairly brief moments of ominous violent horror reminiscent of Reservoir Dogs, but the main bread and butter is absurdly stylised violence far beyond Pulp Fiction’s craziest moments. There are countless decapitations of heads and limbs followed by water sprinkler geysers of thin red liquid in all directions; generally with an increasingly bruised, cut, and bleeding heroine (Uma Thurman) dishing it out in the middle with a very sharp sword. Through this is entwined some hint of the codes and values of the fu-film genre, but they don’t get much exposition.

The film is so saturated that it’s a relief when the huge central battle of the film switches to over-exposed black and white. Essentially, it’s a love of the super-stylin’ set piece and wild screen violence that has turned a planned 90-minute kick-to-the-gut into a more meandering series of punches spread over two volumes. This film generally eschews the long-shots and wire work of The Matrix or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for rapid close-shot edited piece, where often the set rather than the fight has the key billing.

Those who loved the strong and usually-complex central stories and dialogue of Tarantino’s earlier films may find Kill Bill lacking. Perhaps dialogue was former co-writer Roger Avary’s strength for what dialogue there is here can occasionally seem stilted or unnatural. But perhaps this is intentional, given the film’s nods to the stiffly-subtitled martial arts films that Tarantino reveres. Even the usual distinctive choice of music is light on lyrics. Kill Bill also cuts back and forth through the timeframe of the story, but the lack of any complex story means this technique has little to add to the interpretation of the film as it unfolds. Possibly Volume Two will offer the other characters some more exposition.

Tarantino’s style has a definite substance of its own, which has fuelled many a doctoral thesis. But Kill Bill’s style alone won’t win him a scriptwriting Oscar to twin his earlier one, or another little swag of Oscar nominations for the actors. But Uma Thurman could get another Oscar nomination for her moments of pure exhilarating brilliance as the key protagonist out for revenge. The other actors generally play their parts with skill and often distinction (for example, Darryl Hannah’s impressive few minutes on screen, or martial arts veteran Gordon Liu) but they are essentially bit players in Uma’s grand scheme. Only she has the emotional motivation and screen time to make a real impression.

Tarantino has aimed to make one of the greatest action movies ever seen. Until Volume Two is released, it’s hard to judge. Coming to the end of Volume One is like someone ripping a pulp fiction novel out of your hands just after the mid-point climax. But even if Tarantino fails in his aim, Kill Bill is certainly something new from something old, and striking if not hugely memorable or significant. Bring on Volume Two.

3.5 flims.

Batman Begins

Synopsis: A prequel charting the caped crusader's evolution into Gotham City's protector. [Christopher Nolan, 2005, USA, rating: M, running time: 140 minutes]

From what I remember of the last four Batman films, they all featured a somewhat glossy dark hero in tights, statuesque beauties, fanciful bad guys (The Joker, Mr Freeze, etc) and improbable gadgets. Batman Begins takes a step back from all this in order to carve out mostly new territory. Like the Star Wars prequels, it fleshes out the backstory to a well-known saga in much greater details than has been attempted before. This time, however, it’s mainly interesting, well-written, and directed with some flair by Christopher Nolan (Memento, Insomnia).

Nolan has assembled a strong group of performers. Bale is suitably gravel-voiced, physically imposing, and convincingly caught between his two personae. Caine is substantial in the role of Alfred, providing some well-nuanced comedy. Katie Holmes, playing the dogged District Attorney, is an interesting diversion from the female characters of the other films. Some may wonder how someone who looks fresh out of their teens secured that eminent position, but that’s probably just me quibbling. Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman bring up the rear in excellent form, respectively filling in the gadget inventor and good cop roles. Cillian Murphy has a chilling quality as a key henchman, and Liam Neeson rounds it out with his usual understated approach.

Starting with our hero as a child, Batman Begins follows a slightly convoluted path to Gotham City’s first encounters with the Bat. Like the recent Spiderman films, Nolan’s movie takes plenty of time to explore the psychology of the proto-hero, which here is marked by a fear of bats that indirectly led to the death of his very saintly parents (cue: guilt complex). It also provides the opportunity to explore the evolution of the man into avenger, providing a more logical and interesting background to where all those gadgets and the fancy car came from, as well as introducing us to Bruce Wayne’s initial hesitant flights as The Bat.

The film offers a grim look at the psychology of fear and revenge, a dark place from which Bruce struggles to emerge. Batman is essentially fighting against a new verb, the bad guy’s attempts ‘to weaponize’ a drug that induces psychotic fear and hallucinations in its victims. Judging from 37,600 hits for ‘weaponize’ on Google, however, this battle has already been lost - to the chagrin of the Queen’s English.

The drug’s effects are portrayed with terrifying visual effects, especially when we get to see what Batman looks like from the point of view of someone under the influence. It helps visualise the common themes in the Batman saga of the Bat as a creature or monster feared by the underworld. It is a pity that the current penchant for up-close shooting and frenetic editing of action scenes doesn’t give much opportunity to be impressed by the Bat’s agility or grace.

This is all very nifty, and features a less obviously silly bad guy than, say, The Penguin. However, the plot is slightly rambling, as the first portion chronicles Bruce’s reappearance as a one-man-army in a Chinese prison after seven years absence, and subsequent training in a Tibetan monastery under the watchful eye of Liam Neeson. The scenes with Liam are rather reminiscent of other prequels of the young-man-meets-wise-master variety. Still, Batman Begins is a worthy pre-addition to a very popular franchise.

3.5 flims.