Capsule Review: Closed for Winter

Closed for Winter
Dir. James Bogle
Year: 2009
Aus Rating: M
Running Time: 86mins

I don't really know how to describe this film in any smart way. There's only one word for it, and that's STRANGE. Strange with a capital everything. Sure, there are other words I could use like "bad", "unfulfilling" and "laughable", but I always seem to come back to "STRANGE". Like how the character played by Natalie Imbruglia, her is Elise, is so strange and how strangely everything she does facilitates a flashback. Everything from staring out of a window - Imbruglia does this a lot - to putting a key into a keyhole to watering the garden. Stranger still is the mother, played by Deborah Kennedy, who plays the same character in present day as well as flashback from 25 years ago and yet looks exactly the same! Strangest of all is Daniel Frederickson's character, Elise's boyfriend, who is played entirely for laughs in a story about a mysterious child disappearance and possible child rape! Yikes.

Strangeness continues during scenes featuring rave clubs, gardening montages and all the particularly strange moments when Elise just gets incredibly angry over the smallest of things. And then there's the strange way the film is edited and constructed. Oh look, the camera is zooming in on something integral to the upcoming flashback! Ay ay ay. I really can't explain it and it was so strange that I can't even form a proper critique of it. Let's just say it's poorly acted, badly written, blandly filmed and with no apparent taste barrier (did we really need all those near-slapstick comedy moments at the boyfriends' house?) There's Aussie Gothic and then there's just silliness.


And strangeness. D