Review: The Baader Meinhof Complex

The Baader Meinhof Complex
Dir. Uli Edel
Year: 2009
Aus Rating: MA15+
Running Time: 150mins

Uli Edel's The Baader Meinhof Complex appears to be, to it's own detriment, incredibly thorough. It is ferociously directed, well-acted and feels like it's barreling ahead at breakneck speed, and yet in it's desire to become the Forrest Gump of movies about the German RAF movement it suffers from it's own heavy weight and what could have been a blisteringly exciting exploration of history eventually becomes over-wrought.

German cinema is quickly becoming some of my favourites, and for a good portion of Baader Meinhof's 150 minute running time I felt it slotted right in, but while the running time might not suggest anything truly exhausting - there have been far worse movies that ran far longer - Edel and writer Bernd Eichinger have tried to fit every single noteworthy moment of the infamous Red Army Faction's first ten years of existence that it becomes obvious there is just too much. And since the first hour - I checked - is so pulse-elevating, there's only so much of that I could take. There are moments that I felt could have been easily excised such as a sojourn to an army training course in the desert. Nothing comes out of it except to slow the film down.


Reliving the years between the group's creation in 1967 to the infamous "German Autumn" in 1977, that climaxed with the hijacking of a Lufthansa airplane, the film follows the RAF's major creative forces, Ulrike Meinhof (an excellent Martina Gedeck), Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu) and Gudrun Ensslin (Johanna Wokalek in another of the film's finer performances) as they plot, scheme and carry out acts of terrorism on the German government. Beginning with a claustrophobic and terrifying riot sequence Edel sets a frenetic pace. Much like the similar events that were portrayed in Steven Spielberg's Munich (which has a bit of cross plotting to Complex) it is so interesting to see this period portrayed on screen. Cinematography by Rainer Klausmann is clean and polished while Alexander Berner's editing really shines.

However as so many differing schemes and battle start going on involving characters who know characters who we don't know and it all becomes too heavy for the film to handle. The events begin to confuse and become hard to follow unless you're already aware of the timeline that is transpiring. The lack of any insight into the personal lives of these characters outside of a brief flash or two towards the start is particularly frustrating since the brief moments we do see - especially Meinhof's relationship with her children once she joins the militant group - are fascinating. It's hard to figure out why Baader was so influential over this group of people since he comes off as a horrible wretch of a human being for long periods of the film. Surely these characters - and there are indeed a lot of them - didn't speak radicalism 24/7 with brief interludes for discussions about guns, explosives and the evils of their government.


Edel hasn't made a cinematic drama since Last Exit to Brooklyn in 1989, instead focusing on episodic television and TV movies. By seemingly modelling his film on Hollywood movies he has fallen into the same traps that they do by not realising that just because he has the means to film everything and put it on screen doesn't mean he should. Although, to be perfectly honest, I think that is a problem with the screenplay, based on the non-fiction novel by Stefan Aust, and not Edel's direction, which is very impressive and there is plenty to recommend here from the acting to the technical skills on display. It just would have been far more effective if the fat had been trimmed from it. B-

The Baader Meinhof Complex is released 7 May and is in preview screenings this weekend.

Capsule Review: The Square

The Square
Dir. Nash Edgerton
Year: 2008
Aus Rating: MA15+
Running Time: 107mins

Nash Edgerton's upgrade from short film director to feature film director is a familiar course for Australian filmmakers. From Jane Campion to Matthew Saville there is an impressive roster of names - and there are more making the jump this year - and The Square is an incredibly impressive feature debut for Edgerton.

The Square is a thriller written by Joel Edgerton (Nash's famous actor brother who co-stars as a paid arsonist) and Matthew Dabner that takes that good ol' fashioned Aussie film staple - depressed man (David Roberts) having an affair with a younger woman (Claire van der Boom) - and injects it with tension and heart-racing twists and turns. Filled with secrets, double crosses, car chases, mysteries, frights and a fair share of dead bodies, The Square is the sort of film our industry should be making more of. Of course, the movie flopped upon release - all sorts of reasons for that that we won't go into yet again - which is such a shame because it really is a corker of a film. As the press quotes may say, "you'll be the on the edge of your seat." B+

Review: My Year Without Sex

My Year Without Sex
Dir. Sarah Watt
Year: 2009
Aus Rating: M
Running Time: 96mins

In only two feature film, writer/director/animator Sarah Watt has already proven herself to be one of the most important voices in Australian cinema. After the grand debut of Look Both Ways (which won the AFI for Best Film amongst others) she has given us the effortlessly charming My Year Without Sex. Watt creates such real and wonderful characters that help take away from the themes that many deem unpalatable for audiences. It's going to be incredible hard for another Australian film this year - hell, try any film this year - to put forth as honest and delightfully flawed characters as Watt has here.

Starring Sacha Horler (Praise) and Matt Day (returning from overseas TV work such as Secret Diary of a Call Girl) as an ordinary married middle class suburban couple with two kids (Jonathan Segat and Portia Bradley). When Horler's Natalie suffers an aneurysm her life takes many different turns. Split into twelve separately themed segments - and with the help of inventive title cards thanks to Maryjeanne Watt and Patrina White - the film flies by as the family go on vacation, enjoy Christmas and Easter, deal with a potential loss of job and even a potential diversion into born again Christianity. Yet along the way Watt never loses sight of the indelible truths behind her characters.


It is just so enjoyable to watch characters that one knows in real life portrayed so lovingly on screen. These characters are not shown in a particularly glamourous light, but nor are they mocked for being nothing but normal. It has become a habit of Australian cinema to feel the need to portray suburbia in the traditional Aussie Gothic manner filled with quirky weirdos and social deviants, but Watt has none of that. Even a Priest character, played by the ever-wonderful Maud Davey, is never mocked or laughed at, something Paul Cox could learn lesson or two from. And while it is nice to see realistic characters on screen - a problem that is far too common with Australian films is that the characters are so unrealistically written - that doesn't always make a good film. Thankfully Watt has surrounded them with spirited comedy, delightful supporting characters and injected the main family with true blue Aussie humour and spirit. The film even ends with an all-in singalong to Little Birdy's "Beautiful to Me" and I defy anyone to not sit there and just grin.

The cast is all tops, too. Horler - a three time AFI award winner - continues to go places few actresses do and does so with such cutting delivery. Matt Day, whose last Australian film was Hell Has Harbour Views in '05, makes a fine everyman and plays a bit like a ladies crumpet. The two kids, too, are excellent, especially Jonathan Segat who has a particularly awkward, but well-played, moment at a cinema that plays like a mini tight wire act. The supporting cast, from Maud Davey to Katie Wall right on through to a hilarious cameo by William McInnes (although try and spot it before you read the cast list.)


Sometimes there are movies that just put big ol' smiles on your face and I suspect My Year Without Sex will be one of those movies for many people. Look Both Ways was a surprise word-of-mouth hit and I can only hope that the same fate belongs to Watt's sophomore effort. It has more charm, wit and love in one scene than most films have in their entirety. It's a triumph. B+

My Life Without Sex is out late May.

Review: Newcastle

Newcastle
Dir. Dan Castle
Year: 2008
Aus Rating: M
Running Time: 107mins

A couple of years ago there was an Australian film called Tan Lines. It was a fairly dreadful look at homosexuality and Aussie surf culture, a thoroughly interesting topic I might like to add, that treated its queer topic with a strange pitched level of surprising earnestness and poor execution and unrealistic storytelling. It was further hampered by amateur acting and bad writing. It did, however, provide endless opportunities for queer audiences to fawn over shirtless male bodies (although their age sure was cringe-worthy at times) and that seems to be about the maximum depth you will find in many GLBT-themed movies.

Another Australian film that wades through similar territory, released late in 2008, was Dan Castle's Newcastle, which is a far more successful - and yet, at times, just as frustrating - attempt at the surfer-via-homos theme. While the queer angle is clearly not the film's prime reason for existing, it is actually the one aspect that really shines brightest. The film predominantly focuses of Jesse (Lachlan Buchanan of TV's Blue Water High so surfing experience comes with the package), but it is the relationship between his gay twin brother Fergus, played by the rising star Xavier Samuel (September), and one of Jesse's alpha surfer buddies that provide the thrust of the movie.


The character of Andy (Kirk Jenkins in his acting debut) is one of those incredibly unrealistic fantasy character that every socially awkward gay teenager daydreams about. He is sensitive, caring, incredibly dreamy in the looks department and acts all nice to the outcast. It's a character that almost every gay coming-of-age tale has, and yet I didn't feel that it derailed Newcastle. It's never made explicitly clear whether he is gay or not - Fergus most definitely is since he has purple streaks in his hair and, apparently, hangs around at beach toilet blocks - but he sure does come off that way. There is a scene on the dunes of a beach that is actually quite tender and beautiful. It's a fine example of the sort of thing movies like Another Gay Movie just do not understand. Just because your characters are gay doesn't mean a gay audience is going to want to watch them. Here they are well-formed and well-acted. I'm sure plenty of the film's gay male audience will swoon.

The film as a whole, despite not being entirely queer-centric, is very much queer-friendly. Scene after scene shows the pack of lithe and muscular young men (apparently all supposed to be 16 and 17 years old) pictured above sans clothes. Nudity is prevalent as, apparently, skinny dipping is a popular past time in Newcastle's surfing community. There's even one scene involving nude underwater wrestling between the two brothers that will provide some viewers with naughty thoughts. Even a scene in which the straight Jesse masturbates in his bedroom is intercut with as many shots of shirtless surfers as it is with shots of sexy women running along the beach with their tits bouncing about. Further to that point, for a film that I presume was supposed to be aimed at a teenage male audience, there are more shots of male posteriors and flapping dicks than there are shots of attractive women in bikinis.


Of course, the filmmakers have other more predominant issues on their brain and as soon as the third act comes around it all but ditches the queer subplot except for a quick reminder here or there plus a post-credits scene that seems to confirm what the audience surely suspected. Outside of this angle the film doesn't hold up quite as well. It is a fairly routine coming-of-age tale - that horror term that all followers of Australian film have grown to cringe at - about a younger brother emerging out of the shadow of his more successful older sibling (Reshad Strik). Jesse isn't a very likeable character - he's either angry or angry - which is why the subplots seem to be more interesting. The film's climax is sudden and seemingly unfinished. We don't even get to see Jesse's big chance at the surfing competition he's been working the entire film towards achieving. It just ends. Did they run out of money?

The photography by Richard Michalak is impressive as most surfing cinematography seems to be these days. Editing by Rodrigo Balark is equally good and continues his trend of being amongst the highlights of all his work after movies such as Black Water and The Eternity Man. The acting, too, is definitely worthy of mention and is one of the film's high points. Far too often in Australian films of this variety, the acting is as amateurish as the writing, but the actors fill their characters with spirit, playfullness and all have moments of note even if it is just a laugh or a single line of dialogue.


That writer/director Dan Castle is openly gay (his queer-themed short films have won awards) actually makes Newcastle more disappointing. It's obvious that the gay storyline is the film's most powerful asset, but I suppose it wasn't in the financiers best interest to ditch the less interesting Jesse storyline to focus on the Fergus/Andy one. Films that focus solely on a gay romance are all but always pushed aside and resigned to the queer festival circuit. As it stands though Newcastle is an impressive feature debut and a hopeful sign of an interesting new voice in both Australian and queer cinema. B

PS; I'm not just being a perv. There are seriously next to no stills from this movie that aren't of it's cast minus shirts.

Review: Mary and Max

Mary and Max
Dir. Adam Elliot
Year: 2009
Aus Rating: M
Running Time: 80mins

What is it about claymation directors that brings out the creepiest, oddest and downright strangest in the animated form. Whether it be the all-singing all-dancing Halloween celebrations of Henry Selick or the moons made out of cheese and evil penguins of the Aardman Studios’ Wallace & Gromit creations or any number of other contenders for the status as the most imaginative and ghastly claymation images. Adam Elliot’s Oscar-winning short Harvey Krumpet had its fair share of eccentricities going for it, too, and that continues with the release of his first ever feature film, Mary and Max.

In this film some of the crazy and crazier images on display are suicidal goldfish, birthmarks that “look like poo”, alcoholic kleptomaniacs, Asperger's syndrome sufferers with weight problems and gay pen pals. You can’t accuse Elliot of not shoving his entire imagination into this project, at times to his detriment, but as a wildly inventive and original piece of Australian cinema Mary and Max is a winner.

Taking place decades before today, Mary is a lonely young girl who lives in the Melbourne suburb of Glen Waverley (hey, I’ve been there!) who admires The Dinkles, an animated kids television series of brown blobs, and eating sweetened condensed milk. On a whim she writes to the first name she points to in a New York City phone book – cue a funny joke about Jewish people that it’s okay to laugh at - and that man just happens to be Max, an obese man with Aspergers Syndrome who attends Eaters Anonymous meetings and also watches The Dinkles. These tangible threads of commonality actually bring these two lost and lonely characters together in a much more believable fashion than you may expect.


The true magic of Mary and Max is that in between hearty guffaws and brilliant sight gags is that there is true poignancy to it. These two characters, especially Mary – voiced as a child by Bethany Whitmore and as an adult by Toni Collette – who represents so many different feelings associated with potential young audiences that it’s hard not to be touched by her tale. Max, as voiced by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, is an equally miserable character but is surprisingly endearing because of it. His afflictions and addictions are handled with care and the scene in which he rattles off the conditions of Asperger's has genuine emotion as a man who still hasn’t come to terms with what hand he has been dealt, and yet has become so disconnected and desensitised from everything that he just doesn’t care what people think.

The humour, dark and silly, comes thick and fast during the opening 30 minutes especially with Barry Humphries supplying plenty of it with his droll narration alongside the assorted weird and wonderful gags on view. It’s an easy film to find yourself missing jokes as they creep up on the audience so sneakily and some of them being so dark that it takes a moment to realise the joke actually happened.

Unfortunately, Elliot's experience in the short form of animation proves to be a problem during the final act of this 80-minute movie. The film has such a rapid pace at times – like a short – that when it slows down these moments feel awkward and the forward moving story grinds to a halt. The jokes seem to stop, too, which wouldn’t be a worry if the early portions of the film had not have been so entertaining and funny. There were real moments of heart spread throughout Mary and Max that when Elliot decides to make a big moment out of them they come off as forced, which is incredibly unfortunate.

However, even when these hiccups disrupt a free-flowing story, the animation remains beautiful to watch. Elliot’s character designs are fabulous – this writer’s favourite being Mary’s lush of a mother Vera, voiced by famous Melbourne singer Renee Geyer – and the art direction is utterly captivating. The New York scenes are wonderfully detailed and the Australian parts have such a true sense of Australiana that beats most live action movies easily.

As something truly fresh and original though, Mary and Max is a triumph and it’s just a shame that the glorious joy-in-sadness that the film had revelled in had to be detracted by outright sadness towards the end. B