Finding a new voice in cinema is probably quite difficult. Ben Hackworth tries this in his new Australian feature, Corroboree. The film sees a young 'Adonis' male employed by a dying man to re-enact scenes from his life with the help of five actresses. These actresses are, for the most part, working from a script, where young Conor O'Hanlon is placed to react naturally to the drama around him. Hackworth is clearly interested in the process of performance, that of a theatrical style interacting with that of a more natural, improvised style. The problem though, is that the leading man, O'Hanlon, is particularly drab, uninteresting and thoroughly uninspired on screen. Hackworth's surrealist approach, borrowing heavily from Michael Haneke, Gus Van Sant and David Lynch, fails spectacularly because there are no characters to identify with and his film is technically bland. Hackworth admits to intervening in the original concept during the shoot to move the drama forward, but even then it becomes too obscure and certainly, uneven in tone. The highlight is a scene which is quite funny and awkward, but in retrospect, this doesn't fit with the rest of the character of the film at all. He aims for cathartic, but ends up with a flat mess. Let's hope that Hackworth's next film actually works. The 'cinema of ideas rather than a cinema of story' style just doesn't work for him.
3.5 on the DaveScale.
(dir. Ben Hackworth, Australia, 95 mins)
*edit - Ben Hackworth is the director of this film.
7 comments:
First of all.. I think you have the wrong name of the director.
This is my take:
Mystery and voyeuristic suspense in an abstract and even distant way abounds most of "Corroboree"from its very beginning right through to the end. We are taken on a very private, aesthetically beautiful and tonal journey, the darkness prevalent but also the light of nature, of the magic of light. It is a strange film, a film of unexplained urges and inclinations, a very physical and adventurous drama of daring and unique intimations. The suspense builds because of the silence and paucity of dialogue at times, which makes the audience work all their senses at once. Many questions spring to mind but most importantly there is a pervasive and lasting thought that one must not raise logical questions for logic and rationality seem to be no longer present and appear not to even need to exist. The control of Conor, the feeling that he is suspending criticism of those around him and his overriding acceptance and non-resistance to this journey are cues to how we are to engage in the drama that unfolds. I thought of Ingmar Bergman's "Cries and Whispers" and Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice" with Bogarde and a beautiful young man I thought reminded me of Conor with the glory of unlined and glowing young flesh. As a painter of such beauty, at least knowing I could most sensitively paint that flesh, especially with the visually resplendent last image of blood streaming down the torso, so extreme and yet with so much control and silence, is a haunting vision that stays with one.
I am not sure I understood a lot of the film. It tore at all the logical and everyday humdrum notions of what films are usually all about or how predictable they are, in the way they appeal to the popular masses. Perhaps I could be critical about some parts of the film but only if I could truly come up with an alternative reality but that would ultimately only be subjective and not my prerogative, for I am a mere onlooker and observer.
Many questions are summoned to the forefront of my at times feeble consciousness.....as a lover of aesthetically beautiful and visual feasts, I would have to say that Conor afforded a lavish smorgasbord of assorted visual treasures which the film takes with it, bringing Conor from an obscure unknown and unassertive stance into the drama which then unfolded in all its personal and yet impersonal and at times cold and abstract way... The distances are accentuated from person to person, the private dramas of some of the characters seem to create distance or there is a quality of estrangement from the characters in the film. A deliberately undeveloped feeling of the characters is created.
I found this quote which betokens a meaning I might ascribe to the film:
"I want very much to tell, to talk about, the wholeness inside every human being. It's a strange thing that every human being has a sort of dignity or wholeness in him, and out of that develops relationships to other human beings, tensions, misunderstandings, tenderness, coming in contact, touching and being touched, the cutting off of a contact and what happens then." (Bergman in John Simon's book Ingmar Bergman Directs, 1972)
a) I would like to know when Van Sant has ever used a surrealist approach. To Die For?
b) where this film borrows "heavily" from Haneke or Lynch or ... in fact Van Sant in content and/or style. Last Days has a similar natural feel perhaps.... Mulholland drive a similar look at the identity of actresses -- but seriously...Mulholland drive s derivative of Altman's "3 women" ... and the obsession for actresses eternally unending circle of identity/persona is a preoccupation of cinema in general. Mancieviecz, Almodovar, Depleschin etc.
c) And lastly -- when is this film actually surreal?
I'm just curious.
If anyone were to be referenced in terms of this film borrowing a style I would suggest Imamura, Tsai-ming Liang or Jarmusch... but then again...it has its own particular style and drawing comparisons is just ... for a better attempt .... looking for a way of calling the film "original".
I guess now we know the shape of reasonably
intelligent people's qualms with this uncompromising film.
Matter of taste, I'd say. He is only aware of
art and cinema as an opportunistic grab-bag of other people's ideas (hence his cliched Empire Magazine dweeb's use of the term 'borrows heavily from' followed by an obvious selection of superficial comparisons.
Lack of 'character's to identify with'? If we handed
the audience one of those, the whole shared effort at empathy would be a pretty tokenistic one. Get your dick out of your hand, Dave, and have an adventure in someone else's shoes.
Drab... the lead boy Conor? Dave seems to get that Conor is playing an unprepared, interloper 'Adonis'... So if Adonis's are drab, then Dave better go get a girlfriend.
... After all, I don't seem to recall ever seeing the
'Davescale' quoted on a DVD cover. Those who can't do, blog.
Wow. How great to see such articulate, insightful comments. Thank you.
I will try my best to answer some questions:
I think technically, the film looks and feels a lot like Haneke (Cache) and Van Sant (Last Days) films I've seen. It features very long, quiet scenes with still, distant camera work capturing very broad ideas. I believe that Hackworth has instilled a 'Lynchian' elusiveness to the film, also.
As far as I'm aware, the term surreal can refer to having 'dream-like' qualities. Again, this is a 'Lynchian' characteristic.
Annie, I wouldn't care to have an adventure like Conor's, and I can assure you that my dick is well and truly in my pants. At no stage was I excited by the film; the film did not arouse me in any way. Also, I'm sorry you don't agree with me on Conor's performance. I think he has a weak screen presence, but again, that is just my opinion.
I might also point out that the screening of Corroboree that I attended at the Sydney Film Festival had a lot less interest than other films I attended, a very small audience sadly, but the fact that a large percentage of the audience a. didn't clap and b. didn't bother to stay for the Q&A afterwards (in fact, some left during) says a great deal about the overall reception of the film. I wonder if it will ever be released theatrically or even make it to DVD...
I’ll have a look at the audience votes if I can and see how it stacks up come Festival end and report back. Perhaps I’m in the minority. Maybe I missed a brilliant film. Who knows, but I’ve got the guts to have my say regardless, even if it does resemble that of an ‘Empire Magazine dweeb’.
Dave
I'm sorry that Cache and Last Days are the only films you've seen with long static shots. Maybe you need to broaden your vocabulary of cinema.... And rating the film SURREAL because you don't get it does not mean the film is SURREAL. It works with magic realist techniques in a few places but for the most part works in some form of "personalised" naturalism.
By the looks of what you've been seeing (with the exception of "Climates"...which you also negatively rated) you do...
ps ben...not stuart hackworth.
But as you're so far off the mark... stuart is fine.
This initially promising film is spoilt, first by the acting of the male lead, then by its unoriginal ending.
I get the impression that director/screenwriter Ben Hackworth didn't know what to do to wrap things up. Newsflash: critics are not wowed by an attempt to be profound through randomness/obscurity. "The emperor has no clothes", indeed.
The composition and cinematography are commendable, and I hope Mr Hackworth gives us some great films in the future. Corroboree is not one of those films.
-Paul
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