fan zine number nine
The Australian film industry has gotten a bit of a buzz about it in recent years. Films like “Animal Kingdom”, “The Rover” and of course, the latest “Mad Max” all did extremely well both domestically and internationally.
ScrEEniNG ToNight
However, there have also been a surprising number of female directed features receiving critical and popular acclaim outside of Australia - think “52 Tuesdays” and “The Dressmaker”. Each of these features show the diversity of theme and genre amongst our Antipodean sisters! This collection of shorts comes from the next generation of exciting female filmmakers emerging in Australia. They explore differing subject matter but have similar sensibilities which, as a programmer, I feel highlight the distinctive rhythm of Aussie humour and/ or sensitivities.
Sarah McIntosh, Reel Women founder
LEMONADE STAND In Alethea Jones’s ‘Lemonade Stand’, stylisation and goofy humour reign supreme. Her quirky short incorporates self-consciously clunky animations, exaggerated characters and a key plot feature in the form of some grotesque unwashed socks. As such, the film has an extremely distinctive feel to it, and its off-beat appeal manages to gain and maintain an audience’s attention throughout. Its engaging nature is helped by the film’s consistent and thorough sense of its own world. In particular, its consistently well-judged comic timing helps it to thrive — across writing, performance and editing, the delivery of unusual and often dark jokes is wellplaced and entertaining. Furthermore, its simple but stylised aesthetic completes the sense of its world, with an off-kilter take on domesticity being apparent in both production design and in editing. Tying the film together is its three key performances, which are all well-executed and contribute consistently to the clarity and flavour of the narrative — through them, an audience understands and enjoys the mad little world that Alethea Jones has constructed. - Emma Wilkinson
OH NO! HAIR!
ScrEEniNG ToNight
OH NO! HAIR! Three words we’ve all thought at some point... and this short documentary may just get inside your head. In her dulcet Aussie tones, director-narrator walks us first through her personal relationship with hair removal, to its shaky history, right to the mixed responses of four influential figures in her life. We hear from women who shave, women who don’t and even one guy, Simon, who actually prefers partners with body hair. In its running time of just over six minutes, this 2012 film by Burbidge and Daniel Livesey manages to ask new and sensible questions about something many of us no longer think about. Is it all the media’s influence, or is it just easier to blend in? Might we biologically like body hair? And not forgetting: To change a lifetime of conditioning, where do we begin? For a tiny film, OH NO! HAIR! clearly has some big ambitions and such a cool and not to mention refreshing take on this prickly subject is well worth six minutes of your life.
buy on dvd
-Xanthe Gilmore
Jennifer Kent’s
the babadook In the way that the best horror films do, this hangs the encroaching supernatural elements on very real-world fears to heighten them; in protagonist Amelia’s case, the terror and shame of being thought of as a bad mother. (Her job at a care home plays into this as well; it’s a horror film about gender expectations and affective labour.) She’s Jack and Wendy Torrance at the same time, with the film engaging in what is still a taboo topic - the possibility that parents might actually hate their children. Every element of the film builds the sense of dread from the first frame; the colour palette is exclusively drab greys and deep blacks; exteriors are harsh and bleached; interiors are shadow-filled. The soundtrack is peppered with discordant buzzing and creaking, bringing us into Amelia’s waking nightmare, sleep deprived and paranoid. Even the “happy” ending is a depiction of living with the horror rather than vanquishing it; as good a metaphor for managing trauma as any. - Jim Moore
Lizzie Scourfield reviews Victoria Thaine’s
kingdom of doug
KINGDOM OF DOUG follows Josie, a young woman who belongs to a cult led by charismatic leader Doug, as they gather in an ice skating rink to commit a mass suicide. Uncertainty arises as Josie’s faith in Doug wanes, and she begins to question their decision. The short manages to convey the dark subject matter as startlingly matter-of- fact, with the genial setting and normality of tone creating an interesting contrast to the morbid narrative. There is a tension created early on which draws the viewer into the narrative and creates an almost uncomfortable level of emotional investment for a character that has been introduced for such a short amount of time. It successfully brings a dramatic topic into an everyday world, highlighted by the calm and neutral manner of character interaction and the muted colour palette. It is a film that manages to be both tender and uneasy, raising questions on notions of faith, life and love in the most understated and interesting way.
ScrEEniNG ToNight
ScrEEniNG ToNight
Ellen Burbidge’s short ‘Brothers’ is a moving and truthful insight into the behaviours and ideals of children. It uses its 16mm aesthetic to great advantage, giving a suitably grainy feel to the film. This helps to contribute to the overall distinctive style that the film possesses — one which is both a very convincing portrait of real life, and yet an individual world of its own. The prominent featuring of young children was a potentially difficult choice to make, but almost always is one that pays off in this case. While there are moments of uncertainty, for the most part, the children provide the magic that the film demands them to bring. This slightly uneven element also continues in the film’s structure, where the general flow and pace of the film occasionally feels disjointed. However, these instances form part of the mildly chaotic domestic setup that the film follows, and do not impede the film from being highly charming and emotionally engaging. - Emma Wilkinson ALL CONTENT COPYRIGHT ©TAKE ONE ©REEL WOMEN 2016
crossing the mainstream
Why are the Ghostbustresses so hard for some people to love? Men who think things like ghostbusting and gaming aren’t for girls are just overgrown toddlers who never learned to share. They’re to be pitied, it’s pointless challenging them.
Most people, including you, dear reader, wouldn’t think twice about calling a Ghostbustress. But lots of grownup men think that everything cool is for them – it’s not just the adult babies. Blame society. They’re calmer about it, but their opinions echo the toddler bible, and don’t bear much close scrutiny. They even think that women who only fancy women are really for men. They think women aren’t interested in vehicles – whether it’s 1959 Cadillacs or speeding hearses with nuclear reactors taped to the roof rack – although it’s accepted that women may enjoy horses and rollercoasters. So is it that women don’t like wheels? Is that related to the innovation thing – women can’t be inventors, like Dr Abby Yates, or engineers, like Dr Jillian Holtzmann (woman fancier Kate McKinnon). They can’t light fires or change lightbulbs, in fact they struggle to comprehend most significant human discoveries. They can turn a vacuum cleaner on, of course, but they can’t build or mend one. We’re often referred to Kim Wallen’s experiment where rhesus monkeys were attracted to “gender-appropriate” toys – but if you look at the actual findings, “played with” expands to cover “glanced at/touched/picked up”. Only a very few monkeys tipped the stats. The females played equally with all toys. A significantly higher number of males played with the plush dog, which you could argue looks more like a baby monkey than a doll does. But nope, males aren’t interested in childcare (in fact any man who claims such an interest is probably a peedo if you ask Andrea Leadsom). The concept of male doctor Janosz Poha nannying Dana Barrett’s baby in GB2 was just an opportunity for a visual gag at the expense of cross dressers. Dig the himbo in the reboot. He looks like a Tom of Finland fantasy in a girlish tight top and pegged jeans – humiliating, ain’t it? A boilersuit on a female Ghostbuster is unlikely to raise a titter, but degrade a man with a feminine look and he’s risible. Who would want to look like a stoopid WOMAN? Some guys on Reddit complained that General Brienne’s armour in “The Force Awakens” (actually based on an early draft of the Kylo Ren armour) didn’t give away her gender. Bros might accidentally think she is a cool character. Bros might be offended that she is a woman who isn’t dressed to please them, a character who might not even particularly value male approval. OOYAH. (cont’d)
crossing the mainstream pt 2 Women don’t like wheels. It would be unthinkable for a woman to happily pimp a hearse into an Ecto-1. Men are best at all the cool stuff, whether it’s quantum physics, bantering with Sumerian gods, firing positron colliders or hurling proton grenades. Girls can’t throw unless their dads teach them (so what do they learn from their female games teachers, when they’re given a rounders ball or a javelin? Nothing, I guess, they just all flap around together like rioting Fraggles).
“Ain’t no women gonna bust no ghosts”, reads an online comment in the film – if you list the things women are “known” to be best at, they all relate safely to supporting men in admin or housekeeping roles. How are you supposed to impress, or be needed by a woman if she is your equal? By playing nice. But “nice” isn’t as easy as it sounds. The main villain in the reboot is a classic “nice guy”. Even though the equations he used to create his machine were stolen from a book written by two of the Ghostbusters, whose earlier careers he must have followed to some extent, he wails right in front of them something along the lines of “Nobody understands what it’s like to be an unrecognised genius”. He’s too self-absorbed to see the irony. At least three of the Ghostbusters are now smarting, but not having had any negotiation training, all they can come up with in response is to suggest tasty soup as a reason for living. The new GB offers some of the bureaucratic satire of the original, but the principal running theme here is the universal search for personal fulfilment, societal acceptance and self-respect. The evil in the original doesn’t have a human face” – well, it does here. It’s probably no coincidence that the villain seems to represent the vainglorious IRL haters of the reboot. He even *spoiler* tries to appropriate the whole concept by using the logo as an avatar – symbolising the way the franchise is being claimed by a certain noisy minority as their property – angry people with dinkles. This tragic movie villain is so angry that he’s managed to stomp a big, red portal through the ground – and he *spoiler* eventually disappears up his own glowing trans-dimensional arsehole, just as his IRL equivalents will. Disclaimer: There are billions of male GB fans, gamers and geeks who don’t think twice at sharing their nostalgia, joypads and fandoms with women. I wish they would speak out as often, or at least as loudly, as the toddlers do, though. That would be truly NICE. - Rosy Hunt, Editor of Take One Magazine
Lemonade JONES ...
Stand’s in her
ALETHEA own words
Looking forward: “I just want to make things in every medium. I’m a TV junkie at home, so I want to take that passion across to directing TV. To that effect, I’ve done director’s attachments on Rush and Neighbours, so I’ve been able to see how an episode is put together from the writing stage through to the edit. Features would be heavenly to make as well. I’ve also just started with TVCs, which in themselves are little bundles of contained energy.” Favourite male directresses: “I love Baz Luhrmann and his ostentatious treatment of story. I love Wes Anderson, and am really moved by P.T. Anderson’s older films, like Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love. Bit of a sucker for Woody Allen, too.” Telly addict: “In terms of TV, I’m really, really mad for Downton Abbey and Game Of Thrones.” On her most recent film Dave’s Dead: “The film is really big in vision, but we only had a few thousand dollars to make it. We had to stretch the money and really scrap to get it made. … You use up a lot of nervous energy asking things of people and making the best of what you have.” On surviving the scene: “The challenge is finding people that will work for free or very little money to help make a quality product. Often you’re working with inexperienced crew who are looking to log up hours and stuff for their reels. But those people who do commit are all heart, and that goes a long way.”