Lived It

Snack: Australia invented movies and we simply don’t talk about it enough

Episode Summary

The story of the world’s first feature film (Australian!), the rise of the comedy-drama (Australian!), and why we have so much cultural cringe (very Australian!). All in this episode with Alexei Toliopoulos and Gen Fricker.

Episode Notes

Episode Transcription

Alexei Toliopoulos:

You're listening to the Big Film Buffet, and we're coming at you with the snack edition. I am Alexie Toliopoulos and joining me as always is Gen Fricker.

Gen Fricker:

Hello, g'day. I know that we're talking about a very special passion of yours, a corner of the cinematic tradition that I feel like you gunned for harder than anyone else.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Ah yes, I root for them big time. Absolutely. I've been scouring Netflix recently and it has warmed my very chilly cockles to see what a wonderful influx Netflix has had of classic Australian films, and more than just classic Australian films, hidden gems of Australian cinema.

Gen Fricker:

Okay.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Because I think we have a great filmic history here in Australia. I mean, we made the very first feature length film here in Australia in around 1906. It's not a real release date because it kind of came out in a road show format. The film, The Story Of The Kelly Gang, which was the first feature length, full length film that of course told the story of Ned Kelly and his gang. Since then, I think people have not held that tradition, knowing that Australia was groundbreaking at one point when it came to film.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Then the stuff that's kind of on Netflix at the moment is I think another point in history where Australia had this very powerful new wave of interesting storytelling. There's a lot of films from like that 90s to early 2000s period kind of coming out on Netflix now. I hope they find a second life on the platform because these are films that I think really pushed the boundary of what film was doing and were kind of a precursor to, I guess, American indie movements of the 2000. I think Australia was doing stuff that America wanted to do, but like a full decade ahead of them.

Gen Fricker:

Really?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah.

Gen Fricker:

What would you kind of make a comparison between?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Well, I would say that, when you think of American indies of the 2000s, it's kind of the stuff like comedy dramas, that dramedy movement of that time. Really, Little Miss Sunshine is the pinnacle of that. Like great road movie, lots of heart but lots of laughs as well, but very sweet and tender. I think Australia was doing that blend of comedy and drama so well in that 1990s period. There's a film that is very little known. I didn't know about it until I was at film school and they screened it and I ended up writing a full essay about it because I did feel like this feels like a precursor to everything, a premonition.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

It's this movie called Love Serenade by filmmakers Shirley Barrett, kind of quirky comedy drama set in a rural town in Australia. At the heart of film are two sisters ... one of them played by the amazing Miranda Otto from the Lord of the Rings and so many other great films and TV series ... and her sister who are living in a small town. One of them works at a Chinese restaurant, the only restaurant in this town. Then this DJ comes in to work at the radio station, this older man, and it kind of starts a love triangle between them. But beyond that, this film has so many quirks, including this air of magic realism around it that is so unexpected and just ever so slightly surreal that I think that it's truly one of the real hidden gems of Australian cinema. I think it's so marvellously directed. The performances are just so beautiful. It just strikes this tone that I feel kind of you didn't really see again until something like Juno, where it feels so specific and such like this created slice of life from a world not seen before.

Gen Fricker:

[inaudible 00:03:57].

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh, I'm so glad I am. I need everyone to see Love Serenade.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah, and is that on Netflix?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

That's on Netflix right now. I had to buy like a really dodgy DVD copy and now it's just on high definition to watch on Netflix.

Gen Fricker:

That's crazy.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

It blows my mind.

Gen Fricker:

If this film is so great, and that sounds way more accusatory, if actually ... "If it's so great, Alexie ..." but why do you think people have forgotten about this film and miss this film?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I think it's part of that feeling of something coming before the world's ready for it. Because it is so specific, it is this little oddity of a film that people maybe hadn't seen anything quite like it before. And, you know, with Australian films, how much marketing can they really get behind them where they can just last forever in the public consciousness? There's like, you know, The Castle has done that and then something like Wake in Fright has been able to do that to a lesser extent. But I think that it's harder for a film from Australia to really break through and then have an everlasting place in the canon.

Gen Fricker:

You mentioned Juno and that kind of parallel between Love Serenades and the specificity of it. Why do you think Australian cinema was doing that before it really became popularised worldwide?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, it's that kind of Sundance-y vibe, I would say, which is like independent quirky cinema. I really do think that it's part of this Australian language, like this Australiana. We would like to think of ourselves in Australia, I think we broadly do have like a national identity of being very funny people, people that have like a positive spin on life to kind of find that silver lining to bring humour to things, that great Australian larrikinism, if you will, where we kind of celebrate the idea of the working class, blue collar, but also it's about bringing this type of humour to dark spots, to seriousness. One of my favourite Australian movies is a movie Muriel's Wedding, which I think hits this so well. If you read the plot to that film, which is a sad woman, her sad mom dies, she gets into a sad, fake marriage, but we revere it as one of the great comedies in this country.

Gen Fricker:

Totally, yeah. It's so dark. I'll speak to that.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

It's one of the darkest movies. It's so sad, but because it's got this big bursting heart full of charm, sweetness, and emotion, which is all about finding the positivity in life and spinning it with humour, I think that's something that feels very uniquely Australian that then kind of found an identity overseas later on, possibly inspired by those big movies like Muriel's wedding and The Castle and stuff.

Gen Fricker:

I noticed that for a lot of people, especially Australians, they might not be that familiar or into Australians. Why do you reckon people don't get around it as much when it comes from our own backyard?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, I think we're hitting on something really like [inaudible 00:07:09], which is like that idea of cultural cringe. By comparing what Australian's filmic output is to other international cinemas, namely Hollywood cinema, and because Australian film largely is independent cinema, no matter how much backing they have, it still is the backing of a big, independent film at any other part of the world. Baz Luhrmann is the one exclusion, I would say, to that. But I think that there's something that Australians have like this self cultural cringe, this kind of cringey reflection on themselves where they don't like to see their worlds always reflected.

Gen Fricker:

Totally.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Or that feeling of like, do we match up? Do we compare to other things?

Gen Fricker:

It's certainly something I've noticed with music, that people often really resistant to music where you can hear someone's Australian accent in it. But then on the flip side, when you hear Australian artists with American accents or British accents, you're like, "What is this?" Do you think it's one of those things as well, because we are so uncomfortable seeing ourselves on screen that we have to kind of wait for America to pick up on it first before we get on board?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, I think that's right. Like movies like Animal Kingdom that have a big breakthrough moment overseas where our actors like Jackie Weaver get Oscar nominations. Then Ben Mendelsohn gets to be in Star Wars and Marvel movies. I think that once that happens, we feel like this patriotism, this national pride for those films that you maybe don't get if they're just a homegrown hit.

Gen Fricker:

Totally. It's almost like we go like tall poppy syndrome where we're like, "Who do you think you are making a movie?" And then once it crosses a certain threshold, we're like, "That's Australia's Miranda Otto there."

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I think you're spot on, but it's not the only one up there. There's a great glut of Aussie films on there right now. One of them I'd love to give a shout out to is Sweet Country by Warwick Thornton.

Gen Fricker:

You always talk about this movie.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh my Lord, this is so special to me, this movie. It's a great Aussie Western set just after World War One. It has so many environments that I'd never seen before in any film ever. There's these salt flats that they go to. It felt like a science fiction environment I had never seen before, and it's in my own country. Warwick Thornton is a fantastic indigenous filmmaker who also made Samson and Delilah. He has such a singular, very relevant voice. But the reason I wanted to bring it up is because actually in Sweet Country, they go to a screening in a small town of the aforementioned first feature film in history, the Story of the Kelly Gang.

Gen Fricker:

Right, so it's like a period film made today. that features a film made like over a hundred years ago.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah. It's like this kind of meta textual feeling of film history just coming right at you.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. Right. Okay, what else should we be watching?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Well, a movie that you and I have talked about a few times, Two Hands?

Gen Fricker:

Yes.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Heath Ledger, Rose Byrne, gangster movie set in Kings Cross.

Gen Fricker:

Ah, so good. I also feel like movies set in Sydney don't really exist anymore.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah.

Gen Fricker:

I think Sydney is so often used as a blank canvas, like a general city ...

Alexei Toliopoulos:

For big Hollywood movies that film here.

Gen Fricker:

Totally. So it is really nice to watch movies that are very firmly set in a very specific time and place.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Absolutely, and when you watch Two Hands, isn't there that sadness, that powerful sad nostalgia for just what Sydney used to be like?

Gen Fricker:

Oh, totally. Now it's all yoga studios.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah. I miss that grubby stuff.

Gen Fricker:

Yeah. I do miss the grubby stuff that I never had to live through because I was too young.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I was on just the edge of it. I worked at a video store very briefly in the Cross. And yes, there was troubled times there, but also David Wenham, Susie Porter used to come in to the shop and I'd fanboy over them. I had to pretend they were just some regular ass customer, but little did they know? I knew they were a star.

Gen Fricker:

Well, David Wenham and Susie Porter, if you're listening, which I assume, of course you are. Little creepy Alexei knew exactly who you were the whole time.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yes. I didn't use anything with your information that came up on the computer. Don't worry. I didn't do anything weird to it.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Another one of my real top favourite films of all time, Alex Dimitriades and Ana Kokkinos' film, Head On, which is about a young gay Greek boy coming to terms with his sexuality. I love Alex Dimitriades. I could talk about him forever.

Gen Fricker:

And we have talked about him before. I mean famously [inaudible 00:11:37] butchery.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yes, he was the butcher.

Gen Fricker:

You might have heard in a snack episode a few weeks ago.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Yeah, and honestly he DJs around town.

Gen Fricker:

Oh that's right. He's DJ Boogey Monster.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Boogey Monster the DJ.

Gen Fricker:

I think there's one film that I find myself going back to a lot. I remember watching it in the movies at the time, which I was like way too young for. But it's one that I think kind of really represents ... I love comedy obviously, and Australian comedy, that Australian sensibility ... is Crackerjack. It's on Netflix at the moment. It's got Mick Molloy, who people will know from a very extensive Korean radio and also Judith Lucy, she's the romantic comedic lead in that.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

I loved you Judith Lucy in a romantic comedy set around balls.

Gen Fricker:

Lawn bowls, yeah.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Can you get more Australian?

Gen Fricker:

And there's a lot of generational humour.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh yeah.

Gen Fricker:

It's a stoner comedy. Again, something I completely missed at the time, but I just love Judith Lucy. She doesn't get enough credit.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

She's one of the [inaudible 00:12:42].

Gen Fricker:

Judith Lucy. I'm trying to do her voice.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

"Hello. It's me, Judith Lucy. And I absolutely love red wine. I love red wine and I smoke cigarettes."

Gen Fricker:

I just heard there's a line [inaudible 00:12:57], like, "One more of these and I'll be anyone's." Is that a good Judith Lucy?

Alexei Toliopoulos:

That's a good Judith Lucy.

Gen Fricker:

Oh.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh it's me, Judith.

Gen Fricker:

It's me, Judith Lucy.

Alexei Toliopoulos:

Oh, hi, Rose, it's me ...