Archive for the ‘Australia’ Category

Just a tree?

Written and directed by Julie Bertuccelli – Since Otar Left (2003) – The Tree (2010) is an adaptation of the novel Our Father Who Art in the Tree by Judy Pascoe, and had the honour of closing the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

It’s a family drama set in Boonah in Queensland, Australia, where there is a huge Morten Bay fig tree that ‘whispers’.

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Heart of darkness

Can’t you just feel the excitement? Picturenose is approaching its 300th post (this would be number 294), so a good time to talk about Vinyan (2008), the most recent film by Belgian horror master, Fabrice Du Welz.

Regular PN readers will be only too aware how well Du Welz’s first film, Calvaire (The Ordeal) (2004) went down with yours truly – as a lifelong horror fan (but only the good stuff, mind), it numbers among the most frightening films I have ever seen and, as I confessed with my initial review, actually gave me a nightmare.

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Nothing wizard here

Always a worrying sign, when a studio places an embargo on critics at the world’s first screening of a film, as happened with Australia (2008) – the inevitable question is: ‘So, does 20th Century Fox know something really bad that we don’t?’

Unfortunately, it would appear that the answer is pretty much in the affirmative. Baz Luhrmann is a director who has split audiences and critics alike down the years – the pro-votes tend to veer towards his sublime Romeo and Juliet (1996) (well, I say sublime but Colin, of course, hated it) and, of course, the brilliant Strictly Ballroom (1992), which differs from the recent BBC craze Strictly Come Dancing in that it isn’t fucking awful, while the naysayers tend to gang up on Moulin Rouge (2001) – its star, Nicole Kidman, was Oscar nominated, but it’s nevertheless an overblown and somewhat insincere musical maelstrom.

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