Critic's Voice
FCCA 2018 Winners Span A Century Of Australian Stories by Simon Foster
A review of the winners and nominees for the FCCA’s 2018 Awards.
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Critic's Voice
Loveless – A review by Mary Colbert
The film’s catalyst is the disappearance of a 12 year old boy, a disappearance unnoticed for two days by the boy’s toxically co-habiting, divorcing parents who, burdened by the presence of a child from their union, impatiently want to move in with their respective new lovers.
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Critic's Voice
Midnight Oil 1984 – a review by Peter Galvin
This, then, is the story of Ray Argall’s Midnight Oil 1984, a thoroughly compelling sort of backstage tour film cum/observational doco where social and political portraiture is of equal importance to capturing a rock show in full flight. Argall was on tour with the band in ’84 and shot 8400 metres of film on 16mm. It sat in a vault for thirty years.
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Critic's Voice
Gurrumul – a Review by Jane Freebury
A few days before Geoffrey GurrumulYunupingu passed away last year at the age of 46, he agreed to the release of this tribute to his life and work. It now arrives on screen just the way it was when last seen by the musician in July.
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Critic's Voice
Covering The 68th Berlin Film Festival (2018) – by Julian Wood
Film festivals really started as sort of trade fairs, and a lot of films are still bought and sold in the early market period of the Berlin Film Festival but it has now become a huge attraction for all those who write or broadcast about film. Journos of all descriptions certainly buzz around the Berlinale, […]
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Critic's Voice
Sweet Country – A Review by Jane Freebury
There’s a burning intensity to Sweet Country, a tale of revenge in the Australian outback where men turn against each other with guns and are violent with women and children. Although much of the violence is not shown in the frame, it is not this that gives the film its intensity as much as it is the passionate outrage that director Warwick Thornton brings to this work.
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Critic's Voice
Mary Magdalene – A Review by CJ Johnson
It feels like a third of the screen time is spent on Mara’s face. And not speaking: people rarely speak in Mary Magdalene; it is a film of very little dialogue, almost entirely made of mood. But the mood it makes… well, it’s pretty magical.
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Critic's Voice
Mountain – A Review by Jane Freebury
A modest 74 minutes long, this new documentary from local filmmaker Jennifer Peedom, is actually one continuous montage of fabulous, indomitable mountains and the people who interact with them. A wealth of gorgeous mountain wilderness images flashes by. You could say it is on the brisk side. But to take in its immense beauty […]
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Critic's Voice
Ali’s Wedding – A Review by Jane Freebury
Smitten by a lovely girl at the local mosque and eager to make his father and family proud, a young man tells a lie. It’s such a colossal deception that he couldn’t possibly get away with it, but he’s such a guileless, pure-hearted dreamer that the few people who want to exact shame and punishment […]
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