Bad Boy Bubby (1993, Rolf de Heer)
Australian cinema is often discerned for its perverse, unconventional and highly distinctive approach to both storytelling and narrative. Rolf de Heer's slice of outlandishness perhaps best encapsulates this very notion. This is an extremely
odd work, and a highly unique one at that. It explores the taboo with a immense level of intrepidity and never artistically compensates itself for the average viewer. It's also one of the most technically unconventional films in all of Australian cinema, having more than five cinematographers, with each bringing a different visual eye and style to the table. The result: a very aberrant film.
Snowtown (2011, Justin Kurzel)
This is perhaps one of the most bleakest, dismal, perturbing, harrowing and distressful films Australia has to offer. The fact that it's based on a true story (one of the country's most notoriously sadistic serial killers) makes it all the more compelling and unnerving. This is relentlessly real filmmaking, largely using non-professional actors (many from the suburb of Snowtown, itself, where the killings originated), and having a truly gritty,
rough artistic sensibility. This film was photographed on grainy, stocky photochemical film, reminiscent of those low-budget, independent horror films of the 1970s and 80s. This just adds to its (already) sordid atmosphere. Do see it.
The Rover (2014, David Michod)
A chillingly elemental and minimalist slice of rural Australian filmmaking. I believe it failed to resonate with audiences because it is so deceptively simple - it is no way near as thematically complex as Michod's previous work, Animal Kingdom, and this is precisely why Cannes were largely underwhelmed with it. It is a masterful exercise in mood and atmosphere, and, consequently, a remarkably straightforward film. It's also impeccably photographed, capturing the stark, unforgiving, yet oddly alluring outback of the Australian desert masterfully.
The Castle (1997, Rob Sitch)
A lot of film from the 'lucky country' is about disseminating a certain image of the homeland to a foreign audience. It's about sharing our cultural identity and heritage. This film doesn't do that, though. This is a movie by Australians for Australians.. Perhaps no other work captures the idiosyncrasies, the subculture, the average suburban working class family more astutely and more accurately than this. It also contains some of the best black
Aussie humour you'll ever come across.
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975, Peter Weir)
Weir's New Wave masterwork is one of the most hauntingly beautiful, eerie, and suggestive films in all of cinema. The sound design is absolutely remarkable, as is Russel Boyd's criminally overlooked cinematography. This film embodies what cinema from Australia is all about. It explores our spiritual relationship with the mystifying and haunting landscape we brutally stole and occupied from the indigenous people. It explores the urges of carnality in a formal, orderly, and oppressive society. Heck, you might even save it explores the prospects of time travel. It's a fascinating film, and engenders some deep discourse.
The Year My Voice Broke (1987, John Duigan)
Perhaps the defining coming-of-age tale in rural, bucolic Australia. It's a wonderfully human tale, written with care and honesty, and directed with a great deal of restraint. It's a very simple film, but told in a way that feels sincere. With that being said, it still has some dosages of facetiousness and black comedy, but this only heightens the work to one that transcends the customary conventions of the drama and romance genre. It manages to find and maintain the right balance throughout. It's really a film in need of more recognition.
Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002, Phillip Noyce)
Certainly, one of the most salient Australian films, purely in terms of subject matter, for at least the last 20-30 years. It might be a bit conventional, a bit overly-sentimental, and a bit cliched, but it still ultimately proves to be a tough, poignant and shattering depiction of a period in Australian history that has been notoriously suppressed and swept under the rugs. It's beautiful on a technical level, like most films set in the stark and alien outback.
Long Weekend (1978, Colin Eggleston)
While this work may no be as artistically dexterous as some of its other New Wave counterparts, it's still an interesting, effective and compelling horror. Thematically, it's what we've come to expect from Australian cinema. It explicates upon some of the subjects explored in Picnic at Hanging Rock or Wake in Fright or The Last Wave - our connection with this capricious, foreign land that we've inhabited, and the consequences from our genocidal occupation.
Chopper (2000, Andrew Dominik)
This is a radically stylistic, toweringly performed, darkly comic and brutally grim film. That just about sums it up. Eric Bana is amazingly good and Dominik clearly shows signs of a director with a distinctive and unique vision. This is a forceful and immersive viewing, capturing both the sadism and charisma of one of Australia's most recognisable and notorious serial killers.
Ghosts...of the Civil Dead (1988, John Hillcoat)
This is heavily stylised, unconventional prison drama that has a great degree of universality to it. The photography is undoubtedly one of its finest strengths, as is the sound design and editing. It may feel a bit dated and it may feel a bit immoderate and overblown, but it's still a film that engenders some interesting tonalities and original ideas that we don't see too often in prison dramas anymore.
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