This is a nice little easy watching, low effort movie. I had it on while doing some housework and it just flowed along nicely. Hugo Weaving is always good and very watchable. David Wenham is OK. The character of Katya is interesting and not too stereotypical (match making client not mail order bride or prostitute) and even better, she looked great in her sexy outfits and was not stick bandit thin, more like a real woman. The ending was perhaps a little clunky and the big gaps in the time line along the way (this happens at the start too) could perhaps be better emphasised with cinematic devices. All the same, worth getting out one day for an afternoon on the couch with some choccies or to keep an eye on while you're doing the ironing or cooking dinner somesuch.
Reviews
2 Reviews
Russian Doll
(2001)
Cute little movie, quite nice sets and not too demanding performances
23 September 2010
September
(2007)
Subtle and powerful
23 September 2010
Warning: Spoilers
This film is set in 1968, an interesting era in history.
Someone has questioned the family's financial position as wheat farmers, so here is a little context. Following on the wheat boards formed during the wars in Australia for the government to buy all wheat harvested, the wheat board guaranteed a minimum price paid to farmers, based partly on the cost of production with a certain profit margin. As the wheat belt in WA expanded, marketing arrangements were revised to reduce this subsidy and drop the guaranteed price in 1968. In 1969 the government considered there was an oversupply of wheat, which led it to bring in some quite severe production quotas (which prompted Leonard Casley of Hutt River to protest, try and claim compensation from the Queen, and eventually secede to form Australia's oldest micronation). The same year a severe drought in WA reduced the area sown by something like a third. At the same time, political pressure was mounting towards a freer, less supported market and although it wasn't really deregulated until twenty years later, the first critical changes were made in this period. It was an interesting time to be a wheat farmer and one which many farmers, particularly those advancing into new and marginal cropping areas, did not survive.
Non-Australian viewers may not be aware that it was also an interesting era in Australia's largely shameful colonial indigenous history. A national referendum in May 1967 approved amendments to the constitution to allow Aboriginal people to be counted as part of the population (and also allowed the Federal government to make laws just for Aboriginal people). Many other political events occurred during this era such as fights for land rights and equal pay (separate to the referendum). NT stockmen won equal pay in 1966. Changes to Federal departments in the early 1970s saw the end of the policies and processes that led to the Stolen Generations. It was a time of major upheaval and increasing rights for Aborigines, but not without some resistance and dissent from the white population. Particularly in the farming community, which I know from experience in the WA wheatbelt still has a strong redneck element to this day (who else would elect Wilson Tuckey for 30 years?).
It is interesting to note that women in Australia also did not get equal pay until laws were passed in 1969.
The film is quietly paced and very subtle, with atmospheric and powerful cinematography. It is almost peaceful the way the scenes pass across the screen. Two good-looking, seemingly quite young families. Two fathers, two wives, two sons. The Aboriginal family with a couple of extra mouths to feed. Each family with a dog or two. Powerful contrasts and comparisons of daily lives. I thought there were some omissions in the way the separate lives were filmed but perhaps that put more emphasis on what we did see.
I suspected the slow pace of the film would be interrupted by some terrible event, but everyone was still standing at the end, to my relief. I was happy to note that the cross-cultural tensions were based on friendships between men and men, boys and boys, not the more frequently seen cross-cultural romance.
A nice film for a lazy spring afternoon in.
Someone has questioned the family's financial position as wheat farmers, so here is a little context. Following on the wheat boards formed during the wars in Australia for the government to buy all wheat harvested, the wheat board guaranteed a minimum price paid to farmers, based partly on the cost of production with a certain profit margin. As the wheat belt in WA expanded, marketing arrangements were revised to reduce this subsidy and drop the guaranteed price in 1968. In 1969 the government considered there was an oversupply of wheat, which led it to bring in some quite severe production quotas (which prompted Leonard Casley of Hutt River to protest, try and claim compensation from the Queen, and eventually secede to form Australia's oldest micronation). The same year a severe drought in WA reduced the area sown by something like a third. At the same time, political pressure was mounting towards a freer, less supported market and although it wasn't really deregulated until twenty years later, the first critical changes were made in this period. It was an interesting time to be a wheat farmer and one which many farmers, particularly those advancing into new and marginal cropping areas, did not survive.
Non-Australian viewers may not be aware that it was also an interesting era in Australia's largely shameful colonial indigenous history. A national referendum in May 1967 approved amendments to the constitution to allow Aboriginal people to be counted as part of the population (and also allowed the Federal government to make laws just for Aboriginal people). Many other political events occurred during this era such as fights for land rights and equal pay (separate to the referendum). NT stockmen won equal pay in 1966. Changes to Federal departments in the early 1970s saw the end of the policies and processes that led to the Stolen Generations. It was a time of major upheaval and increasing rights for Aborigines, but not without some resistance and dissent from the white population. Particularly in the farming community, which I know from experience in the WA wheatbelt still has a strong redneck element to this day (who else would elect Wilson Tuckey for 30 years?).
It is interesting to note that women in Australia also did not get equal pay until laws were passed in 1969.
The film is quietly paced and very subtle, with atmospheric and powerful cinematography. It is almost peaceful the way the scenes pass across the screen. Two good-looking, seemingly quite young families. Two fathers, two wives, two sons. The Aboriginal family with a couple of extra mouths to feed. Each family with a dog or two. Powerful contrasts and comparisons of daily lives. I thought there were some omissions in the way the separate lives were filmed but perhaps that put more emphasis on what we did see.
I suspected the slow pace of the film would be interrupted by some terrible event, but everyone was still standing at the end, to my relief. I was happy to note that the cross-cultural tensions were based on friendships between men and men, boys and boys, not the more frequently seen cross-cultural romance.
A nice film for a lazy spring afternoon in.
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