Contemporary Australia: Women

45 Cate Shortland Australia b.1968 Somersault (production still) 2004 35mm, colour, Dolby digital, 106 minutes Women in contemporary Australian cinema Australia has an extraordinary number of women involved in film, with many holding key roles — director, producer, cinematographer, production designer, editor, composer, writer. The ‘new wave’ of Australian cinema that emerged in the 1970s coincided with renewed zest and political consciousness in the form of the women’s movement. We were done with burning bras — we wanted the real thing; we wanted participation on any level in any field; we wanted respect for achievement. Unlike other established industries in Australia at the time, the film industry, because it was enjoying a resurgence, offered opportunities for women in a way that the established industries of Great Britain, United States and Europe — and certainly Asia — did not. We had director Gillian Armstrong, cinematographer Jan Kenny and producer–screenwriter Joan Long in a fledgling industry that grew to embrace more and more women as consciousness grew regarding the possibility of women’s participation and contribution. As a woman in the Australian film industry, you were unlikely to have a 50/50 chance of making your mark in cinema, but you certainly had a better chance than in most other places. It is significant that, in 2010, of the 19 films in contention for the AFI Awards, eight were directed by women. This history has played a part in reducing gender inequality in Australian filmmaking, which is why it is possible to program an outstanding exhibition of cinema by women and about women, and — to gain some perspective on representation — about women by men. Wild women It has been a fascinating process, revisiting films from the past two-and-a-half decades for the Contemporary Australia: Women in Film program. The program extends back nearly 25 years so as to include Jane Campion’s bravely different Sweetie 1989, a film unlike any other that Australia has produced, except possibly for Paul Goldman’s Suburban Mayhem 2006, the brainchild of writer Alice Bell and producer Leah Churchill-Brown. In both films, the protagonist is a wild child, prone to antisocial whims. These films present an intense relationship between father and daughter in which the audience perceives a destructive urge emanating from the one cosseted, loved and spoiled towards the love giver. In Suburban Mayhem , the relationship seems more terrifyingly psychopathic than in Sweetie , but the subversive edge of both films encourages the questioning of the nurturing landscape. On their release, neither film reached the audience they deserved, although both are intensely interesting and accomplished. It is frustrating that Australian audiences tend to the conventional in their tastes. The unseen woman There she is — the woman in a relationship who is present but not acknowledged, unknown by her partner, her needs unperceived and certainly not met. The unseen woman appears often in Australian film, notably in Innocence 2000 and Alexandra’s Project 2003, both written and directed by men, Paul Cox and Rolf de Heer, respectively. In Cox’s case, the character played by Julia Blake feels unseen by her husband of many years and bravely embraces a romance with the sweetheart of her youth. It is a touching, painful and honest film. Things are different in Alexandra’s Project , in which Gary Sweet, as the husband, is put through a well‑crafted act of revenge by his wife, played by Helen Buday, as she thinks he only sees her as an outlet for his sexual release. But, de Heer is playing with his audience here. Did the husband actually deserve his punishment for an excess of libido and a lack of, shall we say, discretion and consideration in his approach to sexual play. Significantly, the wife’s long-planned revenge is financed by income from activities many would not consider housewifely. In Blessed 2009, directed by Ana Kokkinos, Deborra‑Lee Furness, one of Australia’s most accomplished actors, plays a wife who finds nourishment in a semi-sexual relationship outside her marriage. Her husband, played by William McInnes, is unable to engage with her on any intimate level until a near tragedy forces confessions. Interestingly, Andrew Bovell, who was one of the writers of Blessed , also wrote Lantana 2001, in which Kerry Armstrong’s character of the wife is alienated from her husband, Anthony LaPaglia, who seeks sexual gratification outside his marriage with divorcee Women in contemporary Australian cinema Margaret Pomeranz