Contemporary Australia: Women

49 Tony Ayres China/Australia b.1961 The Home Song Stories (production stills) 2007 35mm, colour, Dolby digital, 99 minutes Where is romance? Love and sex are seen as complex terrain in Australian films; there are very few instances of pure romance or of tenderness between the sexes. There is a lovely moment in Road to Nhill 1997, where Monica Maughan’s character comes to understand just how worried her taciturn husband (Tony Barry) has been after she survives a car accident; she realises how much affection and love underscores their relationship, and she squeezes his hand in sympathy. It is such an understated moment, but it conveys a wealth of meaning and is truly moving. The tentative reaching-out in Look Both Ways 2005 between the characters played by Justine Clarke and William McInnes, both scared in their own way, is the touching beginning of a love affair. Similarly, in Better Than Sex 2000, there is an attempt to come to grips with contemporary relationships in a realistic way. In Griff the Invisible 2010, the romance between Griff (Ryan Kwanten) and Melody (Maeve Dermody) is a sweet coming together of two oddballs, but the truly moving moment comes when Griff’s brother accepts and accommodates his sibling’s eccentricity. Two Indigenous films in the program feature poignant love stories. In Warwick Thornton’s Samson and Delilah 2009, the two young characters have to endure a harsh world before emerging, at the end, with a glimmer of hope. In Ivan Sen’s Beneath Clouds 2002, the road trip accidentally shared by Lena (Dannielle Hall) and Vaughn (Damian Pitt) leads to empathy and understanding, and even compassion, after a scratchy beginning. It is the young women in both films who are vulnerable. Both are victims of attempted abductions, and are aware of the limitations of their existence within their communities. But, it is the young women who are stronger: Lena shows pure grit, while Delilah’s stoicism in the face of grim circumstances and despair is a truly beautiful thing. Both Samson and Delilah and Beneath Clouds are love stories underscored by a significant social context. Interestingly, in Beneath Clouds both children are seeking a parent: Vaughn wants to see his mother before she dies; Lena is seeking her Irish father, in order to find an alternative to the inevitability of her life, that of a young Indigenous girl living in a country town. The sisters in Shirley Barrett’s Love Serenade 1996 have no powers of discrimination when it comes to their sleazy, narcissistic neighbor — he’s a new man in town and both want him. Their supposed romantic ideal is a long way short of being any sort of decent human being; he’s happy to bed both sisters, as if women’s bodies are his due. Barrett presents sibling rivalry and interdependence in a funny and distinctively individual style. The need for connection through random sexual liaison is a feature of many films by Australian women filmmakers. Possibly the most provocative is the pathologically‑driven Kat (Emily Barclay) in Suburban Mayhem . She is a narcissist and her sexual liaisons don’t arise from any sort of emotional need. Her needs are practical: money and murder. She uses sex to gain power over her victims, who are gormless enough to fall for her wiles. It is interesting that filmmakers, both male and female, see women as the ones who indiscriminately indulge in sex. Men have extramarital affairs, but they aren’t usually portrayed as being sexual profligates. There are a few exceptions however. In Jonathan Teplitzky’s BurningMan 2011, Tom, excellently portrayed by Matthew Goode, flings himself into multiple sexual encounters with a succession of partners in a paroxysm of grief. Also in Wasted on the Young 2010, a transgressive libido is running rampant at an exclusive private school; the ugly side of male sexuality emerges as arrogance and competition among the students underscore motivation. Two films by women about the young and single, Emma‑Kate Croghan’s Love and Other Catastrophes 1996 and Louise Alston’s Jucy 2010, both embrace their rather singular worlds with gusto, humour and a great affection for their characters. This is in marked contrast to the two films by men about life in the last years of school, Murali K Thalluri’s 2:37 2006 and Ben C Lucas’s Wasted on the Young , which present a much grimmer picture of adolescent life. Interestingly, the women depicted tend to be supportive of one another, the men competitive, narcissistic and cruel. Women in contemporary Australian cinema