Each year, a post appears on a news website sounding the alarm that Australian cinema is dead. It’s dying! It’s all going down and you better start selling the furniture now because how else will you make some of the money back? Well, folks, I’m here to say that I’ve not seen any articles of the such so far, so I’ll proudly pick up the baton and bemoan the death of Australian cinema.
But Andrew! You wrote up a list of thirty of the best Australian films of the year! How can the industry be dying?
Well, me, thanks for asking that question. I appreciate it. I’ll jump right into that exact topic in just a moment. First of all, I want to mention that this post is going to be full of a lot of ‘what about me’ whinging, so if that’s not your thing, then thanks for the click!
Still here? Great.
Warwick Thornton’s Sweet Country is one of the greatest films Australian cinema has ever been fortunate enough to witness. It swept the 8th AACTA Awards, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing. It joins the likes of Lion, Hacksaw Ridge, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Babadook/The Water Diviner, The Great Gatsby, The Sapphires, and Red Dog, as being the cream of the crop when it comes to Australian cinema as deemed by the Australian film industry.
Yet, unlike Lion, Hacksaw Ridge, and Mad Max: Fury Road, Sweet Country is decidedly absent from awards discussions and ‘Best Films of 2018’ lists. Where those films all garnered Best Picture nominations at the Academy Awards (mostly thanks to the international names and funding attached to them), Sweet Country is nowhere to be found in the discussion of films worthy of such an honour.
(Quick aside: to get a grasp on why I’ve written this long piece about Sweet Country, here are a pair of reviews about why it’s a good film: Variety and Fiction Machine.)
In a discussion like this, it’s hard to find an entry point that easily answers the question of ‘why isn’t Sweet Country being talked about more?’ The first response to that question is: does Sweet Country warrant being discussed in end of year lists? For me, I believe it does. But, it’ll take a bit of scene setting to explain why it warrants discussion.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I buy into my own hype. I love Australian films more than the average viewer and have created a platform that aims to elevate the awareness and discussion about Australian cinema. I’ve had my fair share of questions about whether I’m bias in favour of Australian cinema – and sure, I’ll cop to that. I get it. When someone goes on about one thing so much, it’s easy to raise an eyebrow and question whether they’re over-invested in that subject.
But, unlike Margaret Pomeranz, I don’t give Australian films a free ride. Margaret was quite vocal in giving Australian films an extra half a star when she rated them as she knew the value of her voice and the ability that both David and herself had in getting people to go and see films. When David and Margaret rated Warwick Thornton’s debut film, Samson & Delilah, a rare double five star rating, it helped propel the film up the box office charts with a gross of $3,188,931 in Australia. But, this was in an era when Australian audiences listened to Australian film critics (well, two of them at least).
That critical acclaim from David and Margaret meant the world when At the Movies was on TV. Folks would sit down on a Wednesday night and catch the reviews for the films that were opening the following day. The water cooler discussion launched right there and then, with people going on about whatever argument David and Margaret had last night, or the fact that they miraculously agreed on something and gave a film a double five star rating. Their opinions mattered and carried weight, and people went and saw films because of their opinions. Viewers picked sides, it was easy to dissolve your tastes into either critic, and people knew exactly what kind of film fan you were just by saying you were either a ‘David’ or a ‘Margaret’.
That era is long gone.
Where indigenous stories had been shown on screen before – Jedda, Walkabout, Rabbit-Proof Fence, The Tracker -, they’d so often been told from a non-indigenous directors perspective. They’re great films, but lack that lived-in experience from an indigenous voice. Samson and Delilah helped crack open indigenous cinema in a way that many films had struggled to do beforehand.
Rachel Perkins debut film, Radiance, was a transformative film for me, showcasing three aboriginal sisters talking about their lives. It’s beautiful stuff with great performances, and a vibrancy I’d never seen on film before. (It’s worthwhile noting that Warwick Thornton was the cinematographer on Radiance, as he has been for many indigenous films.) Then, of course, Ivan Sen’s essential debut film Beneath Clouds, brought a indigenous perspective to Aussie youth. Both are great films, but none broke through to audiences domestically and internationally in the way that Samson and Delilah did.
From the success of Samson and Delilah came films like The Sapphires, Stone Bros., Here I Am, Bran Nue Dae, and the Australian indigenous cinema revival was born. Indigenous stories told by indigenous Australians. Films like The Sapphires look at significant moments in indigenous Australian history and brought them to a wider audience. Wayne Blair’s film won Best Picture that year at the AACTA awards and hit $14,535,031 at the Australian box office. A great achievement for a great film. Internationally, The Sapphires copped a disgusting case of whitewashing, with promotional material putting Chris O’Dowd front and centre, misrepresenting the film completely.
So, domestically, indigenous cinema was doing alright. Internationally, it was struggling to gain attention. Samson and Delilah won Warwick Thornton the Caméra d'Or (Golden Camera Award) at Cannes – an award given to ‘Best First Film’ – sharing the honour with previous recipients like Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay!), Jafar Panahi (The White Balloon), Steve McQueen (Hunger), and Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise). That award alone should have propelled Warwick to international acclaim and brought the spotlight fairly onto indigenous Australian cinema.
Instead, there was nothing.
Even though Sweet Country could be the best reviewed Australian film of the decade, it doesn’t appear to matter one bit. No matter how much excitement critics in Australia have for Australian films, Australian audiences simply don’t go and see them in the numbers that matter. Granted, this is part of a wider discussion that’s shaking the film criticism scene around the world where audiences see the presence of film criticism as some kind of war. Rotten Tomatoes percentages are bandied about like a baton where audiences (and filmmakers) rail against critics for not loving their films for whatever reason, and if they do love a film and it fails, then the critics are ‘out of touch’ with society, or paid studio shills.
My favourite example of this is the antagonism that was thrown at Aussie critic Travis Johnson for his review of Ready Player One – trundle over and read the comments that were directed at Travis for a film that he saw before anyone commenting did and see the blatant hypocrisy in action. It’s not uncommon to hear filmmakers throw around the phrase ‘this one is for the fans’ as a subtle way of saying, ‘look, this film is critic proof, audiences will love it regardless of its quality’. But, for fear I’ll dive down a rabbit hole I can’t escape, I’ll leave that topic alone for now and jump onto what Warwick Thornton said about Sweet Country when he was out doing promotional rounds for it.
From an interview with Aussie critic Luke Buckmaster in The Guardian (another voice you should read, folks), Warwick says:
“If we want to man up, or stand up as a country and move forward, we need to know about our history,” Thornton says. “The film is completely truthful about history, even though it’s fiction. I think Australia is really ready for films like this. We’ve got constitutional recognition, conversations about treaties. If you want to go into those conversations with better knowledge, it’s a good film to watch about Australia’s past.”
And here’s why Sweet Country deserves to be talked about in end of year lists. It’s a film that explores the racism and hatred towards first nations people in colonial Australia from an indigenous perspective. For Australia to become a better country, we need to address where we’ve come from and explore the foundations of what made Australia the place it is today. That means looking at the trauma that British heritage inflicted on Australian soil.
This part of Australian history has never been explored in cinema in the way that Warwick Thornton does with Sweet Country. So often we see the plight of the white man in the tough, rugged Australian landscape - Lucky Country or The Proposition for example - but never the plight of indigenous Australians at the hands of white men. This is a film that demands to be reckoned with. It demands you acknowledge the past that lives in every Australian. It’s as if Warwick is challenging viewers to realise that just by saying ‘sorry’, the impact of the genocide of first nations people is not wiped away.
In that regard, it’s vital for Australian audiences that films like Sweet Country exist, but it’s even more necessary for international audiences so they understand what kind of country Australia once was. If 12 Years a Slave can be used to display what slavery in America was like, then why can’t Sweet Country be used for the same purpose?
The critical path for 12 Years a Slave began at the Telluride film festival, where critics immediately lauded it as one of the most important American films ever made. The narrative of importance and relevance for the film was set in stone from the get go, making it a film that audiences and critics simply could not miss out on.
Film critics around the world like to appear to embrace world cinema in all its permutations. There’s always seems to be a race to be ‘the one’ to bring a film to the film loving community. Critics often (mostly American) will be the ones to get to see these films first at the many festivals that roll out around the worlds. Whether it be Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance, or <insert name here> festival, you bet that there’ll be critics from all over itching to get that review up first. While criticism lacks the weight that it used to in the era of Roger Ebert and co., it does still pay to be ‘first’ in the industry. And a positive review can make a small film big.
With that said, websites like Little White Lies and Slant Magazine can easily push a film into the eye line of the exhausted cinephiles out there. For film lovers, it can be a tiring endeavour to keep up with the latest releases – while at the same time, trying to catch up with the never ending shame pile of classics that demand attention – so having a magazine like Little White Lies drop a review for Sweet Country that gives it a 5/5 should help push it into the attention of film lovers who want to engage in international cinema. Now, this isn’t always the case, but in theoretical terms, it should apply to cineastes above all else.
Yet, here’s where my foot stomping comes into play:
Where the fuck is Sweet Country on ‘Best of 2018’ film lists?
It currently sits at 95% on Rotten Tomatoes – well and truly fresh, with 85 reviews counted. It shares the honour of being part of a group of almost 200 movies that were Certified Fresh in 2018.
Over on Metacritic, Sweet Country sits comfortably in the eighth position alongside Bisbee 17, Can You Ever Forgive Me, Hereditary, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as being some of the films with a rating of 87/100. Almost all of the other films in the list are mentioned at length in ‘Best of 2018’ lists.
The lists that have featured Sweet Country include:
The Irish Times – ranked 27th out of 50
The Guardian (UK) – ranked 40th out of 50
The Guardian (US) – ranked 42nd out of 50
Vue Weekly – not ranked
BBC Culture – not ranked
Scene 360 – ranked 7th out of 10
So, it’s appeared on a few lists, but nothing major like Variety or The Hollywood Reporter or Indiewire, but it is out there on some lists.
Here’s where I need to give myself a reality check:
I love Sweet Country. I think I’ve made that pretty clear with the coverage I’ve given on this site, as well as the constant mentioning of the film on social media. I honestly believe that if it had the Coen Brothers-level name on it, it would be sitting right at the top of the Oscar prediction charts and people would be falling over themselves to call it the best film of the year.
But, it isn’t directed by the Coen Brothers. Nope. It’s directed by Warwick Thornton – an indigenous Australian filmmaker.
There’s little that’s ‘romantic’ about Australia. It’s a harsh, desolate place. There’s a misguided perspective that everything in Australia wants to kill you. The wounds that birthed modern Australia still bleed, and the reconciliation that indigenous Australia deserves remains disturbingly absent. Sweet Country comes along, digging deep into those wounds and explores Australian history from an indigenous perspective, working to get viewers to understand and empathise that this trauma resonates through time.
This is not to say that American history is ‘romantic’ – quite the opposite. It’s just that there are more people willing to have the discussion about American history than there are willing to explore Australia’s history.
In a year where Spike Lee looked at the history of racism in America with BlacKkKlansman and held a mirror up to society and forced us to realise how little has changed, it’s a shame that the same accolades that are (justifiably) lauded onto that film aren’t applied to Sweet Country. Films about American history and the racism that has unfurled through time regularly get discussed – mostly because racism is still a major issue plaguing the country at large. 12 Years a Slave comes along and wins Best Picture at the Academy Awards. It’s a film that’s equally as traumatic a watch as Sweet Country – nobody leaves the film feeling better than they went in.
(I want to make it clear, I’m not saying these films shouldn’t be discussed, I’m merely asking, why aren’t Australian films added into the discussion?)
Maybe that’s why Sweet Country failed to connect with people on a wider scale? While America is open to explore its history and the foundations that the country was built on, Australia is a country that is less open to this occurring. So when Sweet Country comes along and digs into the traumatic past of Australia, viewers shrug their shoulders and say it’s too bleak, or too dark, or boring. As Warwick Thornton said, Sweet Country is a film that’s for Australia. But, if Australia doesn’t even bother to embrace Sweet Country, then what’s the point?
Heck, what’s the point of the AACTA Awards if it does little to encourage people to watch the films that win? The AACTA Awards have already gone through an identity crisis of late with purely American films (Hacksaw Ridge and The Great Gatsby) winning the top prize simply because they had Australian funding and because they were made in Australia. In a bid to try and be relevant to international audiences, the AACTA Awards appear to kowtow to decidedly non-Australian films. It comes off as a little bit desperate.
From an international perspective, the AACTA’s barely get a mention in the news. Variety put out a quick copy and paste of the press release announcing the awards, and The Hollywood Reporter gave a puff piece about Nicole Kidman winning an award (Sweet Country doesn’t get a mention til paragraph four) but there’s little value put in the awards themselves – especially when compared to the BAFTA’s or the Cesar’s. This is part of a wider discussion that definitely needs to be had, with the instigating question being: what makes an Australian film Australian?
After all, if you take a quick gander at the box office for Australian cinema this year, you’ll find that the decidedly un-Australian Peter Rabbit is the highest grossing Australian film of the year. The irony is real – the rabbit-proof fence couldn’t stop the invasion of the lupine maniacs in this bastardisation of Beatrix Potter’s greatest creation on the Australian box office.
Here is a look at the top ten Australian films for 2018 (figures taken from Box Office Mojo):
- Peter Rabbit - $20,492,835 (8 overall)
- Ladies in Black - $8,531,553 (26 overall)
- Breath - $3,285,371 (61 overall)
- Sweet Country - $1,386,039 (95 overall)
- Swinging Safari - $1,236,408 (98 overall)
- Boy Erased - $943,141 (103 overall)
- Gurrumul - $704,070 (113 overall)
- Winchester - $554,343 (121 overall)
- Working Class Boy - $535,182 (125 overall)
- Mary Magdalene - $420,705 (143 overall)
Now, nobody expected a film like Sweet Country to be the top of the box office, and its return of $1,386,039 is a very modest take. But, Australian films need to start becoming relevant internationally for them to push past being discussed in a small group of dedicated film fans. Yes, there are many out there who push the Australian film agenda – and for those that do, thank you! – but what use is an Australian film industry if it’s not reaching abroad? What use is a catalogue of Australian culture if there are few people engaging with it?
When Australian film is embraced internationally, it’s usually via genre fare like The Babadook or Animal Kingdom or even 2018’s Upgrade. These are great films, but wouldn’t it be great if people used those films as launching pads to explore Australian cinema as a whole? As problematic as Australia Day is, it’s disturbing to see the absence of international celebration for Australia in the way of ‘Top 10 Australian films’ lists and the like.
Wouldn’t it be great if cineastes around the world took a look down under and saw the wealth of content that Australian cinema offers? It’s disappointing to see that Australia’s first colour film, Jedda, is under represented in discussions about 1950’s cinema. On top of this, prolific director Charles Chauvel is absent from most discussions about the formation of cinema around the world. The lack of attention given to the 100th anniversary of one of Australia’s finest films, The Sentimental Bloke, is devastating.
When I did a recent Twitter poll, I asked people if they had heard of Sweet Country – out of 78 votes, 60% said they had heard of it. The next question was whether people had seen Sweet Country. The votes were lower, with 46 in total, and 59% saying ‘no, they hadn’t seen it’. Over on Facebook, the poll fared worse, with almost 100 votes returning a result of 37% people having viewed Sweet Country. Isn’t it a crying shame that the film that took out the Best Picture at Australia’s Academy Awards is underseen, and in turn, fairly unknown? Where are all the people out on the street talking about it? Or for that matter, any Australian film?
I also asked my followers on Twitter if they could name five Australian directors. The same few names popped up – George Miller, Peter Weir, um, that guy, and the other one too. It’s not that the work of Fred Schepisi isn’t worth discussing, it’s just that in the realm of film discussion, Australian directors rarely get a mention. Where is the international recognition for Australia’s finest director, Rolf de Heer? Where are the de Heer retrospectives? Or the books on Australian directors and films?
(Before you jump up and say, well, if you want a book on Australian directors, write one – thanks, I’m well aware that I have the ability to do it myself, but one person alone does not make a discussion, it is merely a lonely voice in an empty hall. Plus, I’m working on it.)
It broke my heart recently that an Aussie director was excited by the fact that their really great film was going to be playing on domestic flights in Australia. This is one of those films that the anti-Aussie film chest beaters say we don’t make any more – you know, the folks who say we should make more films like The Castle or Crocodile Dundee, and then in the same breath say that they haven’t been to the cinema since 1987. It broke my heart that they were excited mostly because it’s an extremely desperate situation when filmmakers know that they’re likely to get a larger audience from passengers in a plane than anywhere else. We have to rely on strapping audiences down into seats they can’t move from to watch Australian cinema. How disappointing is that?
(I need to clarify - it’s great that they were excited, and it’s great their film will be seen by more people, but it’s disappointing that it has to be this way for that kind of audience reach to occur.)
What happened to the Aussie spirit of backing other Aussies? We do it for sportspeople, we do it for ‘the farmers’, we do it for the battlers. So why not for Australian cinema?
Instead, Australian cinema gets a huge middle finger and a massive ‘get fucked’. Whether it’s piracy or the misguided mentality that filmmakers are rolling in cash (spoiler alert: they’re not), Australian cinema is treated like trash from Australia as a whole.
Here’s where I admit I’m being decidedly selective with my facts. Films like The Dressmaker have made it big both domestically and internationally. It’s a huge success on Amazon Prime in America, and regularly gets brought up in online discussions. But, for a film that’s set in 1950’s country Australia, it’s – how do I put this politely? – white as fuck. So, while Australia is happy to embrace films like The Dressmaker and Ladies in Black, they’re less keen on embracing stories that showcase indigenous stories.
(And yes, I’m selectively omitting Mad Max: Fury Road and The Babadook and Lion - these films are exceptions, not the rules.)
This is not to say that there isn’t an audience for indigenous entertainment, it’s just that the distribution system needs to accommodate the smaller audience system that Australia’s cinema fosters. The yard stick for a films success will always be a financial one, and that alone helps push films into wider discussions. Heck, one of the very few reasons we’re still talking about Venom is due to how bonkers its success has been.
When Sweet Country rolled out around Australia in early 2018, there were remote regions which missed out on getting the film. The target audience for Sweet Country should ideally be universal across Australia, but given Australia’s indigenous population live predominantly in regional areas, the fact that areas that would appreciate it the most were going to miss out was a real shame. The town of Dubbo was most irate about it, eventually starting a petition to ‘Bring Sweet Country to Dubbo’. It took a while, but sure enough, Warwick Thornton ended up hand delivering the film to the town and held a Q&A for attendees.
Filmmaker Q&A’s have proven to be a popular way of getting viewers along to go and see these films, but surely getting a brush with celebrity shouldn’t be the only way of getting people to see these films? Surely quality alone should be enough to get viewers to seek out Australian cinema? People are surprised that Australia released more than ten films in each year, but how do we stop them being surprised and instead turn the discussion into, ‘shit, there’s too many Australian films for me to keep up with this year!’? I don’t have an answer for that, and I’m not sure anybody does.
Sasha Stone wrote an article recently about Damien Chazelle’s film First Man. In it, she mentions that ‘movies are personal’. For her, First Man was a testament to the achievements of America, a love letter to a president who dreamed of ambition, of what it means to be a parent, and what it means to lose a child. It’s a great read, and I recommend you dig into it.
While I disagree with her on the film, I can see the importance of First Man for her and America as a whole. I appreciate the way it explores American history. Just like Sweet Country, First Man has all but disappeared from discussion at the end of the year. It’s on a small handful of ‘Best of’ lists, and no doubt the champions of the film will carry on the torch for it as long as they can.
Which is where I wind up this long diatribe that’s been bouncing around in my head for the past few months. I first saw Sweet Country in December 2017, and I’ve seen it twice since that viewing. I’m more convinced than ever before that this is a powerful, important piece of cinema. Not only is it a great Australian film, it’s a great film all round. Warwick Thornton should be held up high and discussed in the same breath as the greats of cinema. Maybe it’ll take another film or two for the rest of the world to catch up, but given the immediacy of entertainment nowadays, there is simply no excuse to not embrace Warwick Thornton as a filmmaker right now. Where many filmmakers are compared to great European directors (just look at the discussions surrounding Roma and the comparisons to Fellini), Warwick Thornton feels like a unique voice, influenced by himself and his culture.
When I interviewed Warwick, I asked him about the grounded perspective that he presents in Sweet Country, and he mentioned how it was important for the viewer to understand that this is how indigenous folk traversed the land. They didn’t have a drone to show them where to go, they simply knew where to go from the lay of the land. The film puts you in Sam Kelly’s (Hamilton Morris) shoes, presenting how he would see the world.
Is this film for everyone? No. Of course not. No film is. Do I believe that Sweet Country has been given a hard wrap by the film loving community? Yeah, a little bit. For every Zama or Burning or Minding the Gap, there’s a Sweet Country or a Strange Colours or a Island of the Lost Souls that slips through the cracks. It’s the inevitability of cinema - there are always new films to dive into, new directors catalogues to explore, or the back catalogue of a countries film library to peruse. It’s never ending, it’s exhaustive and exhausting, but it’s why we love cinema. The variety, the challenges it presents, the unique voices - there is always something new to embrace.
I don’t have a solution to solving the desperate problem that is facing Australian cinema – and mark my words, it is desperate. I wish that film criticism embraced Australian cinema more, I wish that audiences around Australia would embrace Australian cinema more, and dammit, I wish that Australian filmmakers would embrace Australian cinema more. Every so often an Aussie filmmaker will shoot out a tweet in support for a small Australian film – Russell Crowe telling his followers to check out Backtrack Boys was a particularly sweet one – but the industry as a whole treats filmmaking as a competition.
If Australia won’t embrace Australian cinema, then it’s up to the international community to recognise the value of Australian cinema and show us the value of embracing our own art. If that doesn’t happen, then I’m not sure what else can be done. I know I won’t shut up about it, and heck, I’ll keep pushing Sweet Country onto anyone that will listen. I just wish there were more out there doing exactly that.
I know these 4000 words have been an exercise in navel gazing and self-absorbed pap asking ‘what about me’, and maybe this next sentence shows the level of my naivety and ignorance, but I really thought that Sweet Country would be a film that would be embraced by the film loving community at large. And yes, it’s disappointing when that doesn’t happen – we’ve all got that one film that we tell everybody that they simply must see it, and they never do – I had simply hoped that this time it would be different.
So, here’s a task for you in 2019 – seek out at least two Australian films from that year. Keep reading and supporting the critics that you read, but also seek out those you’ve not heard of. Seek out the films that aren’t being discussed, and when you find one you love, keep talking about it until everyone you know tweets at you saying ‘it must be time for Andrew to send out his daily “Have you seen Sweet Country yet?” tweet’. And most importantly, embrace independent cinema and be passionate about it. 2019 will be a year where it will need you the most. Stand by it and support it and embrace it. You’ll miss it when it’s gone.