Moving

As the semester has come to a close, I have decided to stop updating this blog. I definitely enjoy writing one though, so I am giving Tumblr a go. The theme of my new blog ‘Australiana’ will broadly be Australian history, culture, media and writing but anything that takes my fancy too.  Find me here:

http://australiana.tumblr.com/

Gabby.

Assignment 2: Web stories Part 2

The stories below are written with arts and culture site The Enthusiast in mind.

The Enthusiast is an Australian online magazine of culture and the popular arts, launched in January 2009. It is the first project of Infinite Ape Media, a partnership established in April 2008. Infinite Ape Media is Mel Campbell, Andrew Tijs and Daniel Zugna, three Melbourne journalists.

We publish news, opinion, features and review across the categories of Music, Television, Film, Books, Advertising, The Stage, The Media and Ephemera (which is everything else). Irregular columns include The Tough Question, The Stupid Question, The Bargain Bin, Best of the Bestseller Lists, Bourgie Barometer, Exhumed, Parlour Games, The Best Stuff On TV This Week, Schmooze Reviews and The Biscuiteer. The Enthusiast is also the new home of the Crikey!-endorsed Subeditorial Antics Appreciation Society.

Review: Love the Beast

DVD Release July 15.

Directed by: Eric Bana
Starring: Eric Bana and friends, Dr Phil McGraw, Jay Leno, Jeremy Clarkson
Distributed by: Madman Entertainment

 

 

“Vroooom Vroooom…neeerrrrr neerrrrrr neeeeeeeeeeerrrr….”

That is the sound of a kid playing ‘cars’. It is also the sound that goes through your head when you play a car-based computer game (even though there is also a soundtrack), and when you sit, as an oversized giant with knees spilling over the sides, in a pretend car in a kid’s playground. It is also, rather distractingly, the one sound that I heard in my own head for the entire length of Eric Bana’s directorial debut.

With his recent run of serious acting roles, in Munich, Troy, and Black Hawk Down, one could almost forget that Bana is, in essence, a very funny man.  I had almost forgotten his time with Full Frontal (I blame my parents because I wasn’t allowed to watch it so my memories are pervaded by the fear which held my quivering index finger over the power button on the remote, in case any authority figure should spring me), and his role in The Castle, though hilarious in its simplicity, was minor.

A documentary about Bana the man, not the actor, therefore, is the perfect medium to remind us of his pokerfaced, earnest wit. Love the Beast, as the name suggests, is a love story about Bana and his car, a Ford GT Falcon Coupe. Not this genre of cars, mind you, but this particular car, the same one he has owned for 25 years. If you think the car is probably going to be a minor part of the story, you may be disappointed. The film is a homage to the Beast, showing it from all angles, stationary and moving, inside and out. Vroooom.

But of course, the car is only one part of a more complex story, about male bonding, object loving and getting back to yer roots. After building a backstory, involving Bana’s acquisition of the car, and introducing his parents and best mates, the film follows Bana’s street-rallying career – described as one of the most dangerous forms of motorsport. Bana and mates attend rallies and fix faults, bickering and teasing each other along the way. The tension builds as they take part in the five-day Targa Tasmania rally, where after a nervous start they slowly build confidence in a way that makes you think something is going to go wrong. And it does (this link is a bit of spoiler so click at your own risk).

It is at this juncture that the film takes a disconcertingly Hollywood turn – both stylistically and literally. Though still sprinkled with wit and genuine emotion, Bana is spirited away from his childhood home in Essendon to attend to red carpet duties, and in the process, goes on a soul-searching journey.

The trailer and promotions for the film suggest that celebrities Jay Leno, Dr Phil and Jeremy Clarkson might be a major part of the story, but their cameos are bunched into this particular storyline.  They are quite entertaining, and somewhat insightful, but no more so than Bana’s mates at home. Their presence unbalances the film. Perhaps if they had been dotted throughout the narrative, you might feel less suspicious that their role was nothing more than a promotional tool.

Overall though, Love the Beast is moving and surprisingly emotionally convincing car love story. Even if you’re not a motorhead, Bana’s humour and passion are contagious. And if you do get at all bored with it, you can always supplement the dialogue with car noises in your head.

Photo credit: Bana by Vern Norrgard/http://www.flickr.com/photos/norrgard/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

Aqua Profonda: The inner-city answer to the beach

Sometimes, long afterwards, it’s possible to look back and see the beginning of things… the point at which you’d already plunged in, though at the time you thought you were only testing the water with your toe.

- Monkey Grip, Helen Garner

On a hot day a week or so ago I am on the phone to my friend in Sydney. She mentions that she had seen dolphins at the beach at Bronte that morning. Trumped once more by Sydney’s physical beauty, I sheepishly tell her I was also thinking of going for a swim. I can hear her grinning down the phone. “But you don’t have a beach?” she offers, “Where will you go?” “I’m going to Fitzroy Pool,” I say. “Oh!” she says respectfully. “Like Monkey Grip!”

At first glance, the suburban pool is not an object of beauty. Though many a happy Australian childhood was spent there, inhaling the toxic combination of chlorine, sunscreen and melting confectionery on the pavement, it is designed for recreation, not for aesthetic pleasure.  Bodies of water do have their own mystique, whatever the circumstances, but the combination of bright blue paint, red and yellow lane ropes, and authoritative signs telling you not to run or dive proscribes the poetry somewhat.

Yet many people have found beauty here anyway. When the local council threatened to close the Fitzroy Pool in 1994, the community gathered together and occupied the pool for six weeks, which halted to the process. Now, the Aqua Profonda sign marking the deep end of the pool and immortalised by Garner’s book is heritage-listed. There is a strong sense of history here, and generations of families return to the pool, many who now bring their children here remember its significance in their own teenage memories.

Immersed at the end of a lane or sitting on a bench at the poolside, you realise that fitness and cooling down are only small elements of the social ecosystem at play here. Groups of eight teenagers sit on the side, four girls and four boys all studiously ignoring the one they like the best. The girls try to appear nonchalant about their almost nakedness and the boys splash around them also pretending not to care. Eventually someone always gets chucked in amongst screams of protest and laughter.

As you move your way down the ‘Slow Lane’ you see flashes of headless bodies playing around in the aisles next to you, interlaced with audio clips of laughter and talking as your head dips in and out of the water. It’s like music video, albeit a meditative one. There is plenty of time to think when swimming; it is the one place where you can’t listen to music or answer your phone. You can either use this time to think profoundly or try to keep count of your laps.

The seats along the side of the pool are strangely divided: beautiful people, who never used to have a place here, reside on the steps, hipsters on the lounges. I think it’s because of the full sun on the steps. Families are generally on the other side, or in the baby enclosure with its cloudy paddling pool.

It is a meeting place of all types, and observing the transformation that takes place when people replace their work suits with swim suits is fascinating.  If they were on the other side of the high pool fence, in the middle of inner-city Melbourne, they’d look and feel absolutely ridiculous. But inside the pool it is summer, with all the carefree attitude and flirting that the season entails. For only $5, you can escape the heat and watch the human parade – even if you don’t see dolphins dancing in the waves.

Photo credit: ‘Fiona Flip 3′ by Popofatticus/http://www.flickr.com/photos/barretthall/ / CC BY 2.0