What is it about Australian movies?

[Mesquite-oh]

Check out 2010’s “Animal Kingdom” if you haven’t already. It is about a low life little crime family in Melbourne, very thrilling, very well made. I don’t want to give away to much of the good guy/bad guy element of the story, but the central conflict of becoming a good guy or a bad guy could have been set in just about any city across the world and felt right.

[Imasquare]

@GreedySmurf

IMO it has always been a bit of an ideal more than day to day practice, but the idea of our strong egalitarian ideals stemmed from rejecting the British class system.

We’d like to think that Australia has always been about giving some ‘a fair go’ regardless of where they’re from, who there parents were, etc. It’s a time-worn meme in Australia that you can never tell how rich and powerful someone is by their dress or how they talk. And to some extent that is true, Have a look at Clive Palmer for example, if you saw him on the street (which I actually did the other day, in a public phone box of all places), you’d never think he was one of the richest men in the country.

True enough, but equally look at Richard Branson in the UK or Warren Buffet in the US. And as far as ordinary everyday people go they seem pretty much the same where ever in the world I have been.

[Imasquare]

@Wolverine

I think you’ve been wooshed. Go back and read Imasquare’s comment again.

It wasn’t a joke. Australians (or more precisely the Australian media) are always talking about how egalitarian Australians are.

[Gatopescado]

Three of the best movies I’ve ever seen have been from Down Under (Breaker, Hanging Rock, Rabbit-proof Fence). Hanging Rock was seriously weird. Gallipoli was an excellent film, also.

Three of the worst movies I’ve ever seen have been from there, also (titles deleted from memory). All three were “thriller/chiller” type dreck. Painfully bad offerings. One was a “story” about 2 idiots going camping, taking a wrong turn and horror insues. Really poor.

The Town Eaten by Cars, or whatever, was pretty bad also, but not even Top 100 bad.

[astorian]

@Wendell_Wagner

ombre12, you make it sound like Australian films are untypical of the movies made around the world because they are more likely to have unhappy endings than those of most countries. On the contrary, I think that American films are untypical of the movies made around the world because they are more likely to have happy endings than those of most countries.

That MAY have been true in the days of the Hays Code, but modern American movies are no more likely to have unrealistically happy endings than Australian movies. That’s ESPECIALLY true in the horror genre, which is what the OP dwells on. The psycho killer in a typical American horror movie will get away scot free at the end, mainly because the producers would like to make a series of sequels, if it’s a hit.

Beyond that, sure, summer blockbusters usually end happily, but American films as a whole aren’t notably upbeat.

[Accidental_Martyr]

@Gatopescado

Three of the best movies I’ve ever seen have been from Down Under (Breaker, Hanging Rock, Rabbit-proof Fence). Hanging Rock was seriously weird. Gallipoli was an excellent film, also.

Three of the worst movies I’ve ever seen have been from there, also (titles deleted from memory). All three were “thriller/chiller” type dreck. Painfully bad offerings. One was a “story” about 2 idiots going camping, taking a wrong turn and horror insues. Really poor.

The Town Eaten by Cars, or whatever, was pretty bad also, but not even Top 100 bad.

The Cars That Ate Paris? I’ve never seen it but that’s the first feature film directed by Peter Weir who also directed Picnic at Hanging Rock.

[sisu]

@Accidental_Martyr

The Cars That Ate Paris? I’ve never seen it but that’s the first feature film directed by Peter Weir who also directed Picnic at Hanging Rock.

Favourite stoner movie when I was a kid!

[njtt]

@penultima_thule

You can get tied up in knots over cultural stereotypes but Australian don’t do the indestructable superhero, the “good guy gets ticked off, kills all the daddies and gets the girl” thriller though we’ll happily watch yours.

Seems rather Oedipal.

[rhysf]

My theory is that Australia is one of the few English-speaking countries with a mid-level film industry. I think the horror and thriller genres tend to work as well or even better with a low-to-middling budget than with a big budget - a less polished style seems to be more disturbing for some reason.

Equivalent films are probably made in the US but are overwhelmed by bigger films. The UK probably lies somewhere between the two.

Based on my theory, Canada should also be good at this. The only Canadian film I know is ‘Black Robe’ which falls into the OPs ‘bad’ category but was a co-production with Australia. I get the impression that some European countries, esp Scandinavia, are in a similar position and make films in the same genre.

Some other Australian films in this category - The Proposition (written by Nick Cave), The Boys, Snowtown, Ghosts of the Civil Dead.

[MovieMogul]

@Elendil_s_Heir

One of my all-time favorite movies is Breaker Morant, a historical court-martial drama and an Australian classic, and although there are certainly some moral shades of gray, two of the three “good guys” are executed at the end.

In all fairness, as terrific as that film is, it’s a virtual remake of the American Paths of Glory.

[MovieMogul]

@Gatopescado

Three of the best movies I’ve ever seen have been from Down Under (Breaker, Hanging Rock, Rabbit-proof Fence). Hanging Rock was seriously weird. Gallipoli was an excellent film, also.

Walkabout and The Last Wave both fit very comfortably in this list, too.

[lisiate]

@MovieMogul

In all fairness, as terrific as that film is, it’s a virtual remake of the American Paths of Glory.

Wow, that’s quite a trick seeing as Breaker Morant was executed more than 50 years before Kubrick’s film.

Not to mention the films aren’t really that similar at all…

[MovieMogul]

@lisiate

Wow, that’s quite a trick seeing as Breaker Morant was executed more than 50 years before Kubrick’s film.

Not to mention the films aren’t really that similar at all…

Three soldiers are put on trial by an arrogant military establishment for “crimes” on the battlefield that are less about justice and more about setting an example, demonstrating an obtuse and backwards way of thinking by generals completely out-of-touch with how a new type of warfare is playing out in the trenches. A majority of each film is about the courtroom proceedings (with some combat scenes and personal prison revelations), and despite a valiant defense, the three are railroaded all the way to a grossly unfair and callous execution.

But in one film, only 2 die while in the other, all 3 do. You’re right–hardly similar at all.

And just because Breaker was a real person doesn’t mean the film doesn’t follow an eerily similar trajectory to the other film. I’m not saying that it is a remake of the Kubrick (since it appears to be somewhat faithful to the original history); but in both its larger themes and specific incidents, it might as well be.

[lisiate]

Nonsense, shooting PoWs is vastly different from failing to advance. And hell the Director of Breaker Morant is on record as saying:

Bruce Beresford claimed the film was often misunderstood as the story of men railroaded by the British:

But that’s not what it’s about at all. The film never pretended for a moment that they weren’t guilty. It said they are guilty. But what was interesting about it was that it analysed why men in this situation would behave as they had never behaved before in their lives. It’s the pressures that are put to bear on people in war time… Look at all the things that happen in these countries committed by people who appear to be quite normal. That was what I was interested in examining. I always get amazed when people say to me that this is a film about poor Australians who were framed by the Brits.

Other than the number of defendants, and the fact both films revolve around court martials they really aren’t that similar at all.

[sisu]

@MovieMogul

In all fairness, as terrific as that film is, it’s a virtual remake of the American Paths of Glory.

pfft, it has a common story thread but in reality this is often a common meme in movies.

[Wendell_Wagner]

MovieMogul, although you’re right that there are a lot of interesting parallels between the two films, I don’t think you should use the term “remake” (or even “virtual remake”) to describe them. I noticed someone else use the term “remake” in a rather vague sense on the SDMB recently. It’s not a very useful way to talk about such similar films. It just makes for some confusion.

[Nava]

@Wendell_Wagner

ombre12, you make it sound like Australian films are untypical of the movies made around the world because they are more likely to have unhappy endings than those of most countries. On the contrary, I think that American films are untypical of the movies made around the world because they are more likely to have happy endings than those of most countries.

They do paint things in much more stark colors: the bad guys are irredeemably bad, the good guys fart violin music, the romantic leads have pink halos and sometimes the ending is considered happy even if someone half the audience would like to strangle gets to live happily-ever-after (until her next divorce, that is).