Not quite
cricket - rather murder and mayhem
8/10
After the honour of being chosen
to open this year's Melbourne International Film Festival comes
this happy romp into the era of Aussie exploitation films, now
ready to delight the general public.
The
documentary covers the rise and fall of the "Drive-In Movie"
genre that set Australian film makers in the forefront of horror/slasher
flicks, torrid sexcapades, and brutal bikie sagas. As they say
in the advertising; ‘boobs, pubes, and tubes’ - a
bit of nudity, a bit of crudity.
The film is compiled with panache by director Mark
Hartley and his slick editors with the scissors, and displays
much love for those outrageous irreverent features from the 70's
and 80's; including The Adventures of Barry McKenzie,
Alvin Purple, Stone, Patrick, Mad
Max, and The Man From Hong Kong. Oddly, these are
all from the same epoch when cultural classics like Picnic
at Hanging Rock and My Brilliant Career were making
waves for their artistic achievement.
Hartley gives us a potpourri of high-quality restored
snippets from the flicks, interviews with the people who made
and appeared in them, and appropriate comments from such luminaries
as cheerfully facetious Barry Humphries, lugubrious Bob Ellis,
articulate James Mason, and the genre’s greatest fan Quentin
Tarantino. Tarantino, hot-wired with enthusiasm like a errant
schoolboy, explains how these movies influenced his own work.
Fascinating insights into the productions are provided by a host
of their actors and directors.
Truly the documentary has a “wow” factor.
The sharp editing of the material keeps interest from flagging.
Editors Jamie Blanks and Sara Edwards manage to select the pithy
moments of obviously long interviews and make the on-screen moments
pertinent. Plus we have the titillating (sorry) views of stars
like Sigrid Thornton, Rebecca Gilling, and Cassandra Delaney shedding
their clothes like elm trees shed leaves in autumn - more full
frontal nudity than Norman Lindsay could imagine. It’s interesting
to hear how these stars variously feel now about playing such
provocative roles. We may never see the like again; and indeed
many scenes are incredible by today’s standards.
Amusing
and often surprising insights fall out of interviews with the
directors, especially the late Richard Franklin, Brian Trenchard-Smith
(a favourite of Tarantino), Philippe Mora, George Miller, and
John D. Lamond, king of the sexploiter brigade. While actors as
varied as George Lazenby, Roger Ward, Dennis Hopper, Jamie Lee
Curtis, Sigrid Thornton, Judy Morris, Deborah Gray, Susannah York,
Jack Thompson, and Stacy Keach give a variety of experiences from
that crazy Ozploitation era.
Perhaps more than anything, Not Quite Hollywood
points to the fact before the common use of digital effects, stunt
men and camera crews took horrendous risks in shooting the more
exciting action scenes, especially with high speed cars. Those
stunts are truly death-defying and without any concern toward
health and safety. That won’t happen again in our time.
Stories from award winning cinematographers Russell Boyd and John
Seale, with veteran stunt man Grant Page are startling indictments
of the risky life doing these fast action movies in the 70's on
nothing budgets.
Unusually for a documentary, this is solid entertainment.
Given the politically dubious inclination towards transcendental
violence and lewdness, it should prove an enjoyable outing for
adult audiences.
John Bale
