Blame

Blame, a buttock clenching revenge flick, is one of the best thrillers I’ve seen recently.

A group of teenagers leave their friend’s funeral with vengeance on their minds. They set out to murder a teacher who had sex with their friend three years ago. And so the chase begins.

As the title indicates this revenge thriller is about who is really at fault. Did their friend kill herself because of this teacher? Or is someone manipulating the truth?

The characters are complex, the story believable and the photography is lush. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride.

…but

the next day I was still thinking about the illusively simple plot and it struck me that, when the movie climaxed, I was left cold. In the darkened theatre I was just an observer, not really involved. I didn’t know who to feel for. Did I want the teacher to survive or did I want the assailants to win?

Maybe a feature of thrillers is ambiguous character identification. I don’t think so. The particular theme of this one made it difficult to know who to go for. Hence, no emotional kick.

Still, a beautiful, well paced, intricate movie. Well worth catching on the big screen.

The modern condition

Words from Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. This is one of the characters, Clarisse McClellan, speaking to the main man, Montag.

'I like to watch people. Sometimes I ride the subway all day and look at them and listen to them. I just want to igure out who they are and what they want and where they're going. Sometimes I even go o the Fun Parks and ride in the jet cars when they race on the edge of town at midnight and the police don't care as long as they're insured. As long as everyone has ten thousand insurance everyone's happy. Sometimes I sneak around and listen in subways. Or I listen at soda fountains, and do you know what?'
'What?'
'People don't talk about anything.'
'Oh, they must!'
'No, not anything. They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming-pools mostly and say how swell! But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else. And most of the time in the cafes they have the joke-boxes on and the same jokes most of the time, or the musical wall lit and all the coloured patterns running up and down, but it's only colour and all abstract. And at the museums, have you ever been? All abstract That's all there is now. My uncle says it was different once. A long time back sometimes pictures said things or even showed people.'

Written in 1954 about a futuristic society. Pictures that say something hey?

Introducing Billie

This is what I've been writing lately. I'm writing and rewriting a key scene from my feature film to try to get Billie's character just right. This scene comes right after a physically and emotionally violent scene in which Billie's brother is banished from the village. It's the first time we've met Cadence.

EXT. VACANT HOUSE - DAY
The sound of bricks hitting the ground echoes from inside a decrepit house. Dust floats out of the broken windows.

INT. VACANT HOUSE - DAY
Billie (14) hops around on one foot, electrical wire in her hands. Bricks from an interior wall are scattered across the dirt that used to lie under the floorboards but is now exposed.

BILLIE
Ow, crappity, crap, crap.

Over her shoulder CADENCE (14) peers through the empty window.

Billie drops the wire and hops backwards towards the window, waving dust away. She turns to the window to find Cadence right in her face.

BILLIE (CONT'D)
Aghh!

Cadence jumps in fright.

CADENCE
Aghh!

BILLIE
Shhh.

CADENCE
(looking around)
What?

BILLIE
What yourself. You dag. Dad’s on the prowl. I’m not done here yet.

CADENCE
Oh. Work faster. Better yet, stuff work and help me get beans.

BILLIE
Who has surplus?

CADENCE
Who said surplus?

BILLIE
Are you bonkers? The only reason you got away with it last time was because Nana is your Nana.

Cadence clumsily lifts her leg through the window, trying to get inside. Billie shoves her foot and trips her over backwards.

BILLIE (CONT'D)
Oh, no you don’t. I’m working. You don’t want me there anyway. I’ll infect you.

CADENCE
Infect, inshmect. I need a lookout.





What do you think? It's just a fragment at the moment; half-formed. I feel like Billie needs to take control a bit more. I also want her to be FUNNY. Next draft soon.

Here I Am

Here I Am, brought to you by the makers of Samson and Delilah, has a lot to say but tends to mumble. 

This movie has many of the elements of a Ken Loach or even a Dogme 95 movie. It's shot on location, using mostly non-actors and encorporating unscripted scenes. The subject matter is very Loachesque.

Karen is released from prison and attempts to fit back in to society and reconnect with her daughter. I love movies that take me into unfamiliar territory and this certainly does that. The warmest part of the story is the women's shelter that Karen finds herself in. At first strange and abrasive, the women provide Karen with the strength to continue.

Apparently the movie received a standing ovation at its premiere at the Adelaide Film Festival and I can see why. It has plenty to recommend it; gritty realism, emotional story, great creative team, raw talent. By the end of the film I felt good. I'd been somewhere with these characters and I felt like it was all going to be okay. But the experience was very uneven.

A story is basically a series of moments and this one has some very special moments. Unfortunately the inexperienced cast fail to make the most of them.

The film is a character based piece but you need a strong cast to pull off character work. Some of the characters really worked including Skinny (Pauline Whyman), Anita (Betty Sumner) and Jeff (Bruce Carter). It's a shame the wheels fell off whenever there was emotional violence involved. Just when I wanted to get lost in the story a lack of depth or a wooden performance reminded me that it was a construction.

The thing about realism in films is that it's not real. Film is a construction and the job of the creative team is to make that construction as life-like as possible. That doesn't mean you just let a camera roll. It takes a lot of artifice to make something look real.

As much as I wanted to like Here I Am it didn't do it for me. It's impressive as a first feature and I hope to see more from Beck Cole but this one just didn't work. If you haven't seen Samson and Delilah go now. It's a much more rewarding experience.

Where is the heart?

Have I been educated out of the ability to tell a story?

The impetus for this blog is I've just been knocked back for funding to write a screenplay. Again. I've been working on this story for a couple of years now. I thought I had a good chance but I didn't even get shortlisted. So it must be a really terrible screenplay.

If you are a writer, or any kind of artist, you know this place. Nothing works. I'm a failure and should just get a real job. Coals of self-pity heaped upon my head.

Sir Ken Robinson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY (and Rod Boucher) believes education is all about getting a job in an industrial society. It destroys creativity. Destorys creativity? I've been busily educating myself to write for the last eight or so years: Bachelor of Arts followed by a Grad Dip in Screenwriting. What have I learnt? Three Act Structure, Character Arc, Mid-point, Denouement. All useful tools but it doesn't teach me how to write, how to connect with an audience and communicate the heart of the story.

So this blog is about what I'm reading, watching, hearing and where the story is, the heart of the story. Today it's Cate Kennedy and her story The Word of the Year. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/firstperson/

It's innocence lost. It's about the kid that calls last night 'yesternight' and wonders why we don't describe the night as 'darky' even though we say sunny. It's about the slow destruction of that kid.

I know I've found the essence of the story because there are tears in my eyes. For The Word of the Year it was a kid's description of her dad's 'watermelon smile'.

Can I get my innocence back? I'm going to try to write a story without education, without structure or theme or intent. I'm just going to write with heart.

What are you writing at the moment? Where is the heart in your story? Don't be a stranger.