Reviews

What an excellent film!

Full of good dialogue that feels real and down to earth it was not surprising to hear Maiwenn say (at the Sydney Film Festival Q&A) she had spent time with the real CPU. The reality of the emotions and the truthfulness of the situations this team faced was evident and really made the difference to this film.

What stops the review getting full marks is the films tendency to let some of the less interesting scenes play for too long. Oddly it's also the love story she included to make the film seem less bleak and Maiwenn's own character that become unnecessary and make the movie overburdened and run a little too long.

The cast is absolutely fantastic and engaging. Their relationships heartfelt and natural; you would think they had been playing this together for years.

This is a movie of the tougher, grimy side of a city. It presents the human behaviours we shudder to believe exist. And yet, handled so superbly, you will not feel wrung out or overwhelmed. It's a terrific movie that will have you talking for a long time.

Oh dear. Where do we begin? Probably by suggesting that if you are going to get your movie translated and sub-titled into English, you get a native English speaker to tidy up the final version. Sadly, the subtitles in the showing I saw often made very little sense grammatically. It was like a bad web site translation where a literal translation is made but the syntax and context are all wrong. The inability to pronounce and understand the letter "L" also creating the wrong words; "fresh" where the word "flesh" was needed. The few women characters in the film can only be described as completely neurotic, screeching banshees. The animation isn't great either but I'm not knowledgeable about this genre and perhaps this is Korean style.

The row of twenty-something Koreans in front of me did say much of the bullying and pressure issues were well represented. They did also spend a lot of time laughing and one of them was on his mobile almost the whole time!

I am cognizant that there must be incredible difficulties for Korean film-makers to overcome and I hope they get the help they need to produce meaningful product that can be recognized as such by their international audience.

The premise for this movie had me very excited when I saw it was part of my Sydney Film Festival subscriber pack. And indeed, it is nicely made, has good atmosphere and is well acted with everyone looking their part. Despite this it falls short of its promise and potential.

Fundamentally, this is a story with too many clichés and an obvious ending that can be picked too early. This diminishes the excellent opening and early scenes. Some of the characters are too exaggerated; especially one overly humble and humanitarian. For me, the medical information, including a particularly speedy diagnosis and some treatments weren't quite on the mark either, but that's more easily forgiven.

If it's a wet cold Sunday and you're looking for something easy to watch, then this will do well enough; but it won't change your life or reveal anything new about life behind the iron curtain.

This is a pleasing recount of one of the landmark moments that started to change Australia's thinking about its indigenous people. If it has a deficiency is that it tries to cover so much and doesn't seem to know if its focus is Koiko's (Eddie) life story, his love story or the court case. Some small components are over played, whilst other intricate details about the major issues are omitted leaving large gaps in the story. I never quite connected with anyone nor the depth of the hardship of struggling to run a court case and as a marginalized indigenous person at that. The performances of Jimmy Bani and Deborah Mailman are wonderful - as are many of the other cast members. The script has some delightful moments with all the characters showing truly believable behaviours; the good and the bad! This is an enjoyable movie. Its a good tribute to one of the turning points in Australian culture and I would recommend a viewing. And finally it does remind us to say thank goodness for the dedication and stubbornness of the Eddie Mabo's of the world.

Perhaps its the beautiful rolling sound of the Italian dialogue telling the story of Julius Cesar that made this enjoyable at least to the auditory sense. Perhaps it was that the language was sometimes amended to be more modern and meaningful. Perhaps it was the explained parallels of some of the prisoners experiences that helped to make the context more understandable. No matter, it was a thoroughly great way to start the Sydney Film Festival. The fact that this was a script within a script set in a prison using some real life prisoners didn't detract from anything in this film for me - I go to the cinema generally looking for a story, a fabrication, an unreality dressed in reality. I liked the gritty black and white, the sub-line of the prison life and setting. Yes, perhaps a prisoner saying he now felt caged etc didn't have to be said because it was obvious, but all in all a very enjoyable watch. I was engaged and participating from beginning to end. For me, one of the better versions of Julius/Shakespeare and a nice twist on an old but everlasting story.