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ALONE WITH A
C U LT U R A L
THOUGHT
WITH JAMELLE WELLS
RUSSIAN FILMMAKER ALEXEI POPOGREBSKY TALKS TO IANN BARR ABOUT HIS LOOK AT ISOLATION AND SECRETS IN THE ACCLAIMED FILM, HOW I ENDED THIS SUMMER.
“The inspiration [for the film] is deeply rooted in my childhood, but not in a Freudian way. Growing up a city kid in Moscow, I came across a few books about polar exploration and I was fascinated by the experience of people coping with the extremities of nature beyond the polar circle. I was always wondering, ever since I was a kid, if I was in those sort of circumstances, would I be able to stand up to it or would I just break?” That’s the question that stayed with writer/director Alexei Popogrebsky from his youth and now lies at the heart of his How I Ended This Summer, a psychological drama/thriller that won acting (shared between its two leads) and cinematography honours at last year’s Berlin film festival. The film tells of a psychological duel between two men working and living in isolation at a meteorology station in the Russian arctic. Rather than the traditional method of writing a script and then
FILM
casting it, Popogrebsky contrived a scenario for his location once the actors came on board. “Once I have the actors, I tend to provide a script imagining them as human beings in that situation,” he explains. The dynamic between both men is central to the film, with Sergei Puskepalis as the elder, experienced Sergei, and Grigory Dobrygin as his young – and less responsible – protégé, Pavel. The film’s conflict is predicated on the compounding effects of Pavel withholding a key piece of information for Sergei from back home. Pavel’s motivations behind his inaction are left deliberately ambiguous, a storytelling facet that Popogrebsky attributes to his background in psychology. “Although for nine years I was an academic psychologist, I don’t like to play smart or create what I call a ‘movie psychology’, which is usually
a dramatisation of the wealth and richness of human nature.” Similarly, though the central conflict presents the opportunity for the film to be read as an Old/New Russia allegory, Popogrebsky ensures that character and story always come first. “As a writer and director, if I had the intention to create a metaphor or an allegory, I think I would have failed. If the characters, if the story is vital, if it gives some charge of emotion to the audience, the other layers inevitably spring up, if the story is universal enough.” This universality was important to him and he believes that the implications of the film’s story are not specific to the film’s unique setting. “This story could work in any circumstance where there is a limited means of communication… Maybe in the submarine, stuck way down in the ocean, or somebody stuck in the
mountains, or an orbital station. With the modern technology, there are not that many situations where you have limited means of communication; you have your cell phones, your internet or whatever. “But then, in the polar regions, even if you have modern radios, the problem is the magnetic disturbances, the Aurora Borealis, and there are disruptions to radio transmissions, always. One year ago a computer executive was lost in Arizona and he was not found for a couple of months – think about that; there is a chance, a tragic chance, on this planet, even on a very developed country, to get completely and utterly lost [and separated] from any kind of communication.”
SUCKER PUNCH
her sister and there meets a host of nicknamed girls (Sweet Pea, Rocket, Blondie) who band together to plan an escape. In the meantime, the asylum doubles as a bordello of some sort and it’s during her sexy dance routines that Baby Doll reverts to a fantastical reverie state. This outlandish plot makes the film more interesting than most Hollywood blockbusters, but Sucker Punch is, alas, more fun to read about than to watch – an arse-ugly, narratively inept mishmash. Then there’s the matter of its alleged ‘female empowerment’: well, I guess Snyder does posit that women have every right to fantasise about killing dragons and trolls and Nazi zombies as men do. But there’s no mistaking this fetishfest as anything other than a male fantasy, borne of its creator’s arrested development.
WHAT: How I Ended This Summer WHERE & WHEN: Screening in cinemas now
REVIEWS
As if to (over)compensate for the ‘visionary director’ tag that has been undeservedly bestowed upon him for his career of mechanically made, embalmed graphic novel adaptations (300, Watchmen) and one remake (Dawn Of The Dead; ironically his most striking and distinctive film to date), Zack Snyder has finally made a creation entirely of his own. Say what you will about Sucker Punch, there’s no doubt that it comes directly ‘from the mind of Zack Snyder’, to borrow another promotional cliché. The title might refer to the bait-andswitch Snyder plays on his target audience: those coming for fantasy/ action kicks and scantily-clad nubile hotties get what is ostensibly a women’s picture, with the flights of CGI fancy taking place in the imagination of our main character, Baby Doll (Emily Browning). She’s been recently committed to an insane asylum for the accidental murder of
CRINGE
WHERE & WHEN: Screening in cinemas now IAN BARR
With rehearsals underway for Darlinghurst Theatre’s upcoming I Only Came To Use The Phone, the production team is busy sourcing saxophones and unicycles. The psychological thriller, set in the twilight years of Franco’s Spain, follows the journey of Maria, whose car breaks down on the way to Barcelona. She hitches a ride on a ramshackle bus full of women and arrives at a nightmare destination. Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Colombian-born Gabriel García Márquez published the short story, I Only Came To Use The Phone, in the collection Strange Pilgrims in 1992. The producers of Aussie drama, Dirtyland, at the New Theatre got plenty of publicity last week for their novel approach to funding. It’s what they call “crowd funding”, where a set amount of money needs to be raised within a time frame. People who make pledges pay up only if the overall target is met. The play’s producer, Belinda Kelly, expects to see more producers try to raise money this way in Australia because it’s already worked for companies in the UK and US. Former STC artistic director Robyn Nevin will join a committee of three to programme the Melbourne Theatre Company’s 2012 season. Nevin, who had the top job with the STC for nine years after a similar gig at the Queensland Theatre Company, will join actor Pamela Rabe and the MTC’s associate director Aidan Fennessy on the committee. Actor Cate Blanchett has launched The Oasis: Homeless Short Film Competition for three-minute short films about homelessness. She noted that film, theatre and the visual arts have a unique capacity to spread important social issues and help bring about change. The winners, announced in November, will get $25,000 for their school. The competition is part of the five-year initiative that began in 2008 when the award-winning documentary The Oasis screened on the ABC and The National Youth Commission Report On Youth Homelessness was released. Aussie actor Liam Hemsworth has been given the lead role of Gale Hawthorn in the film adaptation of The Hunger Games, the first part in a trilogy of science-fiction novels for teens written by American author Suzanne Collins. The 21-year-old, who has appeared in Neighbours and Home And Away, will star alongside Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone) and Josh Hutcherson (The Kids Are All Right). The story is set in a postapocalyptic future in which what’s left of North America is called Panem. Hemsworth’s brothers Chris and Luke are also actors, Chris starring as the titular character in the upcoming Thor, the big-screen adaptation of the Marvel comic, while Luke is a familiar face in many local productions. Australia’s premier event for celebrating the vocal instrument, the Festival Of Voices, is after performers for the July event in Tasmania. New festival director Kris Stewart (ex-Sydney Fringe) hopes to see thousands of performers and audience members head south. He’s after people to perform and to do workshops. For the first time, the festival is launching a Musical Theatre Workshop, with stars of
musical theatre Peter Cousens and Kellie Dickerson. Head to festivalofvoices.com for more information. Screen Australia has agreed to back a feature film about Pauline Hanson during the One Nation era. Writer/director Anna Broinowski says Please Explain will cover Hanson’s life from the 1996 Federal Election to her appearance on Dancing With The Stars. Surprisingly, Hanson is still in contention in her bid for the Upper House at the NWS state election and told one newspaper she returned to Australia after a year in England because the UK is “overrun with immigrants and refugees”. The State Theatre in Market Street is about to be renovated. The upper levels of the heritage-listed theatre, which opened in 1929, are being turned into a boutique hotel. But it’s not yet clear what will happen to the venue’s famous heritage-listed Wurlitzer organ, which has been sitting in pieces in the basement for nearly 20 years. It’s been damaged by a leak in the auditorium and needs extensive work that includes replacement of leather work, pumps and wooden casing. The New York Film Academy is setting up two bases in Queensland to groom Australian actors for the US. The Australian president of the academy’s Abu Dhabi campus, Simon Hunter, tells us they’re offering filmmaking programmes in Brisbane and the Gold Coast. He says the Gold Coast will focus on giving actors a direct path to Hollywood, while the Brisbane base will focus on production jobs. The Academy already has bases at Universal Studios, Harvard and in major capital cities around the world. Following his recent Oscar success, Australian illustrator and author Shaun Tan has now won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in Sweden — the largest children’s literature award. Tan has illustrated more than 20 books, including Tales From Outer Suburbia. In February he won Oscar for Best Animated Short Film for The Lost Thing. A Brisbane man kicked off Channel Ten’s The Biggest Loser after being charged with possessing child pornography has been jailed for up to two years. Deryck Ward had to be edited out of last year’s season of the reality show after he was charged in January 2010. The 28-year-old pleaded guilty to five charges after the material was found in his home. The $US15 million production of Aussie musical, Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert has opened on Broadway to mixed reviews and a first-night crowd that included Joan Rivers and Christie Brinkley. The New York Times described it as “monotonous, mechanical and lacking the narrative complexity of La Cage [Aux Folles]”. But the Hollywood Reporter was more positive, saying the production is “big, brassy, unapologetically profane and over the top”. Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune said it “has a pulsing theatrical heart and soul”. Worst news of the week is that a fifth season of Mad Men, the US series set in the 1960s New York advertising world, won’t be broadcast before March 2012. There are rumours the delay is due to problems with writer/producer Matt Weiner not wanting to cut each episode back to fit more advertising in. THE DRUM MEDIA 12 APRIL 2011 • 59 •