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Lantana
****
Cinema Releases - August 23, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. Australia.
121 minutes. Directed by Ray Lawrence. Written by Andrew Bovell; based on
his play "Speaking in Tongues". Starring Anthony LaPaglia, Geoffrey Rush,
Barbara Hershey, Kerry Armstrong, Rachael Blake, Vince Colosimo, Russell
Dykstra, Daniella Farinacci.
At the centre of this story, a corpse lies in
a dense patch of the Lantana weeds that plague Australian land. The body
is lost, prickled by unruly pieces of nature, refusing to be found. The living
characters are just as engulfed; we can see thorns surrounding the dead body,
and we can sense them in every waking moment of everyone else.
"Lantana", which blindsided audiences
at last year's Sydney, Toronto and Telluride film festivals, is an astoundingly
absorbing surprise of a movie, charged with emotion and force. It makes thoughts
and emotional webs run wild in our heads, and leaves us unsure of how to
describe them, simply by focusing on the complexity of people. We go through
life without road maps, we become adults before we can even comprehend the
idea, and we end up under the weight of our problems without even feeling
suited to them. The film knows that, and gets operatic passion out of things
that happen somewhere or other every day.
The shot of the dead body opens the picture; it
is not explained until far into the second act, but it strikes us hard and
sets a tone of sadness and enigma. We meet characters that sit in motel rooms
with their illicit partners, stressed about what they're doing; or talk to
their therapists, sit alone, row, wonder about their loved ones. We meet
people, and hear so much of their thoughts that they start to invade our
minds: Anthony LaPaglia plays a cop having an affair; he's racked by troubles
on the job and in marriage. His wife (Kerry Armstrong) knows something is
up, and comes close to devastation when the simple realisation hits that
her husband isn't sharing a bit of himself. LaPaglia's sexual partner (Rachael
Blake) has her own problems; her neighbours, who have until now been good
friends, are starting to mistrust her, and she doesn't know where she stands
with her ex-husband (Russell Dykstra). Those neighbours, played by Vince
Colosimo and Daniela Farinacci, are struggling to make ends meet. Barbara
Hershey and Geoffrey Rush are a doctor couple whose marriage is so static
and uncommunicative that it cannot be described as held together; the partners
have simply been frozen together by the loss of their
daughter.
A disappearance occurs. LaPaglia has to investigate
it, and indeed all of the above are somehow involved. The people are connected
in ways not all of them realise, but as with "Monster's Ball", another great
piece of fiction from this year, "Lantana" feels no need to underline, stylise
or apologise for its coincidences. The particulars of the connections and
the mystery plot are not that important anyway; the set-up and the case serve
as lightning rods to bring some of the characters together and face all of
them with challenges.
It's hard to explain. There are plain phrases
spoken, such as, "Have you ever been unfaithful to your wife?" and "Sometimes
I want to cry, sure, but you just don't, do you?" The words seem important
in context, because the first hour of the film has studied its subjects
intensely, letting their values and feelings seep into our minds. We're thinking
about these characters urgently, and decisions, word choices and confrontations
take on precious significance. The murder is never solved in any conventional
way, but we do find out what led the eventual victim into that situation,
and this is what's important to us, because it involves character choices,
human mistakes and the feelings of strangers as they collide in the
night.
The actors are infused with thoughts and inner
workings, and as the camera studies them, caked under the unmistakable Australian
sun, we absorb everything we need to know. LaPaglia is angry, intense, tortured.
Rush stands bitter and austere, as if he wants to feel disgust at something
but hardly has the time or strength. Hershey is lost; she plays a thinker
who doesn't know where her life has arrived or is going, and the frustration
is robbing her of the capability to stand and move. Armstrong, Blake, Colosimo
and Farinacci play people in vital domestic situations, fighting their way
through life by refusing to let heartbreak collapse them.
"Lantana" was directed by Ray Lawrence, whose
last and only former feature film was the controversial "Bliss" (1985). It
is a tremendous achievement, made with command and bravery; the events onscreen
ring of personal history and experience, and it is hard to believe that a
filmmaker so unfamiliar with full-length projects managed to pull it off.
This piece is a question of convincing us of detailed characters despite
obvious contrivances, then delving into personal dilemmas, showing reactions
to unexpected situations and seeing how it all plays out. It ends up quite
unreasonably thrilling.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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