Saturday, February 25, 2006

How not to improve Australian films

Where are our brave filmmakers? - Opinion - theage.com.au

Tracee Hutchison, writing in The Age above, likes the current crop of "liberal" cinema from the USA, and suggests that maybe Australian cinema needs to follow this lead.

Idiotically, she says:

...this is precisely the time we need our filmmakers to be telling rigorous and fearless stories about the Australian condition. It can't all be the fault of the newly enshrined sedition laws that we're not seeing them.

Um, yes Tracey, that is correct, but not in the way you are thinking. It is because if you actually read the legislation yourself instead of relying on the legislative ignorance of a bunch of comedians, it is inconcieveable that the revised sedition laws could be used this way. (Well, assuming the movie does not have the lead character suddenly addressing the audience directly and telling them it is their duty to take up arms and engage in violent attack on the evil Federal government.)

What's more, Tracey, it is not as if the subtext of most Australian films of the last decade could be construed as having pro-conservative values. It is precisely the dour political underpinning of most Aussie movies lately that prevents them reaching a decent sized audience.

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