What's wrong with Australian movies?

A bunch of responses are posted up at the Sydney Morning Herald website. You might need registration to view them all. But here, quoted in the interest of criticism and review, are my favourite comments (yes, they push my own person perspective of the problem):

There is far too much inclination to produce films that are overtly Australian (The Castle, Priscilla etc) rather than simply make good films. In many cases, the ‘Australianness’ of the film creates a degree of appeal that papers over the thinness of the script.

-- Rob Charlton

I think the main failing is in the scripts and the controls around it, or lack of. There are not enough people pushing back on poor scripts, rather they are of the mind-set that we have to promote Aussie film purely because it is Australian. Or because somebody in the Eastern Suburbs has been 'working on a script' for the last 10 years, so let's give them a break, even if their script is crap.

I believe the industry has many talented people, but it also has a self-congratulatory, narrow minded culture, which fears constructive criticism and where script writers and directors get caught up in their own artistic vision without considering if people outside their peer group actually want to see the film. How else do you explain garbage like You Can't Stop The Murders or Blurred even getting funding?

-- Jamie Murrie

So in essence the problem with Australian movies now is this. They lack heart, soul, originality, creativity and don't make any effort to appeal to real Australians. They too often take the easy road of falling into ‘Australian Character’ rather than characterising Australia, and frequently try to capitalise on the success of others rather than creating there own.

-- Victoria Keen

but most of the Aussie films in recent years have either been unfunny comedies or parodies/stereotypes of Australians of past generations. Where are the stories of today?

-- Sandy Guthrie

While we're not a serious people, which can be a blessing, we're more than a little obsessed about ourselves and our rather vague sense of own social anarchy, which has become a large part of our sense of identity.  Australian film seems - and of course this is just an overall impression - to rarely escape a parochial fascination with same.

[snip]

Perhaps we're a little tired of focusing on ourselves, a little tired of mistaking identity with the Australian sense of anarchy, a little unaware that our sociopolitical dramas a good deal more evangelical than we may imagine, and perhaps in these particular respects we need to grow up.

-- Andrew Boughton

Part of the reason local movies are flopping at the box office is that Australia is currently struggling to identify its own culture. Crass, and sometimes inane ocker flicks are losing their appeal, and we are turning instead to cultural struggle, style and sophistication, more typical of cultures overseas, like Britain, continental Europe, and dare I say, the USA.

 Part of this disillusionment with one's own culture is the failure of the country to come to terms with its own political identity (still a colonial outpost after more than 200 years), and part of it is the fault of the mainstream media, with refuses to identify with local needs and expression.

-- Roger McEvilly

Australian films generally miss the point. The Australian Film Finance Commission requires government funded films to have a particular Australian cultural angle, to be reflective of our society in some way. This is a good thing, don't get me wrong. The problem with this however, is that good story telling can be lost in this pursuit for Nationalism.

 What is wrong with a universally relevant and compelling story? Why can't Australian films be more about great, involving stories rather than first and foremost representing Australian culture and then looking towards story?

-- Niran Gunawardena

Asutralian films are failing for several reasons - because there are too many first time directors and writers who never get a chance to build a body of work; scripts are poorly written; concepts are out of touch with what people actually enjoy.

[snip]

In other words, get real, get a life, get out in the streets and show people who they really are, not what a bunch of critics and pseuds think that they are. And show some affection for your characters - why should we love them if the film maker does not.”

-- Louise Steer

It's our self portrait, our self imposed stereotype of ourselves, and we seem to want it to continue.    Others can do the grand visions - Lord of the Rings, we may just not expect it of ourselves.

-- David Kadrian

Mainly, I think, it's in the screenplays. Our plots are often thin and the characters vapid. Very rarely does a really tight script get shot in this country.

[snip]

Here in Australia, though, writers work for next to nix, for the love of it, and then probably have to pull extra shifts behind a bar to make the rent. Here, it's all a rush to turn over those cameras, because that's when the contract says everyone gets paid (if they're lucky). In Hollywood, the great screenwriters get paid in the millions (in advance), good ones in the hundreds of thousands. Ordinary ones make TV sitcoms.

-- David Rollins

Until we start to develop good scripts that are International Stories rather than Castlesque we are never going to produce anything worthwhile.

Our most successful films have been stories that everyone can relate to and  have Character Depth and plot. Not a Series of thinly strung together quirky Aussie Characters trying to endear themselves to the  audience. Every year the Australian Film Industry goes backwards, at this rate we will not have one, as it is its more of a small business than an Industry!!!

-- Henry Jennings

Australian movies suffer from a parochialness, they are often so narrowly Australian - they need to be more open and international in their outlook/ look. Australian films suffer from a kind of 'smallness' and from a lot of poor scripting. Where are the quick, clever, dynamic, articulate or poetic scripts? Why do Australian films feel they must be so self-consciously, so desperately Australian? Why can't they just be stories? Stories about lives, lives that could be anybody's?

-- Saskia Campo

'Nuff said.