Aussie filmmakers are weirdly good at producing, shall we say, extremely unsettling cinema. To be honest, I’m more than slightly concerned about our national psyche when directors like Tarantino are touting us the best in the fucked-up business. Like, is there something wrong with us? Have we been in isolation on this island too long?
Take Wake In Fright, for example. Or Mad Max. When those now-classics first screened, entire theatres of people were just like ‘nope, thank u next’. Because sometimes gruesome roo hunts in the middle of the outback just don’t sit well with an audience. It makes you feel weird.
But that’s the power of movie-making, right? To make us feel stuff. Well, that’s exactly what Luke Sullivan’s Reflections in the Dust is doing, he’s making us feel 100 percent fried, and to be honest, kinda physically sick.
Word has it that after our government film body eyeballed the first cut of this monster they deemed its disturbing portrayal of toxic masculinity and violence against women too bloody extreme. They were so horrified they would’ve preferred to have left the story in the deep, dark depths of Sullivan’s mind.
Intrigued? Of course you are, ya absolute fiend.
The film centers on a paranoid schizophrenic clown (Robin Royce Queere) and his blind daughter (Sarah Houbolt) who live in this crazy swampland in what appears to be a post-apocalyptic Australia. It’s dystopian. It’s unhinged. It’s cooked as fuck.
At international film festival Karlovy Vary people were actually spotted walking out. Yup, it’s just that confronting. But this is exactly the motivation behind Sullivan’s work: “My aim as a director has always been to push audiences to the limit and get under their skin.”
It seems to be working well for him too. Sullivan has just been shortlisted for the hella competitive and super prestigious Cannes Cinefondation Residence in Paris. So get ready elite filmmakers of the world, you’re about to see some Aussie disturbance at its best. Try not to cover your eyes.
In a nutshell, this is a film that’s not afraid to tackle the darker underbelly of Australian society. I’m talking child abuse, domestic violence, mental illness. This is a film holding a mirror up to Australia in a way that needs to be seen.
Reflections in the Dust opens March 7 at Classic Cinemas (Elsternwick), Dendy (Newtown), New Farm Cinemas, Luna Leederville, Cremorne Orpheum, Majestic Sawtell and Majestic Nambour if you guys are feeling particularly brave.
