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Occasional
Coarse Language
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Since Love and Other Catastrophes in 1996, young Australian filmmakers have been gripped by the fever of feral cinema – that dream of shooting a fresh, original film quickly and cheaply, without government support or commercial interference, and then having it picked up by a distributor and released to an appreciative mass audience. The dream rarely translates into reality this smoothly. Some no-budget quickies have disappeared into the void before completion, and others – such as the dreadful Dust Off the Wings (1997) – have plumbed the depths of cinematic incompetence. The latest in this craze, Occasional Coarse Language, arrives with a mixture of feral production values (unknown actors, simple shooting style, jazzy editing) and not inconsiderable post-production bolstering from Roadshow (pop soundtrack with CD tie-in, brash promotional campaign). Content-wise, it is a curious mélange of would-be cool elements from Love and Other Catastrophes with the suburban dagginess of The Castle (1997) and the brittle vulgarity of Muriel's Wedding (1994). Once again, we are immersed in the only semi-serious travails of twentysomething life: part time work, share accommodation, parties, dating, and vague worries about the future. Min (Sara Browne) loses her job, boyfriend and living space in rapid succession. She moves in with the hyper-sexed David (Nicholas Bishop), and proceeds to feel her frustrations ever more keenly. While her usual pack of girlfriends are a shrill, superficial, unhelpful lot, at least she has her perky soul-mate Jaz (Astrid Grant) – at least until Jaz's boyfriend Stanley (Michael Walker) starts coming to Min for personal advice. Occasional Coarse Language is an unstructured, hit-and-miss affair. Aspects of the film work in surprisingly affectionate ways – like its presentation of close female friendship, and its very Aussie feel for everyday deflations. By contrast, writer-director Brad Hayward's grasp on supposedly intellectual, uni student humour is very weak: running gags about philosophy, mathematics and feminism are way off the mark. For a first feature, it is a modest achievement – and certainly more crisp and entertaining than most Australian releases of its year. If anything holds the film together, it is Browne's performance. She commands the screen with her deceptively ordinary persona, never more so than when she is expressing a quietly boiling, pissed-off resentment. Min is a fine combination of snappy, screwball heroine and plodding, loveable dag – especially when she unthinkingly answers the question "What's eating you" with: "No one!" © Adrian Martin November 1998 |
