The Best (And Most Underseen) Australian Films of 2014
Forget the kitchen-sink drama stereotype; 2014 was Australia’s year of genre films. Here's some you might have missed.
Predestination, dir. Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig
After 2007’s so-so but self-assured zombie romp, Daybreakers, the Speirig brothers adapt their latest film from a short story by Robert A. Heinlein, entitled All You Zombies. Ethan Hawke is a time-travelling agent assigned to killing the Fizzle Bomber in 1975 NYC, which means recruiting — and hijacking the identity of — a young man in a shady dive bar, whose incredible back story starts with the words, “When I was a little girl…”
Thematically, the tale’s in league with anything conjured up by Isaac Asimov and Phillip K Dick, so it’s no surprise that the narrative is an ouroboros rich with ideas: What would it mean to be free from history, free from ancestry? What I didn’t expect was such a fascinating exploration of gender norms and politics. That probably sounds dry, but it works without feeling artificially political because the exploration is anchored around a three-dimensional and uniquely drawn character, brought fully to life by Sarah Snook. As the film’s stealth lead actor, she gives this dialogue-heavy, cerebral genre film a weirdly emotional pull; her character’s story unravels in the first half before rocketing forward into pure mind-bender sci-fi territory.
Even without all these ideas swimming beneath the surface, the film functions on its own as a holistically conceptualised, tightly wound, quick-paced genre film, with a noir feel, big bendy twists, a neatly circular plot and an elegant, classic style. Smart stuff.
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Or try: Dark City (Alex Proyas, 1998)