Ten Empty
Review
by Clint Morris
Good Australian Drama’s are like earth-bound
meteors – you don’t see a lot of them, but when you do, they’re
generally pretty damn amazing.
From the tense and terrific Lantana to the
memorable and moving Look Both Ways,
we sure do make some good product here from time to time.
If there’s one thing we Aussies know how to do – aside
from drink heavily – its make a good, straight-up, solid
drama, one with real issues, real drive, real people with real
emotions.
These pics are always uniquely Australian and strangely, a lot more
realistic than their Yankie counterparts.
In short, nobody does it better.
So why don’t we see more of them? Well, besides the age-old argument
that the AFC doesn’t throw enough money around, there’s the assumption
that so much has put into these films (they’re meticulously written,
brilliantly performed, beautifully shot) that it’d be going against
everything they are for the industry to be pumping them out month after
month.
If we have to wait two years between good Aussie dramas, then so be it
– it’s a lot better than sitting through twelve rubbishy, rushed
rip-off’s of films before.
Anthony Hayes’ Ten
Empty is the latest Australian film bound for glory. A
touching tale of a mixed-up family trying to pick up the pieces, it
plays so real you’d be forgiven for thinking it were a 90 minute
documentary filmed for the SBS. And if it hasn’t opened your eyes on a
view subjects – to reveal what subjects would be to rob the film of
it’s surprises – you’ve walked into the wrong theatre.
Packed with brilliant performances by Friedrickson, Morrell (destined
for an Award for his turn here), Bell, and Budge, Anthony Hayes’ debut
film is truly stirring. It’s not just a bravura turn for a newbie
filmmaker, it’s solid as a rock filmmaking that’ll have Fred Schepsi
and Phil Noyce clapping through the entire end credit sequence.
Most debuts are flawed- if even meekly – but this is magic.
Brendan Cowell (best known as an actor and writer on Love My Way)
has already proved himself a talented TV series’ writer, and now,
with Empty
he earns a gold star for feature writing. The man knows the common
Australian – he knows the language (the ockerisms, in particular), the
behaviour, the relationships… and the predicaments we can get ourselves
into. He’s quite a force, Cowell.
Ten
Empty is a rewarding film experience – it’s undoubtedly
the one Australian Film you have
to see this year.
4 out
of 5
Ten Empty
Australian release: 3rd July,
2008
Official
Site: Ten Empty
Cast: Daniel Frederickson, Lucy
Bell, Geoff Morrell
Director: Anthony Hayes
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