South Solitary (2010)

I really don't get the hype.

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Better than most people think

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Thank you Shirley Barrett for writing and directing this movie because you have created a masterpiece. I begin to live in 1928 when I watch this movie. I feel I can step into the screen, help Meredith unpack her belongings and set-up my room in that lovely old house, put the kettle on, and walk outside in that bitterly cold air. I wear the scratchy woollen coat that Meredith wears, the hand knitted woollen vest, the skirt, and loose thick stockings bunching up at the ankles. I look at Mr Fleet (the exceptional Marton Csokas) and am drawn to his shy wounded persona, his awkwardness, and his pain. This movie is astonishing because It draws me into the time of these characters (like no other movie can). I have watched this movie about 8 times and I never tire of it. It was in this movie that I first saw Csokas. I couldn't believe how surpub his performance was. I asked, who is this incredible actor? I have since watched him in many movies and his capacity to express vastly different personalities in every role is just stunning. What an observer of human behaviour and non-verbal communicator! The isolation, the cold, the children, the lonely residents, and those who choose to be alone - the depiction is so real and so true, you feel like you are intruding in conversations. The pace is right, and the music so suited to the telling of the story, and so sublime, that I bought the soundtrack too. I wrote this review because there are so many award winning movies that are appalling, ('la la land' comes to mind), yet masterpieces like this one are overlooked. If you enjoy a love story with warm, gentle characters who are very real (imperfect), if you enjoy the thought of isolation and staring at the wind-swept seascape like in a Bronte novel, and if you like to gently explore the personality of someone you find increasingly fascinating - this movie is truly for you.

D and I watched this terrific film yesterday afternoon and we both shared similar thoughts about its quality. This film, about a young woman sent with her administrative uncle to "clean up" the operation of a very remote lighthouse is truly an iconic Australian film. I am reasonably familiar with the world's cinema and can therefore (modestly) make judgments about the types of film produced by various countries and South Solitary is a movie that is Australian through and through. Our movies are gutsy, perhaps rough, slice-of-life movies. The big budget Hollywood types (like Australia) are exceptions to this rule and do not easily sit well with the norm or at least the norm as I see it. Films like Japanese Story, Jindabyne, Oyster Farmer, Beautiful Kate and Last Ride are just a few of the many introspective movies that our film industry produces and that Diane and I anticipate eagerly and now we can add South Solitary to this list of, dare I say, brilliant movies. I know of no other country that produces films of this nature; films that are strangely uplifting in their context. The film's ending, with no Hollywood tears, is perfect. See this film and do not judge it by the standards for which we have been smothered by a foreign culture. South Solitary is rich with feelings that all of us can recognize and I would unconditionally recommend it.

Take nine rather unpleasant people who treat each other badly, put them on a small, desolate, windswept island and you should have the makings of a film that even Ingmar Burgman would find tedious Shirley Barrett, who seems to have a predilection for making films about unattractive people, manages to turn these ingredients into an elegy to "hope". Hope, you may be aware, is a member of the trilogy of eternal virtues that can redeem the lives of people who refuse to succumb to feelings of self-loathing and despair.The other two eternal virtues are faith and love, and if I have a criticism of this film, it is that Barrett does not allow the last two humans standing on the island to consummate their growing mutual attraction, at least within the confines of the film The prop she uses to make this believable is the lighthouse they manage to keep illuminated, shining in the darkness of the surrounding stormy sea Miranda Otto gives us a grown-up reprise of the character she created in Barrett's first film, "Love Serenade"Marton Csokas crafts his performance as a World War I shell-shock, neurotic so organically that we can believe his stilted overtures to greater intimacy at the end of the filmBarry Otto's light house keeper has taken a different route to dealing with the moral void uncovered by the evil and stupidity of World War I. He too has been damaged by the experience, but instead of succumbing to the numbing silence of Csokas, he has embraced a near military conformity to the idea of the benign authority of human institutions, all appearances to the contrary. It is a mark of Barrett's skill as a writer-director, that she allows his niece to acknowledge his care for her when she had attracted the disapproval of polite society.Barett has crafted a small, quietly spoken, life affirming film that draws the viewer into the lives of its protagonists and leaves them feeling richer for the experience.

If you don't mind watching a film populated with flawed but easy to identify with characters, then I urge you to check out South Solitary. I enjoyed this film very much, particularly the performance of Miranda Otto as Meredith, as it would be very easy to find this character unlikeable if it had not been handled as beautifully and sympathetically as Miranda does. It was also interesting to see the inner workings of an operational light house from that period as I new very little of the life of a light house keeper going into the screening. The sound design is also brilliantly weaved throughout helping to add a lot of emotion within the probably smallish budget. I found South Solitary both wryly funny and human in just the right proportion and for the right audience it will be a pleasant surprise.