Flipping out
Somersault
dir. Cate Shortland.
Australian writer/director Cate Shortland’s first feature, Somersault, has been garnering high praise of late. It’s been nominated for 15 AFI awards in 13 categories, received a standing ovation at its premiere in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes film festival, and seems to be carrying the hopes of the moribund Australian film industry for a revival of its waning fortunes. The local industry has been regarded as being in something of a crisis since its successes of the ’90s, and funding bodies, filmmakers and critics alike have been flailing about for reasons (and solutions) to account for the paucity of decent films.
A common response to this issue has been to note the lack of script and project development in many Australian films. One of the solutions (of which Shortland and her film have been beneficiaries) is a ‘hot-housing’ approach. Promising directors take their scripts and projects into intensive development and mentoring workshops with experienced writers, producers and directors. On the basis of Shortland’s film, it appears that the experiment is worth continuing.
The film itself is driven by the internal lives of the characters, in particular Heidi (Abbie Cornish), a young woman struggling (and often failing) to negotiate the minefield of youth, love, sex and power in a world of often predatory and exploitative men. Attempts to convey an interior life through the visual medium of film all too often results in films where the expressive possibilities of action are lost, and nothing really takes its place. Nothing happens and nothing is felt—apart from the boredom of the audience. Somersault manages to avoid this risk, drawing on the expressive possibilities of the film form, especially colour rather than action, to express and articulate the lives of its characters.
This results in what is often described as a ‘European’ sensibility, as opposed to ‘American’ action. In Shortland’s case this is a sensibility mediated through Asia, and in particular, her admiration for Australian cinematographer Chris Doyle’s work with Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai. It is to her credit that Shortland largely achieves her goals in her first feature. In particular the secondary characters are intriguing and engaging in a way that Australian films all too often lack. The film’s most moving scene belongs not to Heidi, but to the motherly owner of the hotel she makes her temporary home. Real care has been taken with the