Eureka Street - Jul-Aug 2001

Killing time

Series 7, dir. Daniel Minahan. I suppose Series 7 should be described as a parody of ‘reality television’, given that its basic premise is more or less ‘Just like Survivor—but with guns!’. The film presents itself as the seventh series of a reality TV show called The Contenders, in which six people (three pictured right) are chosen randomly and given guns; the winner is the last left standing. The plot is as contrived and artificial as only reality TV can be—more akin to some kind of absurdist soap opera than it is to documentary. Of the six contenders, two are former lovers: Dawn, pregnant single mother and reigning champion of the show, and Jeff, now an ex-gay married man with testicular cancer. Will their passion reignite? Can they bring themselves to kill? Will he sacrifice himself for her? Can they confront their past—and which one of them will have a future? Imagine these questions being posed in a frenziedly dramatic voice-over as we cut to an ad break, and you’ll get the feel of the film.

The problem is that reality TV is already so absurdist in its conception and execution that it seems to be virtually impossible to parody—you can’t make it any more appalling that it already is. In fact, the film recreates the look and feel of these shows so perfectly that if you put it on TV and plugged in some ads, there would be nothing at all to distinguish it from anything else on the small screen. However, the fact that we’re watching all this in the cinema makes us all the more aware of the conventions of the reality TV as a genre—the repetition of sensational footage, the relentless use of teasers to hook us into the next episode, ‘confessional’ interviews with the contestants, and so on. More than anything else, Series 7 seems to suggest that the content of such shows is shaped not by any ‘reality’ taking place in front of the cameras, but rather by the form of commercial television itself. The most unsettling thing about the film is not that a show like The Contenders is the logical next step for reality TV; it is that in principle, there is already nothing to distinguish The Contenders from what we see on TV right now.

—Allan James Thomas

Lemon Ruski

Russian Doll, dir. Stavros Kazantzidis. Screwball comedy can be a real delight. With its insane mix of loves-me-loves-me-nots, switcheroos, flawed motives, crooked laughs and crying babies, it is one of cinema’s most buoyant genres. Granted, screwball’s heyday may have finished in 1940 with the end credits of Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday, but handsome leads falling into feeble emotional traps should always raise a laugh. But will they?

Katia (Natalia Novikova), a Russian internet bride, is flying into Sydney to meet her online fiancé. Unfortunately he is DOA—not the live wire she was hoping for. The teary young Katia is stuck in a foreign country, lacking funds and fiancés.
Enter Ethan (David Wenham) a successful, happy, married book publisher, unable to walk past a weeping woman with a plunging neckline. Add to this mix a pushy, match-making wife (Rebecca Frith), a weary, private-eye best friend (Hugo Weaving), complicated wedding plans and voilà, all the ingredients for a standard issue screwball—just add dialogue and mix. Unfortunately, the quick-trick recipe film rarely works—and Russian Doll is no exception.

The film has no shortage of beaut comic actors (Hugo Weaving, David Wenham, Sacha Horler), nor was it light-on for plot possibilities. So why wasn’t I tripping over my own laughter? Well, there was not a morsel of surprise, no screwy motives (just your regular bawdy stuff) and little if any local colour (a drunken night out in a Russian club showed promise, but alas was not exploited). Is Australia’s comic style too laconic to fit the rapid-fire style of a classic screwball? Nahhhh—we just need to write them funnier.

—Siobhan Jackson