General Transcript:

About six years ago I saw a silly short film, in black and white, about a dog called Wilfred. He was played, in a floppy dog suit, by Jason Gann, an actor whose round cheeks and eyes give him a chronically puppyish air. Now actors doing dog imitations are pretty low rent but Wilfred wasn't any dog: he was Wilfred.

Wilfred finally made it to the television screen last year as a short series on SBS.

Meanwhile the trio who created him—that's Jason and his co-writer and co-performer, Adam Zwar, with director Tony Rogers—went and made a feature film in which Jason has morphed into another Australian character. He's Darren. Darren MacWarren

Don't you remember Darren? The former Australian star of television soaps who had to flee Melbourne some years ago because of, well, indiscretions?

He's come to rest in Gladdington, a small town in Western Victoria, where he's traced by Ben (Adam Zwar) an earnest young man who writes the 'Where Are They Now?' feature for a not very well known street newspaper. Negotiations follow, and so Ben arrives in Gladdington, to find Daryl singing with a band called Black Diamond, cutting a swath with the local groupies, and living off, well, some interesting investments.

I first saw this micro budget film Rats and Cats two years ago at the Melbourne International Film festival. It's shot on HD but looks good. It's beautifully performed, though a little meandering in its story line. There is something about Jason Gann's posturing, as Darren, which deliciously parodies the swaggering Australian male,

Come to think of it there were traces of it this in Wilfred as well. There's no way that dog could have been mistaken for a Wilma.

It's got some nice swipes too, at the celebrity culture of TV soaps, Logies, Who Weekly and New Idea. I am still trying to conjure with one of Darren MacWarren's soap characters, Father Roger. He wears a dog collar and a moustache and we see him only in brief clips.

Did he become Darren's alter ego? Was he the right person to be counselling distraught blond teenagers? There are many troubling questions raised in this film.

If you Liked The Conchords, the series Radio National ran over Christmas, then I reckon you'll like this movie. Not a lot happens in it really. But it's the way it doesn't happen that counts.

Director: Tony Rogers
Cast: Jason Gann, Adam Zwar, Anya Beyersdorf, Paul Denny, Alexis Porter, Jess Beazley, Gary Rens, Belle Leslie, Angus Sampson, Matthew Moloney
Producer: Jason Byrne
Script: Jason Gann
Cinematographer: Anna Howard ACS
Editor: Richard Hamer, Bill Murphy
Running time: 88
Australian distributor: The Difference Engine
Language: English
Classification: M

posted on 2008-05-24 14:13 Greeplanet 阅读(40) 评论(0)  编辑  收藏 网摘收藏