#All the emotional punch and storytelling skill of Donaldson's debut film‚ Sleeping Dogs (one of my favourites and one of the strongest | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mariocki · 4 years ago

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Smash Palace (1981)

"I've never been able to stand this place. It's like a... It's like a graveyard. All those car wrecks out there. Most of them have either killed or injured somebody. It used to give me the creeps, living out here in the middle of nowhere. That's why I left."

#Smash palace #roger donaldson #1981 #New Zealand cinema #Peter Hansard #Bruno Lawrence #Anna Maria Monticelli #Greer Robson Kirk #Keith Aberdein #Desmond Kelly #Lynne Robson #Margaret Umbers #Sean Duffy #Bryan Johnson #Terence Donovan #Dick Rollo #Ian Barber #Sharon O'Neill #All the emotional punch and storytelling skill of Donaldson's debut film‚ Sleeping Dogs (one of my favourites and one of the strongest #Debut films ever made) but clearly made by a filmmaker who has honed and developed his visual style; utterly‚ desolately beautiful‚ the #Kind of film where the scenery feels like another character in itself. Carefully constructed‚ with a set of beautiful‚ incredibly raw #Performances. Bruno Lawrence in particular totally inhabits his deeply troubled‚ horribly compelling character; a man so apparently easy #Going and down to earth and charismatic that it becomes harder and harder to reconcile the man with his actions; actions that‚ again‚ are #So naturally delivered and escalate with such steady‚ natural rhythm that by the time things get out of control and all hell breaks loose‚#You're left wondering what happened and how we got here. A brilliant‚ deeply affecting film. Not an easy watch in truth (and with one #Deeply upsetting assault scene) but such a crucial and beautifully made film. Sleeping Dogs‚ for my money‚ is probably just (just) the #Better film in its rough edged‚ politically urgent nature; but this is a very close second and a worthy follow up by a director who seemed #Very much like an auteur in making (alas‚ of his later films I've only seen Dante's Peak and The Bank Job‚ and suffice to say there's very #Little in those films that's recognisable from his early vibrant‚ New Zealand based work)

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