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Graduates of QPIX’s 2011 Diploma of Production course have won their way into the finals of TROPFEST, the world’s largest short film festival, with their student production PHOTOBOOTH. Set in the Afghanistan conflict, PHOTOBOOTH is one of a sequence of...
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Producer Andrew Wight and cinematographer Mike deGruy lose their lives in a helicopter crash.
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Aussie Flick Aims For Film Noir
Filmink recently went along to the screening of a new Aussie psychological thriller
For fans of psychological thrillers, it is continuously disheartening to see the modern day versions of the genre sanitised with clean cut visuals and predictable plots. It was all too refreshing to witness the new Aussie made flick A Perfect Life harkening back to the good old days of raw cinema, as in Rob Reiner's 1990 classic Misery and David Fincher's Se7en (1995) with its gritty and menacingly stylised neo-noir approach.
The film premiered at Fox Studio's Hoyts Cinema last week to a crowd of horror aficionados, along with members of the cast and crew including producer, writer and male lead Johan Earl, leading lady Heidi Houghting, and director Jith Sen.
A Perfect Life follows Andrew Walters (Johan Earl), a man with an insatiable desire for success, love, and lust. Andrew is abducted, along with his wife Helen (Heidi Houghting), into the ominous art studio of his mentally fractured mistress Rachael (Amelia Beau Kaldor). In a series of events which bring a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘brutally honest,' Rachael tortures Andy into truthfully answering questions regarding his love for his wife and his promise to leave her.
The film is skillfully shot with underdeveloped film and low-shutter speed sequences, which is a real testament to director Jith Sen and his spiritual mentor, Jean-Luc Godard. "The noir technique was quite deliberate," says Sen. "It's such a dark story we needed that looming noir feel to really capture what was happening to these characters."
A Perfect Life is anything but predictable. In conjunction with the style of the film, the story takes many unthinkable twists and turns, revealing one insidious plot point after another. Unlike the transparent nature of many psychological thrillers these days, this film will definitely keep you on the edge of your seat.
The performances were brilliant on all fronts, particularly Amelia Beau Kaldor who was insatiably magnetic as the furiously tormented freight train Rachael. Johan Earl gave an immersive performance, luring the audience into the film's anguish and disarray. Heidi Houghting forced the audience to suffer the pain of her startlingly haunted portrayal of Helen, giving her performance a mesmerising quality. Houghting explains, "I literally had to think of reasons to cry every day; it was really tough to find the motive to convey these really powerful emotions every time we shot."
A Perfect Life is significant not only as a trail blazer for putting Australian genre films on the map, but also for the psychological thriller genre as a whole. In recent times, the genre has been preoccupied with achieving sterile visual perfection, which ironically diminishes the integrity of the films. Few have endeavoured to use the time honoured traditions of film noir or German expressionism to re-invent the genre, and even fewer have done so successfully. Here's hoping A Perfect Life signals a shift in Australian genre films and psychological thrillers in general.
Producer Johan Earl is negotiating the possibility of further screenings in Sydney before the film makes its way over to the US for distribution. Check out the film's trailer here.