by Janet Watson Kruse
It’s black as hell, and really, really funny.
It’s also a complex film about life as an independent artist, authenticity, and mortality.
I am one of the film’s associate producers, and I believe it will delight audiences – if they get to see it.
But here’s the rub. Saara has made no less than four accomplished feature films, all completely independent. Without a marketing machine or weight of investment bodies behind it, how is such a brilliant, witty, subversive film going to get the attention it deserves? Or even noticed?
Among other filmic jokes at the beginning of The Lies We Tell Ourselves, the cheeky and somewhat rambunctious intertitles ask if we’re ready for 90 minutes of self-deprecating wank. It is definitely arthouse, but it skewers wankiness, taking aim at the contradictions in both the world of film and the artist’s psyche.
The Lies We Tell Ourselves was shot in part on red carpets, as Lamberg travelled the world with her first feature, Innuendo – The Bad Twin. While pitching her next work, the industry starts pitching to her. Wannabe actors get naked. She’s propositioned on a yacht.
Stars such as Jane Badler (V, Murder She Wrote) and Gerard Darmon (Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, Betty Blue) join in support of Lamberg’s unique storytelling.
Some of the funniest parts of the film are Lamberg’s repeated attempts to engage with a film funding body, which become increasingly absurd. Both bureaucracy and the filmmaker herself are deftly skewered.
Despite the voiceover to the contrary, this is a serious film, which takes the genre of mockumentary and gives it a helluva shake.
In a recurring motif, Lamberg falls down on a series of exotic red carpets. This sense of falling down, of failing to make sense of the world around her, is one of many strands which make up Lamberg’s imaginatively edited work.
At least seven other independent art workers are traveling at our own expense to France to support Lamberg’s work. Collectively, we will see and support every single Australian film at Cannes. But short of falling down on the red carpet, getting critical attention from the press and other agencies can be a steep climb.
Saara Lamberg’s second film, WESTERMARCK EFFECT, recently won several international film festivals, but does not yet have distribution in Australia.
Cinephiles is not the official competition but a screening stream of Cannes Film Festival for the people of Cannes. Formerly, it featured dozens of marquee Australian and New Zealand films but for the last two years, Cinephiles has only screened one film. Both times, that film was by Saara Lamberg.
It’s quite an achievement – but is it enough to win that elusive prize, traction?
