by Annette Basile
Worth: $13.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Janet Watson Kruse, Glyn Francis, Mark Tregonning, Clio Leonard, Damian Vuleta, Linda Doris Campbell
Intro:
... a knack for narrative.
A black comedy/drama, COMA is not per se an Aussie genre movie, but it feels like one. These kinds of low-budget films live and die on the strength of their acting, and the acting here is strong and credible. No exceptions.
It’s all told from the perspective of Alex, whose face we never see. He’s in a coma following an incident, unable to communicate but clearly aware – although his visitors don’t realise this. COMA is filmed almost entirely from his point of view; we watch the film through a lens that seems as though it’s strapped to Alex’s forehead.
There’s a parade of visitors coming to visit him in hospital, each having a one-sided conversation that reveals both something of Alex’s life, and something of themselves. An intriguing narrative builds – there are drugs, money and secrets. But the film alternates between drama and darkly comic – in a subtle performance, Mark Tregonning is funny yet still believable as the awkward social worker who’s having trouble talking to someone who can’t talk back. As Alex’s partner, Janet Watson Kruse captures her character’s emotional turmoil, while Glyn Francis is excellent as the family member who harasses the comatose Alex for money.
Watching almost all of this through Alex’s eyes does take an adjustment – the camera is static, and the angle is uncomfortable. But it’s supposed to be. The film’s visuals don’t manage to rise above its shoestring budget – the setting isn’t convincing, there’s none of the bustling whiteness associated with hospitals. But the acting and layered script make up for these shortcomings.
Director and co-writer Saara Lamberg (The Lies We Tell Ourselves) – who also plays a mysterious, taciturn hospital visitor – has a knack for narrative. Although COMA runs out of steam just before the home stretch, it rallies to conclude perfectly. It would be interesting what the clearly talented Lamberg could achieve with a bigger budget.
Thanks to Erwin Schrödinger’s thought experiment, cats and science are now permanently linked in the collective consciousness. So, it’s fitting that a cat, Spithead, should feature in Conversations with Spithead, an offbeat 40-minute comedy about a mad scientist type and his plan to save the world by ridding it of all the bad people.
Damian Vuleta is brilliant as the nameless scientist who explains his theories to his newly acquired fluffy cat (a Birman, by the looks). Culture, religion and philosophy have failed to subdue homosapiens’ worst instincts, he says. “Human nature is always trumping our better selves,” he tells Spithead. He plans to use brain scans to recognise those with evil characters, then create a “programmable virus” to identify and kill all the bad apples.
“Any questions?” he asks the patient Spithead.
Isolated from the world he’s trying to save, he eats baked beans out of the can, plays the piano (giving the film its soundtrack) and gives Spithead hygiene instructions in the film’s not-to-be-spoiled most absurdist scene.
But it’s not just a cat that’s involved; in a stroke of absurdist comic genius, the scientist presides over a committee, of sorts, of Styrofoam heads – the kind you see displaying wigs. He dresses them with hats and scarves, serves them tea, arranges them for meetings and has deadly serious ‘discussions’ with them.
Damian Vuleta plays it very straight and gets the tone right. He co-wrote this with Saara Lamberg, a Finnish-Australian indie filmmaker, and any resemblances to contagions living or dead are purely coincidental – this was filmed pre-pandemic.
Conversations with Spithead is one idea stretched a little further than it perhaps should have been. It doesn’t quite go the distance, yet for most of its running time, it’s entertaining and often very amusing – you will never look at a Styrofoam head in the same way ever again.
