by Erin Free
Worth: $19.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Peter “Blackie” Black, Ray Ahn, Keish De Silva, Murray Ruse, Pete Kostic, Tim Rogers
Intro:
...captures the continuing story of the mighty Hard-Ons with brute emotional force and poetic precision...
In his superb documentary The Most Australian Band Ever! – which screened in cinemas earlier this year, and is now headed for a very impressive deluxe Blu-ray release – Aussie director Jonathan J. Sequeira captured a large, compelling and hugely entertaining swathe of the long and winding story of forty-years-plus-and-still-thundering Sydney punk rock band The Hard-Ons. With a wealth of material, and a big, continuing story to tell, Sequeira has made the bold – but wholly, unquestionably right – decision to split the wild, rollicking tale of The Hard-Ons into two, which now sees the very welcome release of the follow-up film Harder And Harder, a title equally as fitting as that of the first.
While The Most Australian Band Ever! was certainly tinged with darkness, especially with regards to the racism endured by the multicultural band in its early days on the 1980s Sydney punk scene, Harder And Harder is an even more bruising affair, though its moments of snarling triumph are certainly plentiful too. Burning with a desperate need to create music and perform it live, the searing passion of Hard-Ons founders Peter “Blackie” Black and Ray Ahn was never equalled by that of third member Keish De Silva, and this unease informs much of Harder And Harder. De Silva leaves the band (replaced by hard-hitting nice guy drummer Pete Kostic of Front End Loader) and then rejoins, but there’s always a simmering tension there, which Harder And Harder effectively captures.
That tension reached an ugly low-point via a series of accusations of inappropriate sexual behaviour levelled against De Silva, which threw The Hard-Ons into disarray. De Silva was promptly ejected from the band, but The Hard-Ons’ provocative song titles and lyrics, and warped sense of humour, were weaponised against them on social media, and the hard-rocking, hard-working band was almost cancelled. But The Hard-Ons stood tall and hung on, even while dogged by another controversy, which saw the group raked over the coals for going on tour with Rose Tattoo, whose iconic lead singer Angry Anderson had made some questionable comments in the media around immigration. But with an unbowed sense of purpose courtesy of new drummer Murray Ruse (another hard-hitting nice guy), The Hard-Ons forge on, even engaging You Am I legend Tim Rogers as their new frontman.
With his 2017 doco Descent Into The Maelstrom – which tracked the furious ups and downs of 1970s Aussie punk figureheads Radio Birdman – director Jonathan J. Sequeira delivered a cruelly under-celebrated masterclass in rock documentary filmmaking. With The Most Australian Band Ever! and now Harder And Harder, he equals it. Peter “Blackie” Black and Ray Ahn are even more vulnerable and wholly loveable here than they were in the first film, and the emotional force present in the film is palpable. Despite their wild image and raucous live shows, The Hard-Ons have always been fairly clean-living guys, and while their story (unlike that told in so many rock documentaries) isn’t impacted by drug use, it has often been touched by sadness. That was never worse than when Peter “Blackie” Black was horribly assaulted while working as a cab driver (yep, these guys have day jobs), and Sequeira captures that moment in The Hard-Ons story with requisite sensitivity and quiet power.
Harder And Harder depicts the continuing story of the mighty Hard-Ons with brute emotional force and poetic precision; it’s rock doco heaven torched by the sizzling flames of hell.
Harder And Harder will screen in cinemas through November and December in a series of special event screenings with Q&A sessions and live performances. Click here for more information.
Click here for our review of The Most Australian Band Ever!
The Most Australian Band Ever! will be released in December in multiple Blu-ray packages. Click here for more information.
