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The True Reactions of the Southern Screens Gang - True History of the Kelly Gang (2019)
38 Plays3 months ago
We are riding out again with our good friend Ned, however this time it's existential and artsy.
Just the way we like it.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Under Southern Screens'
00:00:06
Speaker
You're terrible Muriel. Talk to me. You gonna do that, Pogger Pogger? You didn't talk to the cop. Today is a brand new day. No, that's it. It's the vibe.
00:00:17
Speaker
G'day, fellow Aussie film lovers, and welcome to another episode of Under Southern Screens, the most armoured Australian cinema podcast. I'm Mitch. And I'm Matthew. And yes, armoured? Armoured is what we're going with? We're armoured up. We're going to take on a bunch of constables who are here to stop us. They're all wearing white sheets, so it kind of looks like the KKK's here.
Exploring Film Metaphors
00:00:40
Speaker
a bit mad. metaphorical like that it's a bit of a visual metaphor but it's gonna give you a seizure it's gonna be awesome um but i already did already did have a seizure after watching the climax of today's what an insane amount of lighting just constant constant but i'm sure if you've just joined us you have no idea what the hell we're talking about
00:01:03
Speaker
Well, let's tell them. Yes, let's lift the lid off this mystery, this bush-ranging mystery of ours.
Review of 'True History of the Kelly Gang'
00:01:13
Speaker
absolutely. What are we watching today, Mitch, on Under Southern Screens? Well, today we are watching the true history of the Kelly...
00:01:20
Speaker
The history. So yeah, as we sort of said last week, we were like, not to be confused with the 1906 one, the the story of the Kelly gang, but this is the true history. Every other Ned Kelly movie is is lying to you. Except for the fact that this movie starts off by telling you that nothing in it is true. Yeah.
00:01:39
Speaker
yeah yeah yeah yeah Yeah. Like, like they're just, but they're like, but then like, but everything is true. And it's like, oh my gosh, how am I supposed to feel right now? I'm feeling so conflicted. Am I being lied to right now? I can't tell. Honestly, like,
00:01:54
Speaker
ah If you watch this movie, like you're in for a wild ride. That's all I will say. Crazy film. Crazy film. Well, let's give a little spoiler warning so that we can dive straight in. We're going to talk about the whole film, probably not even in order of like what happens.
Themes and Historical Accuracy
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah, we're just going to spoil this plot absolutely rotten. We kind of already spoiled the...
00:02:15
Speaker
the back end a little bit yeah that's probably not like that's step one of doing a movie podcast is probably not to talk about the climax of the movie as the first thing we talk about but you know what like yeah i mean yeah i ah i highly recommend this film i highly recommend that you watch it but everything in this movie is so unbelievably outlandish that even though it is a spoiler you probably won't believe it until you see it Yeah. You're probably going to be able to, even if we tell you kind of beat for beat, which we're not going to do beat for beat, what happens in this film, you can, you could probably still go into this and experience this as if you're going, I still have no clue what's going on. And this is still insane. It's very visceral. It's, it's a very visceral experience, but yeah, the true history of the Kelly gang. kelly You want to kick us off with that ah introduction, Mitch? Absolutely. Well, I'm going to tell you that it premiered at the Toronto international film festival on September 11, 2019. which is an insane day to premiere something. But then it was given its proper release on 26th of January, 2020, which as many Aussies will know is invasion day.
00:03:18
Speaker
And yeah some best informed people may still call it Australia day though. Yeah. That's interesting. That's an interesting point. It is. It's kind of cool. It contains a cast is actually kind of like surprisingly star studded includes George McKay,
00:03:32
Speaker
S.E. Davis, Nicholas Holt, Orlando Schwert, Thomason McKenzie, Sean Keenan, Charlie Hunnam, and Russell Crowe. And it was directed by Justin Curzel. Justin Curzel directed the movie Assassin's Creed. Did he really? He did. Assassin's Creed. Well, he's redeemed himself then because that was a garbage film. And then going to be, what, like three years after Assassin's Creed? Anyway. think so, yeah. So the movie details a self-proclaimed
In-Depth Film Analysis
00:04:01
Speaker
fictionalized retelling of Ned Kelly and his bush rangers, touching on the events throughout Ned's life that turned him down a life of crime that eventually led him to being hanged at the old Melbourne jail. That's crazy.
00:04:12
Speaker
It got decent reviews at the time and and is to date the most recent cinematic retelling of the Ned Kelly story. And also, I believe, is the 11th cinematic adaptation of this tale. Far out. one One more and we get like ah a free McMuffin coupon or something. And then one more, it's a baker's dozen.
00:04:30
Speaker
<unk> After that. baker's dozen. true. Yeah, we skipped the dozen part. We just go straight to the baker's. I want that bread, dude. I'm hungry. Baker's Delight. One of those tear and share pool parts. Give me that right Like those garlic ones? Garlic carrot? Like the garlic knot? if we want to be in like the context of this movie, like we get we go to the butcher and we get like yeah a rack of lamb or whatever or whatever. A leg of lamb that he gets on the butcher now. That's a quote from this movie, ladies and gentlemen. And then stand on like the table and give bows as my family praise me for poaching a cow. yeah Except my dad. My dad hates me.
00:05:08
Speaker
Yeah, but he's not in the picture for that long. No, he's not. Well, first of all, surely the name of this film is playing on the story of the Kelly gang. or It has to be. It has to be, right? Like, just look, I'm not a Kelly scholar.
00:05:25
Speaker
So I can't make this claim with full confidence behind it, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the story of the Keller Gang is probably a more historically accurate retelling of this tale.
00:05:36
Speaker
would say, at least in terms of aesthetics and and perhaps even, you know, like... in terms of accuracy of, like, who's in the right, who's in the wrong, like, and, like, portrayals of characters and the like. But I think in some areas maybe it is even more accurate as in, like, taught discussing the discrimination that the Kelly family would have faced and the sort of the othering and and and the oppression that they would have faced because of their bloodline and the like. But, yeah, like, I think they're fantastic companion pieces to each other. i
00:06:09
Speaker
Honestly, feel enlightened by watching these two films back to back. There's just the themes in this. Rich. think Rich with themes. As opposed to the 1906 one where there there's images that move, but not too many themes on display here. Well, I don't know. Maybe I'm just being a bit harsh. but No, I think you're right, though. and i once would I don't think that's us dogging on the OG film, though. yeah Because that's the OG film...
00:06:38
Speaker
is brilliant for the year it was made it's i mean we gushed we gushed about it last time well to be gosh don't know but we've sung its praises for the fact that it kind of you mentioned like it didn't have a book on cinema to go off of like where nowadays i could i could go online and go filmmaking 101 and i can get a breakdown on yeah how to just frame a shot which camera lens i should use how to insert a theme somewhere i yeah it's and they they did that lickety-split, no help whatsoever. but so you hadn't seen this film before? I hadn't, no. How did you feel, like, just sort of going into this pretty blind?
00:07:17
Speaker
So I watched Story of the Kelly Gang on YouTube, and then in the recommended was the trailer for this movie. Yeah, that's cool. And so I then watched the trailer. I was curious. I was like, what is a modern retelling of the Kelly? Yeah, exactly. Over 100 years. What does it look like? Yeah.
00:07:33
Speaker
And so watching that, I went, this is a movie that looks exactly up my alley. this This looks like everything I enjoy about film. And then watched this movie and it was everything I love about film. Well, not everything, but it has a lot that I really enjoy about film.
00:07:47
Speaker
I'm going to say this first, though. It does spend a little too long, I feel, with him as a young boy. i was going to say, like, genuinely... i don't think it wastes time as that either, though. Like, there is definitely themes. It's all about the themes, right? Like, this one's so theme-heavy. It's absolutely about the sort of the influences and it's like, it's the whole theme of, like, parenting and youth impacts adulthood, I guess. but And, yeah, I agree that it's, maybe it's just not as exciting and visceral and maybe it's a bit more cookie-cutter to me. I think there's some good stuff before Russell Crowe rocks up as Harry at Power. Was it? Eddie's name, Harry Potter? Yeah. He's playing Russell Crowe, mate. He's just playing... He's so cool. He's so Russell Crowe. He's so Russell Crowe. He's so Russell Crowe. He was great, though.
00:08:33
Speaker
I think everyone this movie is great, by the way. I don't think there's a single bad performance in this. Yeah, I think everyone is giving 120% and it's camp as hell. Everyone is cooking. Yeah, everyone is blasting on all cylinders. Yeah, it's insane. I was...
00:08:48
Speaker
A little bit worried at the start when we were spending a lot of time with him. But then once the dad dies and Russell Crowe rocks up, I feel like that's when the movie really kicks into gear. There's that moment where you're led to believe that he's going to be rustling some cattle.
00:09:01
Speaker
um And then the then this is this is kind of drawn out sequence. There's a part where you see a man's balls in his own mouth um because they Yeah, yeah. Which was, which was i thought that was an apple for a very long time until the close-up. He's like a pig. Okay, wait a second. Oh, no, no, no.
00:09:21
Speaker
Yeah. Just to be very, very clear to any of our little ears listening here, this an adult movie. Very adult. This is a very, very adult movie. There's like so much sex in this. There's so much violence in this. There is. It's so stylized and so outlandish that it doesn't come across as crude sort of obtuse in that way. No. For me, it was just so engaging. My eyes were glued to the screen the whole time. Like I was saying, when some Russell Crowe rocks up, you get to the thing, you keep going, and then you get to the part where he finally holds up that stagecoach in the snow.
00:10:01
Speaker
Yeah. um And that scene is goated with the sauce, I think the kids say. And that's the turning point in the narrative as well. That's yeah sort of like that when the floodgates open for Ned in that way because he sees that he doesn't have to be the subjugated one. john i mean But he's also he also rebels against the violence still. And kind of up until the end of the movie, he's rebelling against violence, which is really
Portrayal of Masculinity
00:10:27
Speaker
interesting when the personification we give to him is just as this outlaw yeah murderer. And even when he's kind of perceived as a more good kind of guy, he's still a killer. He's still someone who went out and did these killings and stuff And he does kill people in this film, but he's so much more conflicted about it than would usually expect this character to
00:10:46
Speaker
Yeah. especially compared to other depictions. He has such a great layer of nuance and I love the way that Kerzel doesn't have to spell it out. It's sort of done through allegory in the way that, you know, there's the deep homoerotic undertones between him and his gang. So gay, man. But it was all like it was like it was like, damn, I just wasn't expecting like this amount of homoeroticism in this film. It's crazy. Yeah, it's fantastic. And like the fact that, you know, Kelly wears a dress throughout the movie and and all of these visual and like inferential hintings at this nuance where you as an audience member can infer it, but it's and it's not immediately explained to you. And it says so much more. i feel like one of the main themes and what's where you focus is is on what is like masculinity. Absolutely. Yeah. Especially at that time. I think you can watch this anywhere in the world and kind of get like the sense of what is it being masculine? What does it mean to be you know a man and all that? Or someone else says it, sorry, that you're not the man you pretend to be and you're also not the man your mum wanted you to be. and that's kind of like a reoccurring thing. like He's not as violent and as cold as he wants to be. His mum wanted him to be like more of a...
00:11:56
Speaker
killer and more and just kind of the way she keeps goading him towards violence is actually it's really sickening you see why you see why because mean the film starts with Ned watching his mum being prostituted it's like you're meant to critic Yeah, you're meant to feel so sympathetic for this character, but you see the manipulation at play here, I think, which is fascinating. There's like so many victims who end up becoming perpetrators of the Roaring kind of abuse, like the cycle of abuse. That's it. A whole year before Last of Us 2 came out, we're talking about the cycle of revenge. And this did it 10 times better as well. Yeah, honestly. Well, I like Last of Us 2. Oh, I like it too, but it's also ham-fisted as hell. This movie did it better. It's just, it's so good. And I really love this idea that they have the Sons of Siv, this rebellion group in Ireland, and the Kellys are Irish, Irish Australian. It's apparently in Ireland where these dresses and it freaks out the British because they look crazy.
00:13:06
Speaker
um and nothing scary and as they say nothing scares a man more than crazy yeah um and it's just like what does that mean for masculinity like these going to war in a in a typically uh female-coded piece of clothing um like it's it's it's just so interesting and uh oh man i could gush for days Like, gosh, we've gotten up, like,
Influence of 1970s Australian Cinema
00:13:27
Speaker
you're 100% right. I think what I love most about this film is the way that it not only harkens back to the original film in the way that it's structured. I mean, like, all of the scenes in 1906 Ned Kelly are present in yeah this one. Like, like yeah the shooting the shooting of the cops in the in the the forest. I was thinking that. I was like, no one's shooting those birds either. they' They're just kind of hanging out this time. the The hold up at at at the ranch and stuff, it's all there. But what I also love is just that it harkens back to 1970s Australian film. And we'll get there throughout this podcast. Like a bunch of the unhinged stuff in this movie, like in terms of like color palettes and cinematography and just the fact that you'll just see the most obscene thing on screen and and people will play it off like it's casual. Like that is classic 1970s exploitation right there. And I think it's such a great return to form. on and like On a side note, how the hell did they get Nicholas Holt and Thomasine McKenzie in this movie? Oh, dude. it's so And Charlie Hunnam and Russell Crowe. And honestly, George McKay is kind of like a big get-get.
00:14:32
Speaker
like He's not huge, yeah but he's he's definitely not small either. Yeah, yeah and his performance is fantastic as well. He's great. he really suits this version of Ned. I feel like if you played any other version Ned, he wouldn't do well, but he suits this version of Ned yeah really well um he reminds me of the type of guy that you would see at an afl match who's pretending to be tough like yeah yeah he has like this veneer of pride or whatever yeah exactly it's well um there's also a child murder in this one um good times we're back again uh we've that were two for two child murders in each film we've seen so far That's it, man. We'll try and get one per episode. Should we have a child murder counter somewhere? Oh, there's like a bunch, actually. Don't say them. Don't say them so people don't, they won't know. Because I don't know either. Because you've seen way more Australian film than I have. So I won't know either until I watch it. You're just going to to keep watching to find out, brother. Keep listening. Yeah, like, yeah, it's interesting. There's no one in this who I outright hate, but also like. Yes. And there's different variations of it. I think George McKay slash Ned is the most likable character in this. You get to see the most of him and you get to see why he becomes the way he is. Nicholas Holt...
00:15:50
Speaker
I think I just find Nicholas Holt too charming to hate. um Yeah. Well, that's what I love Nicholas Holt's performance in this movie. I actually think he is the best performance in this movie. He's the MVP for sure. He is very clearly insane and sadistic. Like like the first time we see him, he's in this mansion watching two people get beaten up and then we cut to him and it's alluded to that he's that he's had relations with ah with a farm animal. Yeah.
00:16:17
Speaker
Which he was so keen to text me about when you were talking about this. Dude, Lex Luthor. We've got to talk about the livestock sex, dude. We've got to talk about it. Bro, essential conversation point.
00:16:31
Speaker
But I love how throughout the entire film, everything he does is played with like a veneer of, well, obviously this is how it should be. You know what mean? Like he plays it with this, what's the word I'm searching for? Like an arrogance or a confidence of... And arrogance, absolutely. Where it's like, he's just like, well, this is just the way the world works. So, like, for example, I think one of the most powerful scenes in the movie is where Nicholas Holt steals, is it Kelly's sister's baby? Oh, no, no, it's Thomasine's baby. Oh, yes. So good. It's horrifying. It's horrifying thing. Because you believe would shoot him.
00:17:09
Speaker
You believe he would shoot that baby. He's playing it with just an obscene casualness to it. like Not that he's holding a gun to a baby. yeah It's yeah insane. and then like Because the other police rock in and are like, what the hell are you doing? This this is not cool. And he's just going, I'm conducting an interview.
00:17:26
Speaker
yeah. It's so good. There is jaw-dropping moments, I think, for sure. But I think there's just some moments that they just kind of stick. I think, for me, the ending, which we alluded to earlier. Yes. my goodness. Before we just spoil a little warning. So sorry about that. But the ending, it builds to it in this way where you... In a conventional film, it's going to be this action-packed shootout. Especially because this movie is... It's a Western, basically. It's so Western-coded. So it's alluding to this grand...
00:17:55
Speaker
there's going to be a train crash there's going to be a shootout there's an army on Ned Kelly's side exactly exactly and then you get to it the train crash doesn't happen because Ned Kelly's a softy at heart and lets a guy go who then goes warns the coppers not to drive their train into the broken tracks and then they all rock up in what looks like KKK garb it's not it's more probably just like I think it's just like reflective gear and yeah like sort of that whole thing PPE um yeah and then all the remaining characters get shot to hell except for ned kelly who then goes out in the classic armor we don't get a hero shot of him in this armor don't get uh him doing anything good he just constant muttering i'm gonna kill all over you and then he just gets mulched um yeah he just gets absolutely wrecked yeah and it's it's flashing lights the music is insanely intense throughout this movie but it culminates here just before that as well like it it yeah builds and builds and builds like they're in the hotel. It's on fire. People are yelling and screaming. People are dying. The hostages are getting shot and like the police just don't care. yeah It's like something out of Apocalypse Now. It's just so intense.
00:19:07
Speaker
hence the The shot of, um, exactly. I was still back going to say this, the shot where, um, it's the helmet and his face is all muddy and you can see the eyes. i was like, that is so Martin Sheen from Apocalypse Now he's coming out of the river. So Copa-Lacoded.
00:19:21
Speaker
Oh, it was like so Apocalypse Now. Yeah. Like just the descent of a man into madness. And it's just raw, just like, just chaos, I think. And I think it's one of the most effective climaxes in an Australian film in that it fulfills and subverts the expectations of its audience. Yeah, this is this is what Rian Johnson was trying to do with Star Wars Last Jedi. He saw this movie a year later and was like, oh, come on. Gotta talk to Justin Kerzell.
00:19:51
Speaker
Because that that climax is great. But honestly, like that final section where the teacher is telling that fake story about how Ned Kelly is hanged. and And we actually watched Ned Kelly get hanged. And then the film just ends on the creaking of the rope. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my God. Haunting.
00:20:08
Speaker
Of it like panning, of it like, out it's just like, oh, beautiful. Shot at RMIT, don't you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they're all clapping, it's this giant crowd listening to this fake version of Ned Kelly. To the history, like yeah what we now know of the hit the story of the hick Kelly gang. yeah when we And we contrast and we cut to Ned alone and himself. Famously, in quotation mark, he muttered, ah such is life before being hanged, which I don't know if that's true or not. i well i mean i mean Who's to say?
00:20:41
Speaker
But this movie implies it's fake. um yeah This movie implies that that didn't happen um because the guy who's telling the story says he muttered that, but his mum right before that said, don't say anything because you can't be strong when you... It's harder to be strong when you talk.
00:20:55
Speaker
um By the way, just the mum going at him with toxic masculinity up
Themes of Identity and Masculinity
00:21:00
Speaker
until the end. We love to see a hater. Oh my gosh, yeah. that that was like That's a really layered performance as well. the Oh my gosh, she's excellent. Probably Nicholas Holt and then it's Essie Davis who plays the mum, right? I believe so, yeah. Nicholas Holt, brilliant. And then Essie Davis underneath that, playing a probably a much more complex role than Nicholas Holt does. Nicholas Holt just kind of knocks out of the park and he's just great. and But Essie Davis is really, she's batting along with him. like She's matching him beat for beat. There's any scene with both of them in it. is It's just like an acting masterclass. Absolutely. I'm going to be honest, Mitch. I'm be brutally honest here. yep I did not like Russell Crowe's character in this movie.
00:21:40
Speaker
I'm sorry. i i know we're two episodes in. I know we're like, oh, this movie's amazing. But I think he's too stereotypically badass. That's my thing. And he exits the picture, like, without any fanfare. Yeah. I...
00:21:57
Speaker
Definitely watching those going, I see Russell Crowe had a probably a producing role in this or something. I'm sure he was like, I better get a really cool action scene yeah or else. But we get Russell Crowe singing, so that's a win. He is very much kind of like, here I am. I'm going to tell the Constable Charlie Hunnam to off. Yeah. and call him a prick and protect Ned Kelly's mom from having to prostitute herself anymore. And I'm going to become, you're going to become a Bush Ranger boy. going shoot these guys He just serves as that, that stereotypical archetype of like, you're going to do great things, Ned. And it's just like, I don't know. It's hard to take Russell Crowe seriously, in my opinion. But anyway, I don't think you need to anyway that I think that's actually, that's an important point because like no one in this is a cool person except for Russell Crowe. Yeah. um big action scene yeah and he's like and he's and the first thing we see of him is ned young ned points a gun to his head and he says go on pull the trigger like he's he takes in straight he's not like whoa whoa whoa don't shoot me isn' that he's not he's not a little little pussy who wants to live you know he's fortunate in that moment but he just i i would have liked to see ah like a resolution of his character even if he came back later on in the film as like a hallucination or something because his story ends there you know and so
00:23:10
Speaker
It's like you can infer that oh it's it's maybe you know informed Ned's actions going forward, but like it would be good the text to actually reference it. The other person I thought wasn't super remarkable but still did a good job was Thomasin McKenzie, I believe. Yeah. She hasn't got a ton to work with in the script. The scene with Nicholas Hoult threatening her baby, um normal thing to say, by the way, top 10 normal sentences. you know Just go along with it, audience. you know yeah yeah Yeah, yeah, She's really good in that and she sells the fear of that. Yeah, as anyone would. And I think she's like performance itself is great for what she's given, but I would have liked a little bit more there. Yeah, I i see that. I mean, and we know she goes on to do, because I think it's like, what, two years later she does- yeah, Last Night in Soho and Jojo Rabbit. Is it the same year? Yeah. I think Jojo Rabbit came out the same year as True History of the Kelly Gang. Oh, did it? I'm getting my years mixed up. Which was maybe what how they were able to
Modern Australian Classic
00:24:04
Speaker
get Thomas and Hickok in. Yeah, well, she wasn't, I mean, she's still not the biggest name, but she hadn't done Last Night and Jojo Rabbit, which I, well, don't know if Last Night's a big movie, but Jojo Rabbit's definitely good. It was their big break, absolutely. But yeah, aside from that's really the only things I can sort of like say, oh well, this wasn't as strong for me. I think that this film is like a modern Australian classic in my eyes. It's just kind of crazy to watch. And there's so much Oz in this. It is such an Australian movie. I don't think i've ever watched a movie and been so aware, in a good way, not in a bad way, being so aware of how Ozzy the soundscape is. This is set in Victoria, which is where I was born and raised. And so every single freaking bird I've heard at 3am in the morning. And I've been in rainforests that look like the ones that they shot in and stuff. Like it's it's just brilliant. and's yeah
00:25:00
Speaker
I felt like I was home, except it sucked because everything sucks. Except it was pre-industrial times and I hated Yeah, and also everyone wants to die. Everyone wants to die and likely does die. It's so fascinating seeing Ned transition between the two, like going between high society and then back to his family and then, yeah, just the interplay between the two, between him and Fitzpatrick, who's Nicholas Holt's character. just yeah Yeah, it's just such a fascinating watch and and, yeah, like I think this is probably the best Ned Kelly adaptation that I've seen. I've seen of the Kelly Gang. I've seen the Heath Ledger Ned Kelly and I've seen this and this is by far the best in my opinion. I have only seen Story and True History so I am still too... That's okay, 50 cent shots. you know that's okay I mean this is just a good movie this is a movie that I enjoy over a lot of other movies I've seen the juxtaposition between like poverty and rich and all that is really interesting too because when given the chance to let her son move into a more rich environment his mum doesn't let him go off to
00:26:07
Speaker
school and well that's right yeah he denies it that's a fascinating moment she like stops if she doesn't want him to because she claims that she doesn't want her son to be taken from her yeah but then 10 seconds later and this is deliberate as well she sells him to russell russell to then go make money like she's no she's she's just proud and she doesn't want the to ever be indebted to the british and yeah which is like from what they've done to the irish understandable like i get it and but it just it's so interesting and just an interesting look at masculinity i think it's an interesting look at just australian masculinity as well like specifically there's masculine you get in australia because there's that part where nicholas hulk goes an irish man who doesn't like to drink and doesn't like to fight
00:26:50
Speaker
I feel like, yeah, that is, you do you think of Irish people and you think of the stereotypes that comes along with them. That's definitely the stereotypes that go along with that. But you can also kind of attribute those to Australian men, like, all Australian, not Australian men specifically, but like. That idea, that idea of the masculine ideal. We love to drink. We love to rabble rouse. we yeah we're We're a bunch of tricksters. And when you're not part of that camp, it is so easy to feel othered in that sense because it's like, this is all that you know. You know what I mean? Like, ah you know, we're into our AFL. We're into our, you know, our physical sports. Our NFL. Our magic. The rugby, brother. The state of origin. Exactly. So i think that's such an interesting exploration of the of the modern Australian character is is seeing that people do and have existed like this for a long time and there'll be this constant cycle of othering and and sort of perceived, you know, snootiness about it. Exactly. Yeah. It's fascinating to to watch on screen and and in a way that is like breaking down the myth of one of Australia's most famous folklore. Yeah, it's just good. If you haven't heard it, guys, this movie's really good. think you should watch it. haven't understood from our conversation, it's great. It's good very, very good. But Nicholas Holt does f*** a sheep or a ram or or whatever it is. It's a cow. don't know. Some sort of livestock animal. various livestock so uh proceed with caution there if you're you don't see it it's implied so you have to watch that happen and it's just heavily implied that and and in a dress too because had the whole thing about having sex once again another thing about the masculinity i have sex in a dress it's freaking insane dude it's good It's a good movie. It's really good. And it's a good and it's a good way to to start off our our proper sort of under-southern screens voyages by by yeah going for a modern classic. And that's the final thing I want to touch on here is that it's proof that like modern Australian cinema can not
Conclusion and Future Episodes
00:28:48
Speaker
only be really, really effective, but can effectively showcase the Australian character to an international audience. I think that is like the one of the main successes of this film. Is Justin Gozell Australian?
00:29:00
Speaker
Because no one else in this is Australian. and None of the actors, at least, are Australian. They're all british in some British and Irish in some way. He is an Australian director. Oh, Russell Crowe. Well, Russell Crowe's New Zealand, so... Yeah, well well, that's the age-old thing, right? We've adopted him. ah No, he's he's literally beating people up. Anyway. Yeah, we don't want him. I mean, he's a good actor. He was in Romp-A-Stomp-A. I was thinking of LA Confidential, honestly. Yeah. i Can I just you won't get this now, but I can't wait till we get to Rumpa Stomper in this.
00:29:31
Speaker
It is a wild ride, and that is all I will say about Rumpa Stomper at this point. I'm excited to watch Rumpa Stomper. I think it's my my turn this week to claim the most Australian thing about this movie. Yes, hit me, brother. Let's go. I have two. One of them's a serious one and one's a funny one. That's okay. That's all right. we do We'll do the serious one first. So the serious one is i think I've never seen Australian...
00:29:59
Speaker
dirt like grime done so well on yeah like it's so grimy and and it's it's that australian grimy as well but it's also like australian grime mixed with the australian cold because we're known as a hot country but it gets really cold here as well um like famously cold um because all our houses aren't built for any type of insulation so we're just always cold and hot it's that seasonal thing you know yeah yeah we just we just we live for dying We live for dying. Isn't that the motto?
00:30:28
Speaker
Anyway, but yeah yeah it is a very it's a dirty movie. It's dirty, dirty movie. I think that's like the most Australian kind of visual. But I think, to me, the thing that really stuck out the most there is having one glass of wine at a licensed establishment as a minor, as long as it's with Emil and with a guardian as well. Yeah.
00:30:50
Speaker
the parental supervision is off the chain exactly no because i know released in victoria we might get rid of it recently as well but you were allowed as a i don't think really matter what age you were but you were allowed have one glass of something as long as you were with your parents and it was with a meal well that is so funny i guess it's that veneer of sophistication but it's just eight-year-olds getting drunk at the hawthorn hotel yeah exactly with their kids nu oh let the mate have a wee bevy or had a couple when i was his age it's all right it's all right drinking but the australian character in a nutshell yeah
00:31:29
Speaker
On that fun note, thanks so much for listening, you guys. What ah what an expedition we've been on today. i had a great time. um I'm not haunted by the younger version of myself as I get hanged at all. um i Speaking younger versions of people's selves, that's just one little final note. The person that played young Ned Kelly looks like someone I went to high school with.
00:31:46
Speaker
but That is crazy. He also looks a lot like George McKay. They did a really good casting. Yeah. yeah yeah it's This film... It's almost like this movie is a good movie. Yeah, funny that. Anyway, thanks for listening to this episode of Under Southern Screens. We'll see you next week for another film, which we will not tell you about because we want to keep you guessing. we want to keep you on your toes. just eventually Eventually we'll have it figured out and we will tell you advance. Absolutely. But yeah, we'll see you next week. like Thank you so much for listening and keep your eye on those southern screens.
00:32:16
Speaker
Woo! Thanks for listening to another episode of Under Southern Screens. We'll be back next week to talk more films down under. We just want to attribute that our opening title is Heavy Duty by Zoo and our closing title is Heavy Weight by Fell Creek. Thanks so much for listening and Mitch and I will see you in the next episode.
00:32:34
Speaker
See you next time.
00:32:38
Speaker
Under Southern Screens would like to acknowledge the stolen lands on which this podcast is recorded and produced and pay tribute to the Wurundjeri and Woiwurrung people of the Kulin Nation and Kamaragal people of the Eora Nation.
00:32:51
Speaker
Sovereignty was never ceded and we pay respect to all Indigenous Elders past, present and emerging. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.