Burke and Wills

Australia Dir: Matt Zeremes & Oliver Torr – 2/5

[This is my reveiw from the 2006 Sydney Film Festival]

Started out as a promising, original film, and fell into a self-important mire.  What I thought was an interesting take on modern young men and their inability to understand what is going on before their very eyes in terms of life, relationships and everything that is important in life, turned into an artificial tale of a schizophrenic rapist.  Irresponsible, immoral and a waste of talent.  Where was the critical voice of reason that should have said this was a good short film at 40 mins – a slacker comedy with music that would become irritating if overused (it was)?  So derivative of Hal Hartley, Jim Jarmusch and “Taxi Driver”.  Disappointing: superficially good, but they sacrificed all the substance in the film on the altar of their narcissism. Oh, and that contrived (did not work, merely irritated), oh-so-clever name:  Leichhardt?  They'll never guess it!