Why it that people always get so excited when they hear a film is being shot in Australia? Wow, big whoop. We live on a massive island; you are not going to be making an appearance, I can guarantee you that. Not to mention that the setting almost certainly won’t be Australia. They just want to use and abuse our natural scenery, and sometimes that big tower in Sydney for some reason. So let’s not lose our marbles over Yaival DuMesque coming to film his latest, greatest project in Sydney. It’s probably just going to be America-centric like the rest of his movies.
We should be paying more attention to Australian productions, which do so much more with a far lesser budget. There was this independent film, Scrub, which was truly brilliant. It was about a lady belonging to a place that did carpet steam cleaning, and her steady descent into madness. I’m very house-proud, so I could understand the subject matter. What’s more, a lot of the amateur actors they had running around in the background were actual carpet steam cleaners. I knew as soon as I saw it that they were professionals who knew how to work those machines, and that’s all the acting I really need.
See? That’s the level of detail and thoughtfulness that should be present in pretty much every movie. I know DuMesuque does his research, and his films really are quite artistic, but I can’t help but look at those carpet cleaners in the background and think…’gosh, such a realistic setting’. It helps me become immersed, which is as much of a big deal as it sounds.
No, I don’t think that we need a feature-length film purely based around the Melbourne tile and grout cleaning industry. There are some things that just work better in real life. But it’s the detail…that’s what breathes life into art. Detail and passion that shows.
-Jayne