Thanks to the Melbourne Film festival and Hopscotch Films we attended a preview screening of The Wrestler in Melbourne. It opens nationally in Australia on 15 January 2009.
‘Bout The Wrestler
Darren Aronofsky’s latest film takes us into a world where suspending disbelief is the chrome://foxytunes-public/content/signatures/signature-button.pngcore element. Wrestling culture, though superficially like boxing, is more like the circus. A strange mixture of comedy, farce and sometimes tragedy. The Wrestler is all of these and more. Portrayed as a macho world, it has always had plenty of female fans. Just as Mickey Rourke had in his younger days and will doubtless have again with the release of this touching story.
The director has made this Rourke’s film. He is in virtually every scene. The camera explores his body in intimate detail. If his scars and breaks seem too real, perhaps many of them are a legacy of Mickey’s pro boxing career in the early 1990s during a movie hiatus. It isn’t quite type-casting but becomes clear why Aronofsky was so keen to get him for this part.
He isn’t the early sex symbol of 9½ Weeks or the brutal Marv of Sin City. For ageing Randy "The Ram" Robinson is more gentleman than stud despite the expectations of some of his female admirers. There is no doubt that Rouke’s reputation as a bad boy and loose cannon on the set adds a special dimension to his performance. We sense from the beginning that there will be explosions.
If you’re expecting a wrestling version of Rocky, forget it. This is not about underdogs or champions. Randy is fighting his own demons more than his opponents in the ring. Too old and too sick to continue his chosen career, he is just trying to maintain some sense of personal and social identity. As an unskilled worker, he struggles to find other employment.
Through his relationship with Pam, a bar dancer aka Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), he makes one more attempt to re-establish contact with his daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood). Somehow we know that he promises her too much and that his self-destructive side will see him crashing his own skull into a turnbuckle or two.
The fight scenes are spectacular but gruesome. Knowing that the wrestling is scripted and that we are watching actors doesn’t minimise their impact. Shades of the real thing! For all the pretence, the crowd and the movie audience must have blood and there is plenty of it.
It’s a world of good guys and bad guys. The plot centres on a rematch with his nemesis from the eighties, The Ayotollah, who waves an Iraqi flag as he enters the ring. Young Cassius Clay taunting Sonny Liston and Ali rumbling in the jungle with George Foreman would have loved the showmanship and histrionics.
Robert D. Siegel’s screenplay milks the visual elements. Two scenes stand out:
Washed up and retired heroes of times passed sit at tables in an American Legion hall. They are selling memorabilia, signing autographs and posing for photographs with fans and their children. With their wounds barely hidden, they look more like civil war veterans.
The Ram walks through corridors and down the stairs of a supermarket on his way to serve at the deli counter. His bleached shoulder length locks are covered by a hairnet. His shame badge sports his real name ‘Robin’. Aronofsky lays the stadium imagery on thick. We laugh or cry or do both.
The director clearly established strong rapport with his female leads. Marisa Tomei doesn’t miss a beat as her character’s attempts to build a solid life for herself and her son are complicated by Randy’s attentions. Evan Rachel Wood’s brooding performance as his estranged daughter symbolises the Ram’s wasted years and wasted opportunities.
Their dysfunctional relationship is juxtaposed with his affection for and genuine interactions with the children of his trailer park. They clearly admire and respect this old warrior.
The Wrestler will appeal across generations. This is a movie for baby boomers who grew up on a weekly diet of world championship wrestling as their virtual reality television. It is also tailor-made for Gen X who loved Fight Club and Gen Y who love disgraced celebrities on the comeback trail. The advertising poster proclaims, “Witness the Resurrection of Mickey Rourke”. A clever marketing ploy but the film stands up without this inevitable, forced metaphor. Mickey was neither washed up or dead as his filmography clearly shows. Not Lazarus, just a naughty boy!
It won the Golden Lion at the 2008 Venice Film Festival. The Wrestler is a certainty for academy award nominations. It’s straight out of Million Dollar Baby territory; the kind of stuff Planet Hollywood loves. It’s very sentimental and very good. Like Bruce Springsteen’s song “The Wrestler” which closes the film.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Mickey Rourke wrestles his past
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Tweet Minister
Lindsay Tanner has been blogging about enhancing government accountability through use of the Web. He also blogs regularly on the BusinessDay Blogs of The Age. It might be time to get an Australian version of Britain's Tweetminster to push this process along a bit:
TweetMinster is a public service that makes it easier to connect the public with Members of Parliament using Twitter. We want constituents to find their MPs (or invite them to use Twitter if they're not already doing so) and through encouraging participation and open conversations, promote better and more transparent communication between voters and elected representatives.or Germany's abgeordnetenwatch:
With abgeordnetenwatch.de voters, citizens, anybody can talk to their MP's on line at any time. All they have to do is give their name and their e-mail address. You log on. You give your zip code. The voting precinct is found by the computer. You see a profile of your MP and fire away your question.There are OZ sites with some of their features but we have a long way to go to establish real communication. GetUp has Project Democracy where we can watch our Senators but it's one way.
Apparently Malcolm Turnbull was one of the first of the tall timber to start twittering. His latest: "Just visited Bondi Public to see their new garden plans. On 380 into city now."
Kevin Rudd twitters as part of his new website:" Penny Wong and Jenny Macklin have just recorded a new vpod about the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme at www.kevinpm.com.au." Of course none of this is interactive. At least you can ask questions of the British and German pollies.
Friday, December 19, 2008
The Future of World Indigenous Education
Shaping the Future of World Indigenous Education is an update on the World Indigenous Peoples' Conference: Education, held in Melbourne last week.
Cross posted from Global Voices, "a leading participatory media news room for voices from the developing world. Global Voices is an international, volunteer-led project that collects, summarizes, and gives context to some of the best self-published content found on blogs, podcasts, photo sharing sites, and videoblogs from around the world, with a particular emphasis on countries outside of Europe and North America."
Thursday, December 18, 2008
International Migrants Day
18 December is International Migrants Day. Australia has a lot to celebrate today.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Sock and Awe: Only a game?
If you haven't played Sock and Awe yet, now's the chance. Hours, well perhaps seconds, of holiday fun. It's not nearly as clever or elaborate as Sarah Palin as President in the oval office. But in these tough times it's free.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Australia's National Priority: About Ben Cousins
Our National priorities were clear on the 6 pm Channel Nine News in Melbourne last night. As Robert Merkel posted at Larvatus Prodeo about the drafting Ben Cousins It’s more important than the CPRS…
Nine had Cousins as the lead story, followed by Chopper Read, with the 5% CPRS a lame third. In fact the climate change report had a graphic of a $6 rise for household costs, timeframe unspecified, plus the National Press Club protest, but little of substance about the targets. Have to get your priorities right.
It is little wonder that the Rudd government is prepared to squib the global warming challenge with yesterday's lame effort, when it receives such shallow media treatment.
Footnote: When we lived in Western Australia, Ben Cousins was one of the three lead stories almost every night on the ABC News. We were convinced that it stood for 'About Ben Cousins'. It seems this has followed us to Melbourne.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Special Places: Honeycomb Gorge
Honeycomb Gorge is located in the Kennedy Range National Park in the Midwest of Western Australia. It is 150 km east of Carnarvon on the way to Burringurrah (Mount Augustus).
Music on this video is from 'West Nile Papyrus' by the Dejunair Project.
Enjoy!
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Indigenous Education Conference Concludes
The World Indigenous Peoples Conference: Education 2008 has finished with a spectacular ceremony.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
World Indigenous Peoples Conference: Education continues
The second video from Black Tracks of the World Indigenous Peoples' Conference: Education 2008 being held in Melbourne this week is now online. Please click here for other posts about the conference.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Indigenous Education - Respecting Tradition, Shaping the Future
3000 delegates from around the world continue to share their experiences at The World Indigenous Peoples' Conference: Education at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne. There has been little coverage from the mainstream media. If you see any please let me know through comments. Carbon Media are producing video for National Indigenous TV (NITV) that is screening at Black Tracks.
Dropped in yesterday and watched Dr. Chris Sarra, of Indigenous Education Leadership Institute of Australia and former principal of Cherbourg School in Queensland talking about how we can have both stronger and smarter education that values both strong culture and smarter schools.
The Conference finishes on Thursday with a Closing Ceremony Concert hosted by comedian Sean Choolbura. It's open to the public with tickets through Ticketek. As I understand it the Key Note Speeches are also open to the public. The conference theme is "Indigenous Education in the 21 st Century - Respecting Tradition, Shaping the Future'.
