What we’ve done this week: film screenings and Camp Sovereignty

We do plenty of big jobs. Sometimes, however, in any given week, we do a series of smaller things.

First up, we attended and photographed a small screening of indie comedy film Wanda and Sully with it's producer (and our videographer) Dia Taylor hosting a Q&A session at Eclipse Cinema, in Collingwood.

Wanda and Sully has been out for a while now, but it certainly - despite some mixed reviews - struck a chord for Matt (who as always did the photographing of the Q&A) as a lot of its cast and crew are, much like Matt, either Geelong locals or are people who originated from Geelong.

Overall, Matt found the film to be good and had some solid one liners throughout, though thought significant parts of it to be jarring and lacked grounding. Saying:

Overall I found the film to be enjoyable. The cinematography is excellent and visual transitions are used to great effect. I particularly found the characters of Eugine - the conspiracy theorist student who's recruited by Sully, one of the two protagonists to anchor the televised 'student news' who rails against, among other things, the "bee people" and "vaccines" for "turning people gender fluid"- and Mr Redwood who delivers some incredibly witty one liners; the english teacher of the students and co conspirator with the antagonist in the film, to be particular standouts.

 

In contrast, I found the character of Jonathan, the student council president that the two titular characters are aiming to expose the affairs and corruption of (namely: how is he able to spend all that money buying students coffees), to be arrogant to the point of being completely unlikeable and none of his lines were particularly funny either. In my view, a villain in a comedy film needs to be at least likeable. To its credit, the film's other characters, Mr Redwood included, often point out either directly or indirectly how unlikeable or unremarkable Jonathan actually is. The titular characters, Wanda and Sully, are a mixed bag. It's usually the ridiculousness of what's happening around them that deliver the more humorous moments in the film, rather than anything either of them say or do. If anything, they're too bland and unremarkable as characters for my liking.

 

It's evident that the themes in the film take inspiration from, at the time of release, recent pivotal moments in United States politics albeit shrinked down to the small scale of the setting; being a low socioeconomic Australian suburban public school with a cynical student body. I found this juxtaposition with the obvious Australian political references to be particularly jarring. I would've preferred for the script to lean in one direction or the other and given the demographic of who's likely to see this film, and the setting of the film itself, I'd have liked to have seen it lean more on Australian political references and themes and I think the script would've felt more grounded for it (even back in 2023, for a film that presents a satirical critique on corruption and wrongdoing, there was plenty of local source material for inspiration. Like come on, we had Scott Morrison as Prime Minister barely a year ago at the time of the film's release). By leaning on US politics for its references and plot devices, it tries to force itself to appeal to a demographic that... probably won't ever see it or where the setting will see it fly right over their heads if they were to stumble upon it. I think the lesson here is you shouldn't, nor can't, be 'everything to everybody' and attempting to do so weakens the whole thing.

 

The use of sexual and smut humour, particularly in the latter half of the film, and using it as a plot device, is also particularly grating and I think the film would've been better off without it, even if there was nothing else in its place.

 

Overall, there was some good dialogue and humorous moments in this film, particularly by the characters of Eugine and Mr Redwood. Visually, it was composed well. It however could've been more grounded than it was. I give it a 3/5.

As has been the case on so many occasions, Matt was at Camp Sovereignty on Sunday for a smoking ceremony led by Yaraan Couzens Bundle, a firekeeper of the sacred fire and a Gunditjmara, Yuin, and Bidjara woman. 

At Yaraan's request, we shot a few images of the smoking ceromony.

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