I watched director Alena Lodkina’s Strange Colours (2017) on SBS On Demand, a few days after I saw Ivan Sen’s Limbo in cinemas. While Limbo works in another recurring genre in Australian film – the crime genre – and there are clear differences in where they are shot, what they are looking at, particularly indigenous trauma and police violence in Limbo, both movies fit in a long tradition of Australian arthouse cinema mood pieces where characters wander through a new part of the country, understanding themselves as they get to know a place.
Strange Colours is not a crime movie, but a family drama, and it is set in the outback opal mining town of Lightning Ridge, NSW. Milena (Kate Cheel) has taken a long bus ride to visit her ailing, estranged father Max (Daniel P. Johns). As Max recuperates in hospital, Milena meets the locals, predominantly men, a lot of them grizzled and old, and constantly drinking cans of beer. Despite the initial tension over Milena being a young woman in this masculine environment and the casual sexism in every encounter, this is not Wake In Fright. There is something different and introspective here. Milena is not that talkative, and we see her wander around, drink beer and hang out with Max’s partner in the mine, Frank (Justin Courtin), who is mostly quiet himself. The men might be a bit too chatty but they are happy to be by themselves. Yet Max insists on reaching out to Milena who is unsure whether to accept his attempts at a family relationship or just keep moving on. Tone is a matter of degrees, and I think with the writing and the directing of the performances nail the tone here. There is enough modulated for me to connect with and think about the characters without them feeling like cyphers, and there is a sense of authenticity in the cast, from the few experienced actors in the main roles and the non-actor locals who are expertly woven into the fabric of the story. It doesn’t feel like a television drama where everything is sign-posted. There is something cinematic in its preference for the elliptical and the unsaid. Though clocking in under 90 minutes, the film’s style is to hang out and take in the vibes of the place, the self-exile that it affords by being cut off and isolated.
Lodkina had previously made a documentary about the area and there’s a sense of trust and respect to this fictional narrative, and how it uses the small community as a backdrop to this father and daughter relationship. Cheel is great in the leading role, reserved and thoughtful, and Johns is a strong, authentic presence. I really liked Strange Colours and enjoyed its rhythms, determined by its sense of place and scale. Cinematography by Michael Latham and score by Mikey Young. Recommended.
VHS Tracking 