EMOCEAN

With: Brent Bielman, Baptiste Gossein, Mike Prickett, Jeff Schmucker, Dave Kalama, Jamie Mitchell, Jamie O’Brien, Trevor Carlson, Jeff Clarke, Matt Becker, Andrew Brooks, Paul Witzig, sacha Guggenheimer and Dave MacAuley.
Writer/Director: Tony Harrington

Screening at 2019 Gold Coast Film Festival, April 5 at the BCC Cinemas, Coolangatta.

Reviewed at 2019 Screenwave International Film Festival, January 20 at the Jetty Memorial Theatre, Coffs Harbour.

Rating: ★★★★½

Part lyrical ode to the lure of the sea, part giddy sports adventure travelogue, Tony Harrington’s latest epic ocean odyssey Emocean is as heartfelt a love letter as man has ever penned for The Big Blue. In seeking out the essence of our attraction to and affinity with the wild, natural wonder of the planet’s water environments, the legendary cameraman has profoundly defined humanity’s oceanic bond, while also redefining just how insightful and moving the sports-doc genre is capable of being. In the film's own words, "That metre, above and below the water, has got something special...".

Drawing upon his experiences exploring the world’s most majestic coastlines and a rolodex of global contacts whose lives are intricately linked to life underwater, Harrington finds tragedy, joy and wonder in the recollections of his interviewees. His film is most engaging when he tracks generational ties to the sea, such as the love that Western Australian pro-surfing great Dave MacAulay shares with his daughters, pro international Bronte amongst them; South Australian coastal conservation pioneer Andrew Brooks, whose vision preserved the beauty of vast waterfront bushland for surfers for years to come; and, fisherman Jeff Schmucker, whose family have lived off the bounty and beauty of the South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula for four generations.

Few documentarians can claim to have as unique an understanding of their subject’s psyche as Harrington clearly does. The families of surfers, fisherman, scientists or beach dwellers who view their connection to the ocean as integral to their very existence mirrors that of the filmmaker; in drawing out their experiences, he is exploring and questioning his own life choices in a manner that strengthens the community of which he is part. 

Most soulful of the on-camera personalities are those who have fallen victim to the dangers of the deep yet are still drawn to the life. Young French surfer Baptiste Gossein, rendered paraplegic surfing Teahupo’o, or cinematographer Mike Prickett, left wheelchair bound after rescuing his scuba partner but suffering a crippling attack of decompression sickness, aka ‘the bends’, open up to Harrington’s camera with a courage and matter-of-factness that is truly inspiring.

Of course, Harrington’s legend was built upon his surfing footage, and Emocean is most energised when it explores the compulsion that otherwise sane men have to surf waves four-storey’s high. To the surfing community, exploring the passion and personalities of such icons as Maverick’s groundbreaker Jeff Clarke, fearless conquerors of the Maui ‘Jaws’ swell like Trevor Carlson and Dave Kalama, and Pipeline great Jamie O’Brien will be worth the price of admission; the footage that accompanies their accounts of lives spent hurtling down the face of a water-walls that can reach 50-feet into the air is breathtaking (the frame-perfect editing of Trinity Ludlow Hudson is technically superb). Wipeout footage is used sparingly but delivers the bone-crunching feels when called upon.

There is an undeniable sense of destiny about Harrington’s assured direction and storytelling in Emocean, that his latest film is the one he has been building towards. It is a work that not only displays the consummate skill of a cinematic craftsman at the peak of his prowess, but also of a man who has tapped what is most profoundly essential to his life to help him forge his most potent creative statement to date.

EMOCEAN - Trailer from HarroArt on Vimeo.

UNDER THE COVER OF CLOUD

Stars: Ted Wilson, Colleen Wilson, Louis Modeste-Leroy, Jessie Wilson and David Boon.
Writer/Director: Ted Wilson.

Screening at the 2019 Screenwave International Film Festival, January 10-25.

Rating: ★★★½

A bighearted ode to the often-satirised middle-class white suburban upbringing, multi-hyphenate Ted Wilson has crafted a warm, winning low-key gem of a movie in Under the Cover of Cloud. A largely-improvised drama about a writer’s struggle to find inspiration, starring the director’s family and shot verite-style in the suburbs of Tasmania, this meandering yet meaningful take on the ties that bind will reward those seeking a different sort of cinema experience.   

Physically recalling the Matt Day/John Polson type of understated leading man, Wilson plays a journo suddenly without a steady paycheck, facing what he senses is a turning point in his professional development. When that proves all too much for him to deal with (by mid-opening credits), he heads south deciding to write a book about his home state’s best Test cricket batsmen (perhaps a sly joke for cricket lovers, as there haven’t been too many top order players from The Apple Isle).

In a manner that recalls the free-form storytelling styles of Henry Jaglom and John Cassavettes, Wilson re-engages with his mum, siblings and their spouses, niece and nephew toddlers, in scene after scene that seem to be largely about family matters, good memories and happy times. Frankly, a couple of crying 4 year-olds aside, every one seems to be pretty happy in Under the Cover of Cloud (although the title, which certainly corresponds with Tassie’s chilly grey pallor, might also symbolise Wilson’s depressed mood).

Neither Wilson nor his narrative seem to be particularly interested in the book project; he asks every one he knows if they can connect him with Tassie cricketing icon David Boon, which sums up the plot. At one point, the dishevelled author-to-be (who seems to have only bought the clothes he travelled in) sits down to start work, until distracted by chickens. Wilson’s film is not about writer's block or the struggle to create, but about shared moments with loved ones that coalesce as a portrait of a man's formative years. He picks lemons with his mother, plays board games with his sister, digs in the sand with his nephews; these are the daily events that refocus a soul chewed up and spat back from the mainland.

Detractors will say the film resembles an essay on entitlement; Wilson constantly seeks reassurance and aid from his family, who also offer free board (despite his complaints about a cold room) and plenty of meals, while gracing everyone around him with observations on their lives. That he emerges as an empathic and relatable leading character (and man) is arguably one of the film’s more remarkable achievements.

The end justifies the means in Under the Cover of Cloud. There is too much sincerity, charm and insight in Wilson’s family dynamic for cynicism to derail his film. A final frame dedication, which crystallizes the writer/director’s motivation, is a heart-tugger; it provides an added dimension of bittersweet melancholy that reveals what an extraordinary collection of ordinary people The Wilson clan truly are.

BENDING THE ARC

Featuring: Dr. Paul Farmer, Jim Yong Kim, Ophelia Dahl, Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, Dr. Joia Mukherjee, St. Ker Francois, Adeline Mercon, Meliquiades Huauya Ore.
Screenwriter: Cori Shepherd Stern
Directors: Kief Davidson and Pedro Kos.

Reviewed January 23 at the Jetty Memorial Theatre, Coffs Harbour as part of the 2018 Screenwave International Film Festival.

Rating: 4.5/5

A 30-year campaign to provide poor nations with the means by which to save their populations from fatal contagions makes for an enriching, enraging and deeply emotional profile in Bending the Arc. Deriving its metaphoric title from the words of abolitionist and great reformer Theodore Parker (“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one…from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice”), the directing team of Kief Davidson and Pedro Kos have crafted a story of social heroism, fierce spiritual triumph and driven scientific determination.

The core of the documentary is the friendship that bonds Dr Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl (daughter of Raold) and Dr Jim Yong Kim. In the early 1980s, idealistic twenty-somethings Farmer and Dahl found themselves in Haiti, surrounded by dire poverty and a population still stricken with the archaic but deadly scourge of tuberculosis. The pair set out to alter the sad destiny of a small group of Haitians and, with Dr Kim joining their crusade, established a medical centre that drew 100,000s of frail villagers, some perilously close to death.

The movement grew into Partners in Health, a not-for-profit medical research charity whose aim is to establish educational facilities and hospital grade infrastructure in the poorest of regions. Secondary to this aim but no less rousing on-screen drama is the stoushes that the trio and their dedicated volunteers pick with Big Pharma and the rich healthcare systems of Western society, the dark overlords of which refuse to consider the health of poor populations worthy of consideration, let alone investment.

The directing duo’s lightness of touch creates a compelling narrative momentum (kudos to writer Cori Shepherd Stern’s solid structure) while clearly detailing the mountains the movement needed to climb to make real their goals. Utilising interstitial time-and-place cards, Bending the Arc charts initiatives that have combatted drug-resistant tuberculosis in Peru, the AIDS plague in Africa, the aftermath of the Rwandan civil war and the terror of the early days of the Sierra Leone Ebola outbreak. In addition to these grand scale undertakings, Davidson and Kos evoke the deeply emotional journey of all involved by tracking the route to recovery of patients who we meet at death’s door (the plight of MDR-TB sufferer Meliquiades and his reuniting with Dr Kim reduced your critic to heavy man-sobs).

Given the current administration’s callously racist disregard for the so-called ‘sh*thole countries’ that feature in Bending the Arc, the documentary takes on a volatile humanism-vs. -corporatism urgency that would most likely not have been on the filmmaker’s minds when the film wrapped just ahead of its premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival; it never preaches or takes a political stance, yet reveals the bastardry, greed and short-sightedness of the western medical-industrial establishment.

In the last half-century, the dedication and drive to make better the lives of those with whom we share this global community has never been more desperately needed; the epic struggles and grand achievements of the Partners in Health teams has remained truly heroic (none more so than the community health officials, charged with day-to-day administration in some of the most poverty- and illness-stricken corners of the planet). Bending the Arc, through its core ‘All Humans are Humans’ mantra, celebrates the soaring, empathic personalities that will continue to rebuild international society over the next half-century.

Donations to PARTNERS IN HEALTH can made via the organisation's official website.