Bloody Awful Oz Flicks

I am thick with documentaries at the moment -- sticky, saturated, full up after sitting on the programming committee for the upcoming DOXA Documentary Film Festival (more on that later).

So for me to actually want to go to the theatre to see another documentary, it would have to be bloody good, and or at least bloody. Bring on Not Quite Hollywood, playing at the Pacific Cinémathèque this weekend as part of the Australia.com OzFlix: Australian Film Weekend in Vancouver.

Before Australian cinema could coming into being, establishing itself as a midpoint between American filmmaking and the European tradition with films such as Breaker Morant and Picnic at Hanging Rock, another species of film, like pond scum or some other evolutionary form of muck, was thriving in gooey, gory, nasty life. Australian genre cinema of the '60s, '70s and '80s was, to quote Barry Humphries (he/she of Dame Edna fame), distinctly not "nice girls in white dresses vanishing into rocks." Rather it was raunch of every possible description, copious amounts of fake vomit, giant mechanical hogs and more bouncing boobies than you could shake a stick at. "Culture is cheese or yogurt, it grows on decaying things," says the indefatigable Humphries. Is it any wonder that in the heyday of Ozploitation cinema, even the Italians, bless their thieving hearts, were ripping off Australian B-movies?

From this thriving rot came some true film oddities, cinematic extremities so wild that Quentin Tarantino, who supplies commentary throughout, begins to foam at the mouth. There are also dissenting voices, film critics who growl about the loathsome quality of the people responsible for this sewer cinema. But all of this fomenting boils down to one essential point -- good often comes out of poo. Pile on the manure and pretty soon you will have a riot of life, fecund, rich, mad. Not Quite Hollywood makes this point very clear. It may also convince you that people from the bottom part of the planet are completely off their tits.

Birth of Ozploitation

The Ozploitation industry began in earnest when the country's film rating system began to slacken slightly in the late '60s and a creature named Bazza McKenzie was loosed upon the world. The Adventures of Barry McKenzie was a sex romp somewhat in the style of Benny Hill, or the Carry on Nurse series, with a few differences. Bazza was an indisputably Australian entity, in the correct lexicon a "yobbo," who travels to mother England for some cultural education. The film is notable not only for the early incarnation of one Dame Edna Everage, but also that it was directed by Bruce Beresford, who went on to make Breaker Morant, as well as Driving Miss Daisy. Bazza's most interesting skill was his ability emit bathtubs of barf, or, in the unique patois of rural Australia, "cry ruth," after getting a weird feeling in his "Ned Kelly." (At least I think that's what he's saying.) Vomit comprised of corn soup, fruit salad and lemonade, with a few random bits of tomato thrown in for good effect, was soon coating large sections of Paris and London.

The film made money, as outback rednecks poured in to see themselves reflected on screen. "There will always be some moron who mistakes satire for documentary," intones one particularly dyspeptic film critic. But the film, for all its crudity, made it explicitly clear that Australian people wanted to see movies about Australian people. Thus Bazza begat some of the weirdest movies ever committed to celluloid stock. Described by people working in the industry as "a good laugh and a little bit of boobs," and by critics as an outright admission to the world that "we were yahoos," the Australian film industry quickly snowballed into a juggernaut of crap.

Vulgarity, bawdiness and outright deception were the calling cards of directors like Tim Burstall, cited as the one responsible for getting the Ozploitation renaissance underway, or John D. Lamond, whose film Australia After Dark featured black satanic masses, sado-leather ladies, and all matter of smutty filth. The film was, of course, an outright fake (the satanic mass was filmed in the backyard of the director's mother-in-law), but no matter. Special loathing/adulation is reserved for Antony I. Ginnane, of whom one critic remarks, "He and all his works should be burned to the ground and the ashes sown with salt."

Bottom rungs for once hot actors

Australian genre cinema, like its American cousin, was a film culture built around cars. Drive-in culture suited a certain type of subject matter, namely slasher flicks, Kung Fu kick ups and car-crash films. A laundry list of different films is cited in Not Quite Hollywood, each having some peculiarity that sets it apart from the pack -- whether it's letting live rats chew on the lead actress or a film getting chewed on by Quentin Tarantino (who ripped off the film Patrick for his magnum opus Kill Bill). But as Mr. Tarantino kindly points out, exploitation means just that. Hence films such as Snapshot, later re-titled The Day After Halloween to capitalize on the success of John Carpenter's film despite having absolutely nothing to do with the original movie. Pack in the punters, by whatever means necessary.

Some films succeeded through sheer weirdness alone, one example being Long Weekend, variously described as a trash the environment, nature strikes back, or more colloquially, a Mother-Nature-goes-ape-shit movie. The plot involves a horrible couple taking a weekend jaunt into the country, ostensibly to save their awful relationship. The rest of the natural world does its level best to split them up, quite literally.

Oz films often employed American actors a bit down on their luck or merely feeling the weight of too many years and too much booze. Thirst, which starred American actor Henry Silva, featured the only known glasses-wearing vampire. Roadgames, likened to Hitchcock's Rear Window, set in a semi-trailer truck, lacked Hitchcock's wit and intelligence, but it did have Jamie Lee Curtis and Stacy Keach. But for all the derivative, plagiaristic lifting, some genuinely original films often resulted, such as Razorback, which featured a giant mechanical pig, Dark Age, which featured a giant mechanical crocodile, or Next of Kin, which didn't have any mechanical monsters at all, just a whole lot of style and creepiness.

Cinema verite, Aussie-style

One thing that set Australian cinema apart from all the rest was a willingness to do things the hard way. In the film Stone, the director formed a real bike gang, smoked real dope, and used real Hells Angels. The result was this. The final shot of stuntman Peter Armstrong riding his motorcycle off a cliff nearly killed Armstrong, but it certainly makes an impression.

There are plenty more examples of taking acting to real-life extremes. While making Mad Dog Morgan, Dennis Hopper was declared legally dead. Actor George Lazenby set himself on fire. They don't make them that way anymore, perhaps with good reason, but the result is a much more tepid and tame world. I miss the '70s.

If you're in need of pure junk -- hallucination, fornication, and bare boobies -- then Not Quite Hollywood is the right film at the right time. These films are vulgar, rude, loud and, more often than not, utterly stupid, but they pack a strange gonzo energy that speaks of vital, green stuff, thrusting upwards through the muck, coming to full flower in the dazzling heat of the Australian sun.

Serious documentary will come later when Doxa hits screens in May. There are some truly excellent films in store, and I'm not just saying that because I helped to choose some, or maybe I am.

Related Tyee stories:

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• Love Cheese? Try 'Grindhouse'
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• Trashaholics Anonymous
  What Quentin Tarantino needs to learn from guilty pleasure flicks.