Bliss

There's an awful lot going on in "Bliss". I've never seen a film that takes so many directions and so many plot turns and twists while still maintaining a general coherence of purpose. It manages this only because it means what it says. Unlike a lot of similarly abstract films, there's not really an agenda to be weird just because it's possible. The direction and cinematography surprisingly doesn't go for the shocking. Instead, the look of the film is natural. Real lighting, normal colours. So all the fantastical stuff stands out all the more.

Barry Otto plays a man with a lot of personal conflict, and a strange sort of charisma. He's a storyteller above all, and that's what "Bliss" is also most interested in. Creating real people first, then putting them into the plot. Everyone is developed as much as they need to be, fleshed out to surprising degrees. Barry Otto is very good as the storyteller, but the really surprising bit is the performance of Helen Jones.

There's certainly flaws to the film as a whole. It goes too far down certain trails, gives too much importance to some events that don't necessarily lead forward. But the best parts are amongst the best bits of any film of this style, so the missteps can be forgiven. If you like slightly messy, mostly brilliant, mostly forgotten films, "Bliss" is perfect for you.

Not just a film, but also an experience. A man dies from a heart attack and is bought back to life. He is however convinced he is in hell. Feeling confused and scared by the strangeness of his family and the world around him, he starts to have a breakdown. It seems his only salvation lies in the arms of a prostitute, but can you find love in hell?

This is a truly beautiful movie, at times scary, at times befuddling. Like the world Harry Bliss lives in, like the world we live in.

The Australian Broadcasting Commission recently treated its Saturday night audience to a director's cut showing of Ray Lawrence's semi-classic to coincide with the release of Lawrences's next film, made a mere 15 years later, `Lantana'. Unlike `Lantana', adapted from Andrew Bovell's play, `Bliss' is derived from Peter Carey's novel, yet is a very cinematic piece. Both Lawrence and Carey laboured long in the advertising world and clearly enjoy sending up the foibles of the hucksters.

The protagonist, Harry Joy, teller of tales (especially to policemen), can sell almost any campaign to his morally challenged clients. He drives a Jaguar and lives in a splendid large house in the leafiest part of Sydney's North Shore. Unfortunately Harry is felled by a heart attack after a long (family) lunch and wakes up in what appears to be Hell, which strangely enough seems to be just like his life on earth. He finds his wife shamelessly carrying on with a particularly vulgar American colleague, his nerdy Young Liberal son trading cocaine to his sister in return for sex, and his biggest client frantically trying to conceal the fact that their artificial sweetner causes cancer. Harry storms out to hole up in a luxury hotel where he orders in a girl, Honey Barbara. She turns out to be an alternative society person earning a bit of money for her north coast community. Naturally Harry falls deeply in love, but their romance is rudely interrupted by Harry being carted off to a mental hospital (at whose behest is not clear). Harry gets out, and sets off to find his honey flower girl.

You could describe the style here as early Australian magic realism (the fish dropping from Harry's wife's vagina as she lies about her affair, for example). Some of it is surreal, like the opening sequence when Harry's mother stands in the rain like some religious figure in a small boat outside a flooded church (a similar shot showed up in `Oscar and Lucinda' a couple of years later). The soaring camera beautifully captures Harry's out-of-body experience following his heart attack, and the scenes shot in the rainforest are appropriately lyrical.

Barry Otto as Harry gives us a decent if somewhat self-centred man confronted with the futility of the fatuous lifestyle that he has so effectively promoted to others. Even as he goes to pieces we can see him looking for a way out – even hell must have an escape hatch or service tunnel somewhere – and we are not surprised when he finds it. Lynette Curran as Harry's tough bitch wife carries off what could be a repellent role with great panache, particularly in her final scene. Miles Buchanan (scarcely seen since), with a fantastic 30s brylcream hairstyle, is particularly effective as the young fogey dope-dealing son (`I'm just a businessman'). Jon Ewing does an amusingly campy number as a haughty restauranteur who despises most of his diners and Bryan Marshall is very effective as Harry's befuddled client. Gia Carides as Harry's daughter Lucy, is fairly unremarkable here but has gone on to an active movie and TV career.

Although this is a film on its own terms the essential quirkiness of the book is retained. The message on one level is stark; our consumer society values are f**ked and we better get back to nature fast, yet somehow Lawrence and Carey don't beat us over the head with it – humour takes precedence over anger. And, of course there are dangers in nature also, as the ending shows.

If Lawrence had cut out a third of the film it would have been better. Within reason, I think he could have got rid of ANY third. A third of the storyline could have gone (the beginning, the middle, the end, or fragments throughout), or a sixth of the storyline plus a sixth of the character development, or a third of the quirkiness, or a third of the odd devices (straight-to-the-camera narrative could have stayed on condition the dream sequences went, or vice versa, or some such). It's like the plate of an overly ambitious diner at a banquet, with quail eggs, a potato dumpling, salad, a banana fritter, baked trout, a small slice of quiche, a strawberry, eggplant, satayed parsnip with brown rice, two roast chestnuts and four kinds of cheese. Thankfully, the elements are positioned so as not to ruin one another's flavour, but there's just too many of them.

But at least this is a fault on the right side.

It's as if "Bliss" were a repository, or a central font, of all of the offbeat black humour, all the odd characters, and all the quirky local colour, to have appeared in every Australian film made since. This isn't a bad thing. (My earlier complaint is that its ferociously luxuriant growth could have been cut back by a third and it would STILL have contained all the offbeat black humour, etc.) What makes it great is that it's more sincere than any of its imitators. A mere seventeen years old, it seems to date from a magical, all-but-forgotten pre-digital age, when we REALLY made films, and didn't just play at doing so.

On reflection: I don't care if there IS too much here. So much of it is so good, like the prim, fascist manager of the lunatic ward, the scene in which the cancer map is unveiled (Lawrence makes much out of a mere conversation in a hotel room), and the "love letter" to Honey Barbara. The strength which flows through the film's limbs is probably inherited from the era in which it was made. This decade (from a few years into the 1980s until a few years into the 1990s) saw Australian society at its most optimistic, tolerant and decent. We've come a long way downhill in the short time since.

Ray Lawrence's adaptation of Peter Carey's novel is one of those rare birds - a perfect screen adaptation of a great book.

Harry Joy, an advertising executive, has a near-fatal heart attack - but when he recovers he is convinced he is in hell. And why not? His bitchy wife is having a torrid affair right under his nose, his son is trading drugs for sex with his own sister, and his ad agency represents the most destructive and polluting companies in town. Harry's life spirals out of control until he breaks away from his awful family and finds redemption in his love for the beautiful Honey Barbara.

Filled with extraordinary images, the film captures the surreal mood, the sense of hidden menace and the outrageous black humour of Carey's book, and brings the characters vividly to life.

Barry Otto, one of Australia's greatest actors, is perfect as Harry and he is brilliantly supported by an outstanding cast, including Lynette Curran as his horrible wife, Miles Buchanan as his evil and depraved son, Gia Carides as the daughter, and especially Helen Jones as his hippy 'innamorata', Honey Barbara.

If you can find it, the longer "director's cut" version is a must-see, for the amazing police-station scene - inexplicably removed from the initial release version - where Harry, under arrest after a series of bizarre and hilarious incidents, transfixes the cops with one of his famous stories. Barry Otto delivers an electrifying monologue, in one long, unedited scene, with the camera gradually pulling closer and closer to an extreme closeup of his face.

"Bliss" is director Ray Lawrence's only feature film to date - but one perfect film is better than ten duds!