Lucky Miles

Every so often we get to see a little film on TV not too long after its hardtop screening. And this one was worth the second look. It's another way of looking at the Australian outback, not for its awesome beauty but for the challenges it sets for people not used to such a landscape. Here we have such a challenge, the protagonists being asylum seekers who are victims of amoral people-smugglers. This is currently a political hot potato in Australia, as it has been for many years. But this film has a quirky edge to it, and the seriousness of the images is relieved hugely by the humour. It really is fun, and the way the Australians in uniform handle the reality is the fun that has come to be known as gallows humour. Imagine you're a cop or a soldier faced with a nasty situation. You grin, and relieve the tension by making light of things. Resourcefulness and mateship are supposed to be part of the Australian psyche, and this great little film has it in spades. Think "Bush Mechanics". Think "Flight of the Phoenix". And listen out for the voice on the radio. That's the beautiful Deborah Mailman, whom the casting agent would surely have loved to at least do a walk-on. See it on wide screen.

This film is without comparison. It stands outside genres because it is without formula. It demands that each viewer approaches it with our own native intelligence turned on to Go mode - as if we too are in the desert without a compass. We are compelled to sense out the tone, intention and stand point of the film with few clues other than a kind of "existential compassion". Curiously, and perhaps with a lazy dingo's ear to what the rest of the audience is doing, we find our ways with it effortlessly and quickly. We learn that the story speaks for itself through the uncompromising performances of the cast, the landscape and the narrative ("whose" performance we are reminded of in the visual use of sub titles). Added to this is a heart wrenching quality of ephemeral beauty - the quality of light, the sound track which is at times indistinguishable from the landscape, the loving clip on the ear, the joy of fresh water. It is about human rights to exist - but as measured across disinterested (is it?) geography rather than indignant legislation. That is, the measure of existence is three water bottles plus whatever happens to arrive to save the day, popping as it were, out of nowhere, and with no promises. We learn the power of endurance, cooperation, betrayal, foolishness and the synergy of happen chance. Tiny human attributes in a vast meaningless cosmology. This film has the hallmark of great artistic work: an original expression of a love of life and humanity.

Left to find their way over the sand dunes for a bus to Perth these wanderers have little understanding of how far they really are from a town. Such is the setting for this film looking at what it means to flee your homeland for another. Apart from the political environment, this film gives a new perspective to an old story - that of asylum seekers, refugees, queue jumpers or the myriad of loaded terms used these days to express a simple idea...fleeing a country due to crises, finding a new home or reuniting with family (father). A comic tale 'inspired by true stories' filled with moments of laughter, frustration and tears of relief. A variety of atmospheres are painted against the backdrop of the vast Australian landscape showing its beauty in the colour of the reeds and grasses, red soil and iridescent blue ocean. Three contrasting stories are told in parallel in the western desert complete with goanna and abandoned miner's hut. Sweeping views of the Australian desert landscape on the edge of the sea are like actors themselves. These stories are ripe for the telling with characters drawn in three dimensions, believable, brought to life as real people rather than stereotypes echoing our fears. This film celebrates the look of the outback, and is told with humour, sensitivity and empathy for those caught up in ordinary circumstances outside our own world view and yet closer than we think.

The scenario is simple. A disparate group of refugees are dumped on the inhospitable West Australian coast by unscrupulous people smugglers. It may sound like the perfect recipe for a tale of woe and misery, but instead Lucky Miles is a comedy, and easily the most enjoyable Australian film I've seen for quite a few years. And the audience at the Sydney Film Festival certainly found plenty to laugh at. Writer Helen Barnes and writer/director Michael James Rowland, aided by a wonderful ensemble cast, have created a marvelous set of characters. They could have given us mere symbols of suffering and injustice, or ethnic stereotypes, but instead each character is gloriously human. The Iraqi and Cambodian refugees, the Indonesian people smugglers, and the Australian reservists tasked with rounding them up, all have laughable foibles. And it is the presentation of this common humanity that makes this film not only very funny, but also a powerful exploration of one of the most pressing issues of our time.

Few films today dare to treat our border control issues with situational humor. Even fewer rely on a largely unknown cast, to carry a story that has very little to do with saving the western world or pointing any fingers. But almost none consider that coming to the western world could be worse than 'where ever it is they came from' for an asylum seeker. Lucky Miles is such a film. It takes the politics out of culture clashes and anchors conflict in the need for survival. It challenges stereotypes both international and indigenous without tippy-toeing or apologizing. Films like this one are long, long over due, and call the need for a shift in our attitudes to generating new Australian filmmakers. Lucky Miles is a leap forward in old fashioned cinema, and a beacon for commercial free stories.