Hunt Angels

I throughly enjoyed this very clever documentary drama about an (in)famous Australian filmmaker who never let minor things such as funding stand in his way. It is told with humor and heart and the visual effects are very clever and most effective. In fact the visual design is the film's most interesting feature. The use of old black and white photographs in a two dimensional format for the actor's to immerse themselves in does wonders in creating the world our two heroes exist in. Once again the wonderful producer Sue Maslin has found herself a great project which is challenging and interesting , and Alec Morgan's obvious love of the material stands the whole thing in great stead. Rupert Kathner is Australia's Ed Wood but with a more ample dose of the rogue about him. Congratulations!

The film is based on the true story of two Sydney filmmakers Rupe Kathner and Alma Brooks who in the late 1930s took on the Hollywood barons, a corrupt police commissioner and hostile press in their wild spree to make their movies. This was during a dark time when Hollywood ruthlessly dominated the Australian film industry. Its kind of an Aussie Bonnie and Clyde meet Ed Wood. Many of their actual films have survived and are also in the film. There is something crazy and exhilarating about their attempts to make their movies and the passion with which they would stop at almost nothing to get them finished and on the screen.Now their story is told using digital innovations that incorporate real actors into photographs and archival footage of the times, all in stunning black and white.

The film is a compelling story of a fascinating man but packs in lots of the atmosphere of the 1930s and 40s in Australia. This film shows what you can do with a clever mixture of modern recreations and archival footage that has come to light from digital archives. The director Alec Morgan and his cinematographer have done a great job bringing the people and photographs to life. One of the great effects was adding wings to the film business angels. It is really inspiring for other documentary makers who want to tackle historical issues. Ben Mendelsohn was the stand out performer but was supported well by the women who played his wife and lover.

This is a charming film, quirkily made, and of a real subject matter.

Production could have been 'snappier' BUT that would detract from the story - this is about a pair of mavericks who wanted, more that anything, to have the Australian film industry rival Hollywood.

Told in the black-and-white film of the time it is a story of the struggling artists, keenly searching for every cent they required, against a film industry funded by people whose background may be a bit more dubious than history suggests.

Bob Mendelsohn is excellent as the lead, and there are excepts from some of the most recognisable faces in the early years of the Australian film industry.

Well worth a view, but not the best film ever made. HOWEVER, I enjoyed it.

Thoroughly engrossing and astonishing in both content and style, HUNT ANGELS tells the amazing story of 30s/40s Australian newsreel style feature director Rupert Kathner and his shyster production methods. Really a valentine to the sideshow level production antics of this shadowy film pioneer whose personal vision of elevating Australian street stories to feature films by cobbling together bumpy produced / poached scenes involving a vast array of unsuitable actors is both hilarious and fascinating. By scheming his way into anyone's confidences he was able to raise (and runaway with) production money that eventually paid his way through some terrible and bewildering entertaining films: mainly THE PYJAMA GIRL MYSTERY and THE GLENROWAN AFFAIR. Presented in the docu-drama style of Australian classics NEWSFRONT and the exquisite ETERNITY, this is a charming and visually enthralling b/w drama plays like one of Kathner's own Ed Wood style features. If it is at a Film Festival near you or seen on a DVD shelf, place HUNT ANGELS atop your must see delights for 2007.