Bonjour Balwyn

Bonjour Balwyn reflects on the conflict between living a bohemian lifestyle and the pressing need for social conformity to make a living. The feature is considered to be the strongest work to emerge from Buesst and Melbourne's independent inner-city cinema movement.

John Duigan stars and gives a tremendous performance as Kevin, the editor of a struggling underground magazine. Kevin had turned his back on a lucrative position at his father's firm, he prefers instead to meander throughout his days with no commitment to important matters. Kevin's debts pile up and his magazine business begins to fall apart, he makes enemies and loses friends before drifting into a disreputable line of work... Bonjour Balwyn is an outstanding bittersweet tale. For us Melbournians especially, it is a nostalgic film giving a fascinating glance of the Australian cultural and social atmosphere of the era, and visually, of the inner suburban streetscapes, the setting of the film.

Unconventional and leisurely paced, the charms of this low budget offbeat Australian story may seem obscure. My rating on reappraisal reflects my familiarity and a hometown bias, nevertheless Bonjour Balwyn is a distinctive, bona fide classic Australian film.

Rejecting a 'conventional' job that his middle class family has lined up for him Kevin Agar (John Duigan) becomes a journalist on a small, independent Melbourne magazine called 'Bolo'. Filmed in black and white in Melbourne and released in 1971 producer/director Nigel Buesst's Australian independent film features a rambling, unfocused, desultory seeming storyline, like the not very sympathetic central character, who interviews people, chases up advertisers, strums on a guitar in a field, does impressions of moralistic characters (sometimes as a wind up on the phone), and ends up getting a dodgy job helping a man repossess television sets. And his romantic life isn't any more successful. Technically a little crude, this was cut by about 15 minutes to qualify as a short film on release, but this review is based on the full feature length version of close to 70 minutes. Balwyn is a suburb of Melbourne.