The Price of Milk

One of the warmest worlds I visit is the expanded world of Spanish extrareality. It is supported by a whole class of intelligent artists. Though it is potentially rich we usually have this world delivered in order to surround sex in some way not usually available.

I find myself wishing for other filmmakers to use this -- what is usually called magical realism -- in different ways.

Hal Hartley, Atom Egoyan, Guy Maddin, even early Cronenberg Maddin made me hope that a Canadian tradition would sustain a second tradition, one with more powerful emotional abstractions not so dependent on genitals.

Here in New Zealand films, I may have discovered another possible home for my constructive retreats.

This little film tries all sorts of magical things. That they often are unsuccessful and often have no connective logic makes them more attractive, more engaging. All the magic here is cinematic, every device.

Three shots were pretty memorable. One had a long red silk fabric train while our actress walked diagonally across the bright green hill we were by then familiar with. One was when we re-enter the world of physical touch that we had hoped for. Her hand appears from nowhere to caress his head. Very rewarding.

The third is of a different order. I won't describe it in detail but it is the payoff, built up through many images. It is of a young woman reaching for the shod foot of a toddler sticking out of a cloud and not quite reachable. Its really quite lovely.

The woman in question is truly a striking actress, Danielle Cormack, who seems to limit herself to local indie films and stupid TeeVee. Well, she is one of the best mouth actresses I have seen.

I really liked this. It seems to be a voyage through womanhood for men, and I learned.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

The Price of Milk (2000), written and directed by Harry Sinclair, is a film about love and magic, set in New Zealand farming country.

Danielle Cormack plays Lucinda, a beautiful young woman living on a dairy farm with her lover, Rob (Karl Urban). For reasons not totally clear, Lucinda takes the advice of her friend Drosophila (Willa O'Neill) and does some truly hateful things to determine whether Rob really loves her. (The friend's name is a joke--Drosophila is the Latin word for fruit fly.)

The film is very strange. Apparently, the actors and director hung out on the set and made up dialog and action as they went along. Maori characters appear and disappear, and one of them is a (sort of) kindly witch. This type of effort can be charming, but in this case it didn't work--at least not for me.

"The Price of Milk" had some definite strengths. Danielle Cormack is a sophisticated movie star, but she's able to convince us that she's a simple farm girl who enjoys taking a bath in milk. The scenery is lush and green. The movie is true to itself--it never steps back and says, "OK, now the magical part is over and we get real." There's an Indian wedding ceremony, and an agoraphobic dog that walks around covered by a carton. (How bad can a movie be when an agoraphobic dog is a member of the supporting cast?)

This movie is worth seeing if you run across it. I don't think it's worth seeking out. Incidentally, we saw this film on DVD. The New Zealand scenery would probably be even more beautiful on a large screen.

This movie is a fairy tale in the same vein as Alice In Wonderland: extremely psychadelic and not interpretable -- so don't even bother trying to interpret it, there's no point. You drop down a rabbit-hole and life makes no sense anymore. Just sit back and enjoy the wierdness.

I have already seen the movie. I found it really complicated to understand and I'm not sure if it was a message there, but I really like it. It was funny,romantic, sad,...all the emotions in one. I got to say this; it's the first time I have seen Karl Urban smiling in a film, he should do it more.

I like the movies that make you think. Our minds need to work hard because in my opinion we are not going for the right way in this world. As the majority we like the cinema, which is the best way to start doing it?

Sorry if somebody has problems for understand me, sometimes it's difficult to express in English my thoughts.

If it's true that this movie was made-up as they went along, without a script on-hand, then that is an excellent argument for writing a screenplay first. This movie is not entirely devoid of worthwhile moments, and the cast is quite appealing. However, the quirkiness of the story eventually feels forced, and I lost interest in the movie well before it was over.