Romulus, My Father

I watched Romulus, My Father, without high expectations. In many respects, those low expectations were met. In typically Aussie film-making fashion, there were long, languid shots of dry, arid landscapes; long silences and meaningful faraway looks; and a film that doesn't so much flow as consist of a series of short, static scenes. As noted elsewhere, it's a difficult film to watch.

It's also a brilliant, beautiful piece of film-making. In no short part, this is due to the actors assembled. Before watching it, I didn't know that Franka Potente featured in the film, and her presence alone adds another dimension to the movie. Eric Bana is a fine actor - as with "Munich", he seems ill at ease at first, but gradually blends into the role adding layers of complexity and subtlety. Martin Csokas is always a welcome addition to any screen. But, of course, the real star is young Kodi Smit-McPhee. The magnificence of this film, for me, was the aching beauty of the way it portrayed the desperate sadness that so often accompanies childhood. Nobody, literally nobody, could have portrayed this better than this young boy.

I thought of other superb child acting performances - Anna Paquin in "The Piano", Christian Bale in "Empire of the Sun", Rory Culkin in "You Can Count On Me", Kirsten Dunst in "Interview With the Vampire", Eamonn Andrews in "The Butcher Boy" - then I thought of the kids in "Turtles Can Fly", "A Time for Drunken Horses", "The White Balloon", Misha Philipchuk in "The Thief", the Indian boy whose name escapes me in "Salaam Bombay". There are heaps of outstanding performances by kids in meaningful movies, and Smit-McPhee's ranks right up alongside the very best of them.

Everybody concerned with this film deserves congratulations - the director, the writers, the cinematographers. I haven't seen too many really great Australian films - maybe "Muriels Wedding", "Swimming Upstream", "The Tracker" - but this one is right up there.

My wife and I watched this excellent movie several hours ago in Fremantle and we both share similar feelings about this engrossing yet difficult film. My comment is in no way meant to demean anything about the film, rather it is simply a sign-post to direct some people to other films because it is a difficult movie to watch; it fleshes in segments of people's lives that, as a rule, are not brought to light--they remain closeted and spoken of in muted voices when they are spoken of at all.

In my opinion, Australian movies are a massively unique sub-species of what could generally be tagged "art-house" movies--movies that are drawn in colours that do not reflect anything remotely from Hollywood. These movies have certain characteristics: they are most obviously short on dialogue; the Australian landscape is so strong that it becomes another principle character in the film; there is not even a hint of "glitz"; the script is as close to reality as any viewer would likely want to get and the cinematography is bold, using close-ups and strong contrasts to accentuate the on-screen drama. Romulous, My Father had all of these elements and they were masterfully blended into an unforgettable movie.

The script was based on the memoirs of the boy who dominates the movie. Eric Bana, the father, takes top billing but the son is equal to Bana's brilliant portrayal. Diane and I talked on the way home today that we knew adults who were that boy. We did not know these families when the friends were small but we know the elements that combined to mirror the script we just watched on the screen. Change a few scenes here and there and it is all so similar. Australia is the story we saw today many times repeated.

I would recommend this film to Australians because it is the story of our neighbors or workmates and I would recommend it to people from the world over as a quintessential Australian film as well as an insight into who we are.

I just saw this and though a lot of people complained of this movie being slow I adored it. One of our best Australian movies to date. It has a moving story, terrific and very realistic actors but the only problem was the pace. Everything was brilliant but it just avoided perfect with its pace which is a bit of a let down for a movie that everyone knows could have been and kind of is everything. Eric Bana is brilliant and the wife Franka Potente was so good I really understood her character. The movie was a bit predictable at times but it had a sweet ending, interesting character and superb character development. A must see for people probably over thirteen. (Some of the themes are very strong.)

Arena Films in Sydney Australia have developed and produced some of the best small films made here in the last ten years. I have seen ROMULUS; I saw it at a media screening in Sydney mid April 2007. I understand the film will go into release in May 2007. Helmed by John Maynard and Robert Connolly, Arena are responsible for THE BANK, THE BOYS with David Wenham, and SWEETIE among their excellent library of films. However this time, I am delighted to say they have managed to create a film so genuinely superb, so astonishingly well cast and with a major turn as director by actor Richard Roxburgh, I find myself actually struggling for adequate superlatives as to not sound like I am overstating the quality and qualities of this profoundly satisfying and emotionally moving father/son relationship drama. Set in the early 1960s in rural Victoria Australia, it basically tells of the marriage difficulties of a migrant family from eastern Europe. It is the mother with wanderlust that causes the central emotional drama and ripples of overwhelming joy and despair as the men around her, husband his brother and her lovers, and including her 8 year old son Raimond, attempt to hold their extended family together, survive on a farm, and deal with her fracturing emotions. I was the same age as the boy in this film in 1961 and I lived in Sydney among many migrant families from Europe who had moved post WW2 to find a better life here. Many did but equally as many became bewildered in Australia, emotionally lost because they had lost the thread of their village life and European life/morality and found their freedom here created mental and moral abandon... they became lost and found the new country too huge too free and too full of emotional pitfalls: it was just too different: sunny and open yes, but no family bonds and not strong with religious ties. As a result emotional inertia and immorality and sometimes drink and violence took over; just as often was a nervous breakdown. ROMULUS charts all this with skill and motion like no other major new film in the last ten years has been able to do. David Elfick's 1993 film NO WORRIES maybe, or CAREFUL HE MIGHT HEAR YOU from 1983 are very close past emotional and critical successes; this film certainly surpasses them in the child's eye view of a marriage and a family collapse. The casting is just so perfect and I defy anyone to not to be absolutely transfixed at the young boy actor Kodi Smitt who is front and center at all times here. His performance is one of the great child acting performances in any film; period, ever. Richard Roxburgh as an actor is very good, but who knew (apart from savvy Connolly and Maynard) that he could create a visually breathtaking emotionally solid and superbly told story; so often in a dozen scenes he shows one more shot of Raimond just being, as a tail end of the scene and it caps every part of this film perfectly each time. ROMULUS sets a new standard for excellent emotional drama produced here are hopefully erases the bad credit and ill feelings of so many useless and lousy films produced here so far this century:. So many cinemas and their owners have been wringing their hands in despair at the poor results of so many terrible Oz films of late.

The good ones? try these: KENNY, THE BANK, RABBIT PROOF FENCE and THE OYSTER FARMER being the only real shining lights in a very dim recent release schedule. ROMULUS MY FATHER will go into history as one of Australia's best produced films and I personally hope it is loved and applauded Internationally as I expect it to be here.

On the down side: Arena have taken a serious risk in involving Arclight films in an executive production and sales partner role here; Arclight exec producers have been seen for over 10 years as being responsible for some of Australia's worst and most reviled and truly embarrassing films: often critically spewed upon and a complete waste of resources and reputation: for example: the vile cruel CUT or the disgusting WOLF CREEK or CUBBYHOUSE, or lame DECK DOGZ, or idiotic SHOTGUN WEDDING or nonevent BACK OF BEYOND or woeful EXCHANGE LIFEGUARDS are simply hated by the few viewers who wasted time on them or by cinemas who took a chance on them. The appalling WOLF CREEK is now credited with being the start of thew 'torture porn' cycle currently debasing cinemas and communities encouraged to see them (HOSTEL and HOSTEL PART 2 is a direct result of this awful movie)... so I hope Arena survive their relationship with Arclight.

A broken family have a growing boy at his early teenage years and have no sense of responsibility to grow a child. Considering that both mother and the father is uneducated and clueless, they live in a farm before the World War II; we still have no idea upon why they ruin a child's life making a havoc of his psychology.

Proved by adversity the family have nothing to distinguish their boy, nor to give anything to make him happy, nor to teach him anything precisely good. Father gets to figure out that the kid needs a college education, and sends him to a college. Then after the suicide of the mother, the boy gets closer to his father. A happy ending occurs and mops up all the pain and unpleasant situations out of the movie, and hopefully out of the boy's memory. Thus, his father taught him one thing, a very important one, how to be patient of adversity.

For a tough story to put on silver screen, the actors' performances are somewhat exhilarating; and that's the mainspring to tolerate this movie. Within low-budget movies with no technical endeavors, if you like to witness a modest triumph of a child, much better than My Father Romulus, I advise you to watch "I am David".