Modern Love

Talking about competition features at the Split Film festival, we have titles from all over the world. China, Korea, Canada, USA and Australia and many of these stories are indicating that the world is really valley of tears. Modern love...thats for sure.

In that movie by Alex Frayne, two younger married people and their boy are traveling from town to the coast to visit the grave and house of the man's uncle who raised him a long time ago and who died in mysterious circumstances. The coastal village seems like something in an American horror film where the village is bizarre and people are uncommon mutants. But episodes in Alex Frayne's pastorella can't be described as horror in the normal way. In fact this is an extreme interesting drama where we are seeing relationships and horror through flashbacks and much more. In this story and through obviously psychological facets of the actors we are shown a peep show of film some charmingly eccentric Australian film-making. Thus is the the case of Frayne. Always something new and fresh. Visual intelligence and unique sensibility of some Australian directors is astonishing good. Frayne's movie is super. There is something in the Australian landscape that shows their movies so special as we have see in FRAYNE's Modern Love and in RAY Lawrence movies Lantana and Jindabyne.

It seems it will be the same in future titles of Alex Frayne.

I caught this movie at the Bend Film Festival last night. First note is the audience reaction was not good. That could have been because the crowd was in sort of a silly, upbeat mood since it was Friday evening and had viewed a couple of humorous shorts before "Modern Love". This movie is dark, moody and humorless, which might have worked better on a Sunday afternoon with a more serious crowd. That said, I still have some problems with this movie. Some technical things were done well. The use of darkness and light in the first part of the film is neat and the two leads, Mark Constable and Victoria Hill, do a good job of portraying a passionless couple without wasting time on getting into the reasons for the state of their marriage. Later Constable does a good job of going slowly from serious, hard-working family man to what may or may not be a crazy person. There was also some great photography. That aside, I can't say I liked this movie. It seems the director is trying to emulate David Lynch and fell short. There were too many long scenes with very little dialog and this got tiresome by the end. The characters from the small town were just strange. They weren't lovably strange, quirky or even interesting. As the movie goes on you're sort of waiting for an explanation for the behavior of John, the main character. When that finally happens the revelation isn't particularly earthshaking. I haven't seen many Australian movies, nor do I know much about the place and that might skew my feelings some. But in general I found this movie dark, dreary and increasingly difficult to watch as it wore on.

Unbelievable, some people actually liked this beyond boring movie. Had I been the wife, I would have left this nutcase after the first 15 minutes. "Terrible guilt" drives guy to dispair due to terrible thing he did. Can't say what the stupid reason was, because it would make people wonder, "what?".

We see a man move from city to "out-back" and change dramatically - his family asks questions, but he goes mad.

Strange, brilliant film for screening here in Israel. Wonderful locations, great actors, a film which masquerades as a "thriller" but which is more a case-study of madness in the lead man.

The film was way above the other films screened as part of the AICE festival here in Israel. Best of luck to the team who arrived at this film. It's a Grand Guignol, a little masterpiece of noir.

My only criticism which prevents a "10" is that the sound and the music is overpowering at times. It tends to get in the way of the images, which speak for themselves.

This film really used its locations well with some amazing shots, dark and disturbing the film moves very slowly, but constantly keeps you watching. Modern Love worked well in the Gold Coast Film Fantastic program this year offering audiences a glimpse at an Australian Cinema that is usually neglected. Most importantly it is refreshing to see Australian cinema not taking on the cliché Aussie characters and story lines we have seen done to death over the years. This film would compliment any festival and will open debate after its screenings. The performances and characters are well developed, and the cinematography is fantastic. An interesting exploration into family relationships, and environments.