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(L-R) Damon Herriman in Judy and Punch, Aisling Franciosi in The Nightingale, and Adam Goodes in documentary The Final Quarter.
(L-R) Damon Herriman in Judy & Punch, Aisling Franciosi in The Nightingale, and Adam Goodes in documentary The Final Quarter. Composite: Blue Tongue Films/Causeway Films/Shark Island Films
(L-R) Damon Herriman in Judy & Punch, Aisling Franciosi in The Nightingale, and Adam Goodes in documentary The Final Quarter. Composite: Blue Tongue Films/Causeway Films/Shark Island Films

From The Final Quarter to Judy & Punch: the best Australian films of 2019

This article is more than 4 years old

Plus Jennifer Kent’s elegant and brutal colonial drama, Lupita Nyong’o battling zombies, and the best biopic since Chopper

Do impressive box office results indicate a film is worth seeing? Should good business be considered as important as rave reviews?

The dichotomy between great art and popular art is almost as old as art itself. This year in Australian cinema there was a profound disconnect between the best locally produced films and the ones audiences most wanted to see. Titles such as Ride Like a Girl, Palm Beach and Storm Boy, for instance, did commendable business at the box office, but all were artistically wanting, to say the least.

In this context, as always, the role of the critic is surely to separate the wheat from the chaff. To qualify for this list, films must have had either some kind of theatrical release this year outside the festival circuit or a direct-to-television/streaming release. Without further ado, here are the 10 best Australian films of 2019.

10. She Who Must be Loved

Indigenous media pioneer Freda Glynn, subject of She Who Must Be Loved. Photograph: Kathryn Milliss/Adelaide film festival

The legacy of the soft-spoken but courageous media pioneer Freda Glynn, who founded Indigenous TV and radio networks across Australia, reminds us that humility and timidity are not the same thing.

The film that explores her life (directed by her daughter Erica Glynn and produced by her granddaughter Tanith Glynn-Maloney) is part observational documentary and part detective story, with a mission to construct a historical narrative counter to the widely accepted (and deeply problematic) Judeo-Christian-centric view of Indigenous Australian culture and history. It is warming, alarming, touching and insightful.

9. Defend, Conserve, Protect

Sea Shepherd film Defend, Conserve, Protect documented real heroes in high-stakes situations. Photograph: Eliza Muirhead - Sea Shepherd/Sea Shepherd

Director Stephen Amis’s pulse-pounding documentary – in effect, a high seas war movie – charts the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s ninth campaign (titled Zero Tolerance, which took place from 2012–2013) during which it policed the world’s only international whale sanctuary.

While superpowered Marvel characters stomped across CGI-slathered landscapes, reversing time and defeating cartoon villains, Amis showed us something rare: real heroes in high-stakes situations, fighting a war that can never be completely “won”.

8. Slam

The writer-director Partho Sen-Gupta confronts difficult questions in his ethically complex Sydney-set mystery-drama, exploring Islamophobia and public perceptions of Muslim people. When a politically outspoken Palestinian-Australian slam poet (Danielle Horvat) disappears, many people, including her brother (Adam Bakri, whose commanding performance anchors the film), wonder whether she has been radicalised.

A tangly plotline questions the motives of both the characters and the audience and plays with their expectations. Sen-Gupta doesn’t turn a blind eye to grim reality, nor does he prioritise verisimilitude over dramatically interesting storytelling.

7. Little Monsters

Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o stars in zombie flick Little Monsters. Photograph: Simon Cardwell/PR

When a kindergarten excursion descends into a battle against a zombie outbreak (don’t you hate it when that happens?) a teacher (Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o) takes a leaf out Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful, assuring her children that the drooling brain-munchers are part of a make-believe playtime experience.

It’s not easy to shake the ol’ zombie genre back to life, but the writer-director Abe Forsythe (following up his black comedy Down Under) brings comedic flair, a vibrant pulse and party-like vibes to this effort.

6. Judy & Punch

Mia Wasikowska in revenge tale Judy & Punch. Photograph: Allstar/Blue-Tongue Films

The actress-cum-writer-director Mirrah Foulkes infuses an old moth-eaten narrative with contemporary zing, delivering a feminist retelling of the famously misogynistic fairytale, Punch and Judy. Mia Wasikowska and Damon Herriman are in fine form as the titular puppeteers, living in a 17th century village named Seaside, run by chauvinistic, panic-spreading religious zealots.

A portrait of marital abuse and domestic violence morphs into a revenge story in the second half. Foulkes shrewdly balances dark and penetrative social commentary with an air of comically exaggerated theatricality; you laugh while your stomach turns.

5. Animals

Holliday Grainger and Alia Shawkat in Animals. Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Allstar/Bonsai Films

With notes of wastoid classics such as Withnail and I, director Sophie Hyde’s Irish-Australian co-production follows two hard-partying best friends living in Dublin: 30-something hedonists Laura (Holliday Grainger) and Tyler (Alia Shawkat, best known from TV’s Arrested Development).

Like other classic texts about liver and sinus-busting celebrations, Animals contemplates the unthinkable: what happens when the party comes to an end? The performances are terrific, the script (adapting Emma Jane Unsworth’s novel) is full of wit, and Hyde’s direction is loaded with spirit and verve.

4. The Final Quarter

Adam Goodes at the end of the 2012 AFL Grand Final. Photograph: Wayne Taylor/Shark Island films

Documentarian Ian Darling deploys an approach used in films such as Senna and Amy, using nothing but archival material (ie television footage and radio clips) to deliver a damning postmortem of the final years of the career of AFL legend Adam Goodes. This rousing film is less a documentary than a supercharged electric cine-essay, pulsing with energy and urgency. The other doco about Goodes released this year, The Australian Dream, is also recommended viewing.

3. Buoyancy

Buoyancy by Rodd Rathjen is a powerful reminder of cinema’s ability to provide a window to the world.

Set and shot in Cambodia, writer-director Rodd Rathjen’s feature film directorial debut explores modern-day slavery in the format of an exquisitely shot and edited coming-of-age film. Fourteen-year-old Chakra (an outstanding Sarm Heng) is determined to leave Cambodia in pursuit of a job in a Bangkok factory, but gets enslaved on a seafood trawler working for a terrible captain (Thanawut Kasro).

Buoyancy (Australia’s entry for best international feature film at next year’s Academy Awards) is a powerful reminder of cinema’s ability to provide a window to the world; its value as a medium that breaks down geographical borders and allows audiences to observe people and places outside their own experiences.

2. The Nightingale

Baykali Ganambarr as Billy and Aisling Franciosi as Clare in Jennifer Kent’s film The Nightingale. Photograph: Matt Nettheim

To express the power and impact of the writer-director Jennifer Kent’s second feature film (following the brilliant The Babadook) one naturally feels inclined to reach towards turns of phrase such as “gut-churning” or “soul-bruising” or “holy hell this film hurts”. Anything to make the point that this unforgettable revenge movie – set in 19th century Tasmania and following an Irish convict (Aisling Franciosi) as she tracks down a diabolical lieutenant (Sam Clafin) – packs one almighty punch.

In addition to its brutality, the film is utterly elegant in construction, Kent juggling many elements including the painterly boxed-in cinematography of Radek Ladczuk – presented in 4:3 aspect ratio – and a haunting score from Jed Kurzel.

1. Acute Misfortune

Daniel Henshall as Adam Cullen and Toby Wallace as Erik Jensen in the biopic Acute Misfortune. Photograph: Blackheath Film

Thomas M Wright’s scorching biopic of the artist Adam Cullen, adapted from journalist and Saturday Paper editor Erik Jensen’s wild and compelling book of the same name is, like The Nightingale, a beautifully shot film presented in a 4:3 ratio. This narrower canvas has a claustrophobic effect, concentrating the drama and emphasising human faces.

The most striking among these faces, in this instance, belongs to Daniel Henshall, whose brilliant and meditatively gloomy performance as Cullen is compulsively watchable. Acute Misfortune works on many levels, including as a rumination on the nature of Australian legend, posing the question of whether this country celebrates the wrong kind of people. It’s the best and most interesting Australian biopic since Chopper in 2000.

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