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Meryl Lee is obsessed by disaster. Too timid to change and
returning from her fathers funeral, her life takes an unexpected
turn when she witnesses a man throwing himself under a train.
The tragedy is covered by the local journalists, including
Nick, who she starts a relationship with. Unbeknownst to Meryl,
Nick has discovered that he has cancer. Like the ripples on
a pond the effects of the suicide and Nick's cancer ripple
out to affect Meryl, Nick and those around them...
Look
Both Ways (2005) was written and directed by Sarah Watt
who also provided pictures and animation. The film is a multi-award
winner and after sitting through it you can see why; this
is plainly a well crafted work of love.
If
the film has a message it's that death is hard, but then again
so is life, wake up and smell the flowers as you never know
when your last day will come. Now, this might sound like the
film is very dour and depressing, but this is not the case.
The film contains a lot of black humour, though little in
the way of laugh out loud moments. The final note of the film
is very life affirming as Nick and Meryl continue their relationship,
even under the shadow of his cancer.
There
is a bittersweet feel to a lot of the film. Parents look at
their children knowing that such moments are far more fleeting
than we would like to think. The train wreck, which is continually
reported in the background, mirrors the various forms of personal
wrecks which make up the main protagonists lives, each in
their own way trying to do their best, but obviously feeling
like they are swimming upstream against the tide.
From
a technical point of view there is much to commend the film.
Direction, editing and acting are all faultless. Justine Clarke
plays the terrified elfin Meryl with utter conviction. Through
the animated sequences, and her paintings, the audience gets
to peek into Meryl's very conscious fears, full of loneliness
and pain. This is nicely mirrored by Nick's (William McInnes)
personal isolation when he discovers that he might be dying
of cancer and cannot find a way to tell anyone. Both sets
of fears give the characters a heightened awareness of the
precariousness of life and that death may well lurk around
every corner. It is, however, this heightened awareness which
draws the two characters together.
Structurally
the film is much like Crash or Magnolia as it
interweaves a number of interconnected lives. Andy Walker
(Anthony Hayes) and Anna have to come to terms with her unexpected
pregnancy and the fact that their relationship is tentative
at best. Nick's editor Phil (Andrew Gilbert) gives up smoking
after being told of nick's cancer and pays more attention
to his wife and children, making the most of the time they
have together.
The
disc only comes with a single extra called Living with
Happiness - is a five and a half minute hand-painted animated
short, which examines one woman's journey from perpetual nihilism
to her reaffirmation of life after she is rescued form certain
death by a nine year old.
Audio
comes in three flavours: Dolby stereo, 5.1 surround and 5.1
DTS all of which do the film justice. I guess I should mention
the soundtrack which is generally phenomenal. Each track suits
the mood of its associated visual. Having looked at the list
at the end of the film I was surprised that I didn't know
a single one of them, though one artist in particular was
very reminiscent of Missy Higgins.
The
one thing that did initially bamboozle me was the menu screen
which presents itself as the newspaper front sheet, not a
problem in itself, except that the options are presented in
a sliver just under the papers main banner making it difficult
to distinguish at first.
So
we have a flawless gem of a film that deserves a much wider
audience.
Charles
Packer
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