Ardor

(1996)

Children of the Revolution is a comedy about a mother (Judy Davis) and son Joe (Richard Roxburgh) and their communist roots. The mother is a communist rabble rouser in the 50s and comes under the attention of both the Russian communists and local authorities. Accepting an invitation to visit Joseph Stalin (F. Murray Abraham), she has dinner and well, relations with him, after which he promptly dies. Ferried back to Australia, she finds out that she is pregnant and decides to have the child and also to marry her long time admirer (Geoffrey Rush). Years later, we follow Joe Jr. from rabble rouser, in which he falls for a policewoman (Rachel Griffiths), to head of the most powerful union in the country. He is then corrupted by power (hmm, like his Dad). And he grows a moustache and looks like his father. Or is a double agent (Sam Neill) his father? These questions and more are answered in this film which is an interesting but not wholly satisfying piss take on communism and how Stalin and his possible son's lives mirrored each other. Great cast, great idea, but runs out of steam the longer it goes.

Rachel Griffiths film clip

The Long Lunch

(2003)

The Long Lunch is a "eastern meets Guy Ritchie" type thriller that has not been and probably never will be released in Australia. A group of crims have a hearty lunch at a Chinese restaurant the day before they are to pull off a heist. While they eat, play, tell stories and generally act obnoxiously, workers at the restaurant overhear their plans and decide to pull the heist themselves. Except to pull it off perfectly, they must do it before the crims have finished their lunch. So, they take the crim's car from the valet and hold up the factory. But, as everyone knows from the Guy Ritchie film, things go awry. It turns out one of the crims is an undercover cop and is in love with the head waitress. Another gang of crims also wants the loot and start shooting up the place. And various other little tangential things happen that end in many dead bodies.

It's a shame this film has never been released here because it's a lot of fun even if it has some really crude humour that seems out of place (one scene on a toilet is really off-putting). Sure the film wasn't funded by the government, so it has little chance of getting a release except through a minor distributor (a possibility considering some of the Aussie indy films that have gotten released), but that's OK, we can have the latest slit ya wrists drama hand delivered to empty cinemas. That reminds me...

Nothing really to cap from the film itself (there is a bizarre sort of sex scene while playing the pinball machines), so the following video is from the deleted scenes. Odette Joannidis isn't actually in the film itself, so nice of her to get naked for her only scene.