Loving Lola

Seen any good films lately? I have and they're all Australian! There have been so many great films from our industry this year. The latest is Aussie director Sean Byrne’s teen pop horror The Loved Ones. Winner of the Siren Award for Best International Feature at the Lund International Fantastik Film Festival last week over some great international films including Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World The Loved ones is finally coming to Australian audiences on the 4th of Nov 2010. I was lucky enough to be at the Melbourne preview screening last week. I laughed, screamed, squirmed and admittedly closed my eyes at times, though when it got really gory I just couldn’t look away. Take your favourite teen horror, mix it with actual real characters and some beautiful Aussie country-side then cross every painful gruesome seat-squirming boundary you thought existed and you will arrive somewhere around this much anticipated film, which also won the Torronto Film Festival’s  People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award.


The Loved Ones harks back to cult horror classics such as The Shining and recalls the monster feminine of films such as the obsessive and gruesome 90s classic Misery. With this horror culture in mind Byrne takes us on journey into the inexplicably disturbed psyche of Lola (or ‘Princess’), played by Robyn McLeavy. Byrne’s journey is compelling and shows incredible breadth of imagination with gory details likely to pop up in your wildest nightmares only this time there’s just no waking up. From scenes of gruesomely painful and bloody gore to hilariously cliched moments The Loved Ones crosses every line and goes right into the unexpected as the threads of Princess’ twisted conquests come together and reveal their psychotic outcomes.


With so many financial barriers up against today’s Aussie films our directors do incredibly well. Hardly a week goes by without news of us winning awards and acclaim at film festivals around the world. In the last few years Australian audiences have been treated to a line up of Aussie stories on film as diverse as the tragic Animal Kingdom, the twistedly arresting Beautiful Kate and the compellingly significant Samson and Delilah.

Robyn McLeavy as Lola chasing down her victims
surrounded by some familiar Australian landscape

There is something exhilarating about seeing Aussie stories, accents and landscape on the big screen. Behind the horror and humour of The Loved Ones are the lives of troubled teenagers reaching a point at which their small country town can no longer provide them with what they need. The image of Xavier Samuel’s character, Brent, sitting on a rocky outcrop under a gnarled candle bark staring out at sweeping Australian country-side as he inhales from his pot pipe and falls back into delirium is poignant to Australian audiences knowing the issues rural youth face in this country and the potential tragedy to which all our lives are subject during our teenage years. This isn’t the point behind Byrne’s film, but such undertones, representing the realities of Australian lives, surely drive the imperative to get our stories out there speaking to Australian audiences in a way no Hollywood blockbuster will ever do.


Funding bodies such as Film Victoria and the MIFF Premiere Fund, supported by Victorian Government funding and responsible for Balibo in 2009 and The Loved Ones, are achieving something great in the funding Australian works that would otherwise have no chance, financially, in reaching us. In a climate that condemns public spending on the arts for concentrating too much on traditional art forms there are still many avenues for our filmmakers to get our stories out there.


The combination of a beautifully shot film such as The Loved Ones with the creative genius of characters such as Lola represent what is exciting about the current Australian film industry’s output. Accolades from TIFF and other major film festivals just make it sweeter knowing the world is starting to realise just how talented our directors, actors and creatives are.


The Loved Ones opens in Australian cinemas on the 4th of November 2010. For more information visit http://www.thelovedonesmovie.com