THE MOVIE

Despite the surface of the subject matter and the title, Australian Rules is not about football. Beneath the facade of kicking the pigskin around, is an examination of the social network of rural Australia. Without cheapening the sentiment, the film is a surreal, Australian version of Varsity Blues. In fact, it has more to do with the Gridiron drama than a lot of recent "battler" films, whilst still being incredibly Australian.

Blacky (Phillips) is a sensitive, boy in the white corner of a South Australian town of Prospect Bay. After years of failure, the team, which is largely populated by the Aboriginal players – including Blacky’s best mate, star player Dumpy (Carroll) is about to play the local Aussie Rules premiership.

When the star Aboriginal ruckman is suddenly arrested before the big game, Blacky is given the job. With the spectre of the game looming over his head and the entire town's favour on his shoulders, Blacky is more interested in being a teenage boy.

Things boil over when the aboriginal hero of the winning Prospect Bay team is overlooked for the Best on Ground medallion, and racial tensions turn celebration into a giant hangover. After an even more tragic end to the season, the football team falls apart and all the town has left is the memory of winning a premiership.

Like Ray Lawrence's recent Lantana, this is a sprawling film which is more a study of the interplay between different cultures in a small town, than a compelling, structured narrative.

Director Paul Goldman (The Night We Called It A Day) has a few hats in the production of this film. As well as helming, he also helped hone the screenplay from Gwynne, who wrote the novel on which this is based, "Deadly, Unna?"

His translation makes some significant changes from the novel, and the result is totally opposite to the cringe worthy films Australian funding bodies usually finance, despite it having some dialogue Kath and Kim would be proud of.

What is does not have, and what specifically sets it aside, is both a visceral visual aesthetic and a lack of jingoistic dialogue. There is no small business fighting the big end of town. No transvestites on buses. It's just a look at outback Australia with the humour and drama of every day life.

The fact that the lingo is both natural and really broad means there's a possibility this will be seen as a foreign film to international markets. Whether that's true or not, local audiences should still see this as respite from the kind of filmmaking we've been lumped with over the last decade.

THE TRANSFER

Video:

The video transfer is gorgeous. The Anamorphic Widescreen transfer in the theatrical ratio of 1.85:1 practically leaps off the screen. It smacks of being a new transfer from a pristine print.

Director Of Photography Mandy Walker has reined in the natural canvases of the particular colours of the outback. It doesn't have that almost cliché (read: Priscilla or Welcome to Woop Woop) look to it at all. The reds are more like browns. In fact, with the landscape very dry, even the greens of the ground breaks into brown. Walker claims to use chocolate filters to generate a more realistic vista. This makes the landscape disappear into the background as they should, rather than overpower the acting.

The film looks so clear, it could almost pass for being shot using digital cameras. If it can be said, all of the skin tones are very pale, almost as if colour had been ever so slightly leached. As was the filmmakers' intention, nothing in this film stands out. Even the layer change, which occurs at 88:34, during a fade out, causes only a minor disruption to the audio track.

It's not likely to be a demo disc, as the subject matter doesn't involve super heroes, explosions or car chases. The transfer is just like the quiet overachiever who sits in the front row, getting top marks for quality visuals.

Audio:

You ears get a choice between a 484kbps English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround or a 224kbps 2.0 Stereo soundtrack for the main feature. With a runtime of just over 90 minutes, it's a good thing to see. There is less between them than there would normally be, as this isn't a whiz-bang soundtrack. Having two such similar audio tracks is almost a bit of overkill.

It's a dry soundtrack that favours minimalism to audio gimmickry. That's not to say there hasn't been a lot of work put in. Quite the opposite. There are a few nice touches. A swirly effect dances around the speakers between 46:20 - 46:49 and a smashing window at 121:14 provide some action for the seldom-used rear speakers. The mix has no intense use of either the rear or low-end sound.

Mick Harvey’s score performs a valuable function. It’s very similar to Paul Kelly’s Lantana soundtrack and even has shades of American Beauty. It has the enormous task of having to support the entire audio mix. It succeeds and manages to add colour without ever resorting to overblown, classical throes.

Overall, the soundtrack is subdued, but should not be underestimated.

THE EXTRAS

The menus have elements from the score that repeat at semi-regular intervals and there is a nice touch with occasional dialogue when making a choice - "You little beauty"!

The audio commentary with director Paul Goldman, producer Mark Lazarus and co-screenwriter Phillip Gwynne benefits from having the differing points of view from people having mildly conflicting agendas. It is actually really interesting. Producer Mark Lazarus, an American, talks so passionately about the wealth of young, Australian talent. Goldman talks about crafting the film and Gwynne talks about how he came up with these characters. There are a few polite clashes, but on the whole they're all working towards the same goal (no pun intended) and it shows.

At a few seconds shy of 14 minutes, the behind-the-scenes featurette (13:57) has Paul Goldman, through a relaxed chat against the consummately Aussie beach, discussing his motivation and decision-making for the film. Also shot on very honest digital handy cam, there is an interview with young actors Nathan Phillips and Luke Carroll present. All of the interviews are presented between extended portions of the film. They all talk about their characters and experiences in the film and we often see the end result. Tom Budge's recollection of his character Pickles collecting maggots is either a highlight or lowlight depending on your perspective.

Although technically very clean and clear, this could only stand alone on the DVD thanks to the layout of the featurette, which is to say it is probably not polished enough to be broadcast quality. It seems purpose built for the DVD.

Ploughing on, the outtakes (6:30) prove a very unpolished collection of alternate and extended takes, set for the most part over just a musical track. It's better described as a musical montage than an outtake reel, although technically speaking some of it didn't make the film. After a disappointing beginning, the last 40 seconds are more like a traditional outtake reel.

The segment having been produced for cable music station, Channel [V], Fox have included Andrew Mercado’s interview with Nathan Philips and Luke Carroll (2:25). It's quite an unusual feature (and interview) as the film doesn't really have anything to with music. It looks like it was done as a way to present this film to the youth market. It’s still a welcome though.

Trailers are usually the favourite padding on a DVD extras list. This is once again the case. The International sales trailer (2:08), probably used to woo distributors, focuses on the relationships and drama and tones down the comedy to a few select moments. It's interesting to see how this film was sold to overseas audiences, as it is so uniquely Australian.

The first thing that shows in the theatrical trailer (2:34) is the comparatively dull video quality. It has none of the vibrancy of the feature. As well as that, a few scenes, shown extensively in the previous extras, have been cropped to produce a more claustrophobic feeling. Putting those things aside, we get a good art house trailer, selling this (quite rightly) as a drama.

The photo gallery consists of almost 30 high quality stills from on set. Most look like captures taken from the film, which is not all that surprising when you consider the outstanding quality of the transfer. The rest are crisp digital stills of the cast, crew and filmmakers.

Something that's supremely difficult with such a young cast is providing cast and crew biographies. It's all right if you have Al Pacino or Meryl Streep, who have huge bodies of work from which to draw. It's a different story when your leads have only a short list of significant work behind them. Their performances stand alone in the film, but there are quite detailed bios of most of the cast and crew.

The character files would be better described as character bios. They provide a good background to some of the characters populating Prospect Bay. More from palace films gives us a group trailers for of four Aussie films, past and present in the Palace stable. The quirky Rage on Placid Lake looks hilariously subversive.

Although the second half of the list falters a bit, the disc is still packed with worthwhile features.

SUMMARY

Australian Rules is a film that doesn't shy away from looking at racism in remote parts of our country. It includes a fine cast that tackle some quite heavy material head on, and does so with honesty and humour.

The disc is a fine presentation of the feature. Either renting or buying this disc, you can expect a high quality, high bit rate video transfer and a decent selection of audio options. There is a bit of choice of extras to be had too.

If it doesn't get best on ground, it gives a performance worth three votes. Well, 4 votes, actually.