|
|
 |
Rowen Wood, director of 'Little Fish'.
Rowen Wood, acclaimed director of 1999's controversial 'The
Boys' is in Adelaide to discuss his latest project, the no-less
domestically discordant 'Little Fish', starring the best trans-Tasman
cast ever assembled: Cate Blanchett, Sam Neill, Hugo Weaving,
Noni Hazelhurst, Joel Tobeck and Martin Henderson, along with
former '21 Jump Street' teen heartthrob, Dustin Nguyen.
Set in Sydney's notorious outer-suburb of Cabramatta, the story tells of Tracy (Blanchett) and her struggle to defy her heroin addicted past and move forward into a tangible, but difficulty hopeful future. "I don't know why," contemplates Wood when evaluating 'Little Fish' alongside his debut feature, 'The Boys', "they're sort of little pockets of Australian life that are, to me the most interesting and revelatory. The stories from the suburbs that deal with the sort of issues with real families and that are in 'Little Fish'. And places are really important to me," he continues of the film's locale, "and that whole melting pot of Cabramatta with its vibrant bustling market place, both for food and heroin, was a sort of magnet for me in terms of storytelling. I made a short film twelve years ago when I was still in film school called 'Tran The Man', which was also set in Cabramatta, and out of that film I wrote a rough outline [for 'Little Fish'] which I didn't go on with; I moved onto 'The Boys'. But then it was picked up by the writer Jacqueline Perske, and she took the story to a very different place.
"She made it into a very female-centric story about a young suburban woman named Tracy who wanted to own her own video shop, which is a really humble goal but one at a time in her life where she's also trying to find happiness in a straight world, and as it normally happens in particularly Shakespearean stories, Tracy's dark past comes back at her and almost swallows her up. It took ten years to construct that story, and one of the really unusual aspects of this film is that it's quite an unusual love story and one of hope in the end. The other thing about the movie is that it's a really delicious puzzle. I really like films that don't answer all the questions and challenge the audience."
He takes a deep pause to reflect. "What happens with 'Little Fish' is once you decipher what's happening it actually becomes a really intense thriller without you even knowing it."
Among Wood's more thorough approaches to his director's role is his extensive method of character development, which includes many hours filming interviews from actual people with similar stories to tell. "That's just my process," he says. "First of all, what I do is research the subjects and scripts academically to get the basic information for the actors and then I go out and look for the real life equivalent of the people in the script and send those DVD's to Cate or Hugo, or whoever and wherever they are in the world and they'll either agree or disagree. These people are generous with their time and I do this with complete confidentiality, so by the time it comes to shooting everyone is much more confident about speaking for their characters and understanding their world."
Whilst the A-list cast may be a major drawcard for many moviegoers, for Wood his films will always be about the people in them. "Making audiences suspend their disbelief is important to me because we do have a world famous cast and I didn't want that to get in the way be cause I want people to just go with who they are as characters. It wasn't strategic in any particular way to get that cast; it just sort of snowballed that way but in a way it also was because I was perversely interested in doing what we don't do here in Australia. We have this thing about A-list and B-list actors, but when you think about it the biggest stars in Hollywood routinely go from the studio fare that they do to things like '21 Grams' [Sean Penn] and no one's self conscious about that in America, they just go with it. The Australian reaction is insecure about what's indie and what's not, so I was sort of perversely interested in just shoving it to them. These are great actors but you can do a film with them where it doesn't have to be compromised. If I had done this with no names it would have been a more conventional indie film, but I was more interested in doing what we as an audience haven't got our heads around.
Steve Jones
 |
'Little Fish' opens at Palace/Nova Cinemas on Thurs 8 Sept.
|
|
|
The latest issue
available now!
|
