Saturday, March 1, 2008

Movie review: Romulus, My Father

Maybe these folks just need a good hug?

By John P. Meyer

Romulus, My Father

An immigrant family heads to Australia to start a new life. When the young boy's mother dies his father teaches him lessons about life

Source: Cinema Source

• Showtimes and more on Romulus, My Father

From the opening scene of Romulus, My Father we're given notice that the movie will deal with dark and dangerous themes. Romulus (Eric Bana) - a Romanian immigrant homesteading in post-WWII Australia - is demonstrating for his young son, Rai (Kodi Smit-McPhee), how chilled, torpid bees can be made to slowly return to activity by warming them - in one's cupped hands - over a stove. As the insects begins to buzz about, Romulus (known as "Jack" to his syllable-stingy Aussie acquaintances) opens his hands and releases them to the morning.

If we film viewers fear that a stinging may be in store, this is probably the filmmakers' intent. (If not, it should have been.)

Romulus, My Father is laden with stings (of the emotional variety), chronicling as it does Rai's formative years as he struggles through one of the most traumatic childhoods imaginable. Over the course of the film's narrative, Rai will be forced to deal with such thorny adult issues as blatant infidelity, obsessional love, violence, depression, gratuitous cruelty to animals, spousal abuse (of several varieties) and suicidal tendencies. And he doesn't even have an internet connection. This kid has it so bad that his mom even forgets his birthday.

"I don't know how to love him," part un

We're talkin' BLEAK here, folks. By the time we're halfway through this 104-minute film (which seems much, much longer), it's clear that Rai will grow up to become either an axe murderer or a writer - and since the screenplay cites Raimond Gaita's memoir as source material, we've got a pretty good idea which path he ends up taking.

Rai and his pa seem to be scraping out a viable living from their sere down under farm, raising chickens and crafting wrought-iron furniture that Romulus periodically trucks to town for sale. They actually appear to be enjoying themselves, sharing their workday labors with a gentle hermit-like character named Vacek (Jacek Koman) who lives rough amongst the rocky outcroppings bordering their property. And then Rai's mother shows up.

Christina (Franka Potente), we are given to understand, is returning - prodigal-like - from the latest in a series of familial abandonments. Regardless of her willful disregard of obligations to her husband and son - and setting aside her presumed indiscretions (which become more than presumed as the story unfolds) - Romulus welcomes her back home and into his bed. It's a vigorous welcoming indeed, though its appeal to Christina proves predictably shortlived. There's just nothing about the remote farmstead she can connect with on any satisfactory long-term basis: not even her husband and son.

It's hard to tell just what Rai thinks about all this from the performance of young Mr. Smit-McPhee: he's not given to a great deal of expression, and neither is director Richard Roxburgh, who seems to be going for a very hands-off, naturalistic approach to his cinematic helming responsibilities. Thus the lack of narration at times when it might have been heartily desired by those wishing to take meaning from events that might perhaps be pregnant with it. (This is Roxburgh's first directorial effort, after having done yeoman service as an actor on numerous big and small-screen projects since the late 1980's.) All we know for sure is that Rai's got a lot to think about - and, as silent observers, so do we.

"Heeeere's JACKIE!"

For instance, what are we to think when Rai delves surreptitiously into his Dad's private notions box and purloins a vicious-looking straight razor? And when Romulus - upon learning that Christina will be moving out on them (again) and then straight away moving in with a close family friend named Mitru (Russell Dykstra) - cranks up his motorcycle on a deserted dirt road with the intent (we presume) of hurling himself into oblivion, Rai remains strangely emotionless throughout the ensuing turmoil.

Bees, straight razors, motorcycles: "give me things that are dangerous for a thousand, Alex," the script seems to be saying. And when it adds sleeping pills and free-standing, guard rail-less towers into the mix, things become even more death-defying. (Then, eventually, not so much.)

The latter half of Romulus, My Father comes across as a primer on destructive impulses, both inwardly-directed and otherwise; from this point until the (thankfully) anti-climactic ending, the experience of watching the movie becomes a veritable beat down. From the scene where live chickens are pounded into the ground with a shovel, to the one where Christina is floored by a right upper cut to the jaw, there's very little provided in the way of relief from the utter horridness of existence. On several occasions I found myself wanting to stride forthright into the movie screen (mirroring the actions of Tom Baxter in The Purple Rose of Cairo) with the intent of dispensing hugs to all those characters who seemed to be sorely wanting them.

"I don't know how to love him," part deux

On the up-side, the performances turned in by several of the players are outstanding. I'm thinking particularly of Ms. Potente as Christina, who excels at conveying the symptoms of manic depression. Christina plainly wants to be a good mother, she's simply not constitutionally capable of it; there's something broken in her clockwork, and no one knows how to fix it - especially not her. For his part, Mr. Bana channels all the obsessive and self-destructive male protagonists we can call to mind (think Stingo from Sophie's Choice, or Scottie Ferguson from Vertigo) and uses them to bring the crucible of his insanity to a heady boil. His tortured eyes convey worlds in lieu of actual narration.

Oddly for a project filmed in Australia - but perhaps in keeping with its depressive underpinnings - there are few visual references to the lyrically beautiful landscapes we've come to expect from that locale. Which kind of makes me want a hug. Or at least a Foster's.

LIFE IS HARD THAT WAY: "Sometimes what you reckon and what you get aren't the same thing." - kindly old neighbor woman, to Rai

WELL - MAYBE NOT THIS ONE: "A boy needs a mother." - Romulus, to Rai

BODES ILL FOR FILM CRITICS: "You'll be measured as a man by your work - not by the movies you see." - Romulus to Rai, re. his interest in taking in a matinée

Related stories

• Week-in-view: Let it Snow! Edition (March 7, 2008)

See more stories in:

• Arts > Movies / Film > Independent Films