Family Tale A Quiet Drama

Illawarra Mercury

Thursday June 14, 2007

JAMES JOYCE

ROMULUS, MY FATHER

Starring: Eric Bana, Franka Potente, Kodi Smit-McPhee

Director: Richard Roxburgh

***

Screening: Gala Warrawong, Roxy Nowra

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

Bertrand Russell's aphorism rings true in this gentle family drama based on the book by philosopher Raimond Gaita.

This is the bittersweet story of Gaita's father, a Romanian blacksmith, and his wife, Christina, and their struggles to raise their young son, Rai.

The Gaitas arrived in Australia from Europe not long after the end of World War II and settled in a tiny farmhouse near Castlemaine, in country Victoria.

When we meet Romulus (Bana) and Rai (newcomer Smit-McPhee) their wife and mother is absent.

The comings and goings of the sweet, sensual, depressive Christina, who has another life and another man in Melbourne, come to define the fractured family life of father and son.

Having not read the book, I cannot vouch for the adaptation by Nick Drake, who apparently had no dialogue to build on.

But the simple, slow-moving narrative tenderly evokes the austere beauty of the countryside.

Young Rai provides our vantage point to the drama rather than its focus. He observes his parents from across the table, or the room or through a crack in the shed wall, and he's often bewildered by the dark emotions that bedevil them.

The mood throughout is subdued and meditative, with only glimpses of joy.

Romulus, My Father is the directing debut of actor Roxburgh (Blue Murder, Moulin Rouge, Van Helsing).

You can see and feel his passion for this deeply personal story.

Roxburgh relies heavily on quiet moments, many intimate and warm, others resonating with unspeakable pain.

There is an aching beauty about these silences, and in the serenity of the landscape captured with a painterly eye by cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson (Under the Tuscan Sun, Oscar and Lucinda, Shine).

The wise, stoic Romulus is a challenging role for Bana in that it's the least showy, but perhaps most intense, character he's attempted to portray on the big screen.

He shines in those quiet moments.

But the star of the film is young Smit-McPhee, in whose expressive green eyes the anguish of the migrant experience is touchingly reflected.

© 2007 Illawarra Mercury

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