STARS: LOLA MARCELI, ALICE ANSARD & ALEX DIMITRIADES
DIRECTED: STEVEN JACOBS
Lucia (Ansar), a fourteen year old schoolgirl, watches in silence from a distance as her father leaves home for another woman. Her mother, the tempestuous but frigid La Spagnola (Marceli), is distraught and does everything possible to prevent this final departure. What follows examines in detail the evolving relationships between the three family members and theirs with the extended family and the local community.
The new family situation sees the relationship between father and daughter strengthening and that between mother and daughter deteriorating as the mother takes out much of her anger, bitterness and frustration on Lucia. The film demonstrates the increasing sophistication, and cosmopolitization (to coin a new word?) of Australian cinema. Occasionally the screen play is quite confrontational, at a couple of points definitely not for the faint hearted and at several others not for the prudish. But, without being gratuitous, Leon Jacobs has been prepared to take risks in portraying deep emotions and it works - there are several surreal moments and clever cuts which take us beyond reality.
The story line also looks at some of the difficulties facing migrants in Australia, the significance of pets in our lives and the eternal conundrum of man/woman relationships at the baser level.
This film received 11 AFI nominations and deservedly won an IF sound award. I really liked the outside location cinematography. Shot around the Kurnell oil refinery, on Sydney?s Botany Bay, some of the scenes were quite ‘painterly’ and reminiscent of a Jeffrey Smart urban/industrial landscape.
There was an interesting mixture of Spanish and English dialogue with the addition of sub titles. This effectively portrayed the difficulties facing many single language migrants at the time (1960). Music throughout was carefully chosen and woven into the production along with many ambient sounds which added to the mood.

THE EXTRAS

What I really loved about this package was the extras - almost two hours of them! This is certainly the great strength of the DVD format and if used wisely adds so much to the enjoyment and understanding of the cinema medium and the individual films. Extras include:
Director’s Commentary. About as long as the film itself really letting you into the Director’s mind, revealing several of the ‘tricks’, used to manipulate or disconcert the audience and enabling you to assess your own reading of the screenplay - I found this all fascinating.
Promotion Material. Plenty of depth here too with Trailer, IF Award presentation footage, Theatrical Promotion interview, Cast and Crew interviews.
Deleted Scene.
9 Behind the Scenes. Interesting look at the shooting of several key scenes.
Cast and Crew Biographies.
Short Film. 35 min short film by Steven Jacobs - no relevance to La Spagnola but well worth the view.
Production Notes. 16 pages of written info on the development and production of the film.
6 Trailers for other MADMAN releases.

CONCLUSION

I think this was a great package providing a long evening of entertainment and enlightenment.