Love Serenade
1996 Directed by Shirley Barrett
Synopsis
Two sisters will do anything to hook the right man.
Ken Sherry, a radio personality from Brisbane, moves to the small country town of Sun Ray to take over the local radio station as a retreat from city life and his past.He moves next door to love-starved sisters Vicki-Ann and Dimity Hurley. They are both dumbstruck by him and compete for his affections. While the attraction is by no means mutual, Ken "sleaze-bag" Sherry is more than willing to use the girls for his own sexual gratification.Vicki-Ann’s naivety leads her to believe that they will marry, meanwhile, Dimity believes him to be a fish.When Vicki-Ann’s proposal is rejected she climbs the grain silo to presumably contemplate suicide. Ken and Dimity come to talk to her and Ken ends up dying by falling off the tower- or was he pushed? The girls attempt to dispose of the body by dumping it in the river, however Dimity’s fishy theory is proved true when Ken swims off towards the horizon.
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The Australian black comedy is becoming a sort of unofficial tradition, a potential rival to the innocuous hits of Strictly Ballroom and Muriel’s Wedding for instance. Small town life is often a feature in alternative comedy, its slow and eccentric rhythms naturally lending themselves to a droll, deadpan style. It is this quality that is exploited well in the comedy Love Serenade, Shirley Bassett’s directorial debut. Although it remains relatively unknown it wears its quirky Australiana with a sense of ironic pride, taking peculiar narrative implications that its director admits were risky. There lies perhaps the film’s enigma, whether or not the individual viewer is willing to accept the bizarre asides or whether they in effect distract from the main…
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Another classic though not as shameful. Great film-making.