Synopsis
After the death of their mother, three estranged sisters return to their childhood home.
Radiance
1998 Directed by Rachel Perkins
Genre
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ABC film critic Jason Di Rosso credited as 3rd Assistant Director
Transcendent film.
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No one, I repeat, NO-ONE says “f**kin” quite like an Aussie. As a kid, I used to watch this all the time, my mum had the vhs and I wore it thin. It’s a very adult movie, adult themes and stuff but I thought it was so funny as a kid because of all the Aussie-isms and all the swearing.
Watching it tonight as an adult was less funny, albeit there are still lots of laughs, but more of an emotional, touching watch. The performances are excellent, very natural, Deb Mailman is, always has been and always will be, a star.
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Not the worst thing ever, but just unbelievably boring, in the agonising way all mediocre Australian movies are. Dialogue has serious year 11 drama energy, overburdened with cliches and groan-worthy spelling out of theme. Pretty sure the DVD I saw was in the wrong aspect ratio so can't comment that much on the composition, but Rachel Perkins definitely has an eye. There's some interesting imagery in the opening and climax, i.e. the brief periods where the film isn't bound to non-descript suburban spaces, because stage to screen adaptation. Some decent music as well, though anything involving a piano can get out of here. Three leads give it their best shot but I just really don't think there is any triumphing over writing this tacky and basic. Ah well.
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Has both the charming warmth and limitations of your average Louis Nowra adaptation to screen. It never really escapes its stage origins, with manufactured artificiality always present behind the steadily systematic tide of reveals. Despite the cross-generational bruising in 20th century indigenous lives, there is something slightly eye rolling about the screeching unwrapping of secrecy and buried pain exerted here. The heart is there, but the writing is slightly forced.
Yet, Radiance has a lot of verve and is centered around three very likeable characters, despite all three of them being starkly different archetypes. Deborah Mailman in particular is memorable in what was her breakthrough film performance. Before she became a name on The Secret Life of Us, became the…
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This was really beautiful and complex. At times I was confronted and others I was delighted. Definitely a hidden gem in Australian filmmaking I think. A beautiful story about sisterhood and motherhood in the Aboriginal community. Whilst being entirely universal. Incredible performances.
I'm going to start doing a lesson thing so the lesson I learned from this is that screenplays or movies are really about building a believable and complete ecosystem that the viewer is being dropped into. That means your characters don't spend time explaining their relationships to other people, they react to situations and people and it's the audience's job to pick up on these relationships and on the history of this world. This is something this film…
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sydney film festival 2021 #10
dazzling gem of a film, with an absolutely blistering performance by deb mailman! not even hard to imagine that this was her breakthrough performance, she's a marvel to watch.
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I’ve been trying to watch this film for about 10 years and I’m so glad that I finally did. So beautifully bittersweet and moving 😭😭😭
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AROUND THE WORLD | Australia (Indigenous Peoples)
Radiance
Rachel Perkins
1998
•"I'll help, you won't have do it by yourself."
AND SO BEGINS my first foray into indigenous cinema during this project. The guidelines of this project have evolved somewhat since its inception, but one that I have added is “additional film(s) will be watched for each country/nation if they are directed by and/or about indigenous peoples.” According to data from The International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), there are at least 5,000 distinct indigenous peoples. It is logistically impossible for me to watch a film from every one of those peoples—not least because many of those peoples are not even represented in cinema—but by using this list…
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This is a genuinely special one. So patient and painful and cathartic and funny and heartbreaking and overall a really mature and emotionally gripping story in which the feelings of it's characters are held sacred above all else. It's a movie in which you get such an acute portrait of each of the three siblings at it's core, and you 100% understand why each of the sisters are the way they are - in their relationships with one other, their relationships with the world around them, with their mother, with love, with sex, with men, with home and with grief... It's a beautiful and incredibly tender and emotionally honest film, and each of the actresses playing Nona, Mae, and Cressy…
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Great performances, but not very original. I like how the social issues inform the characters' contexts and aren't the focus of their lives and conflict.