Noise

I had the chance to see the new Australian film Noise (out here next week I believe) and be in attendance for a Q&A with several key figures from the production. The film is really quite good. You should try and check it out (in it's delightfully limited release of a whopping 14 cinemas - /sarcasm). It revolves around a policeman Graham McGahan ("Mc as in McDonalds, Gahan as in if you could fuckin' read it's written on my namebadge"), played by the wonderful Brendan Cowell, who has tinnitus - ringing in his ears - and is put on light duties at a mobile police unit. The unit has been set up to try and get people to talk if they know information about two recent crimes. One, a mass murder on a suburban train and the other the death of a young woman in nearby shrublands.

In a second film thread it follows a young woman, newcome Maia Thomas, who accidentally stumbled upon the train crime scene, was spared by the killer, but who now believes he is after her. Noise doesn't follow the typical crime films/tv procedures of following the detectives trying to solve the case, or following the killer. It follows people affected by the crime and how they cope and how they can get entangled in things they had no part in.

It is the theatrical feature debut from writer/direcor Matthew Saville who made his name in television and with the award-winning short Roy Hollsdotter Live. He also directed the soon-to-tv production of The King about Graham Kenned. The film features fine performances by all involved, but especially Cowell (who some Aussies will recognise from Love My Way) and, I thought, Katie Wall (below) as his live-in girlfriend and Henry Nixon as a late night visitor with a twist.

The film isn't all depressed people and grieving and shit like that, it's actually very funny. I imagine it will be much funnier to Australians than to others though (which Saville actually made mention to in the Q&A. Audiences at Sundance apparently didn't quite get it all). The audience was routinely laughing out loud throughout. The final sequences, too, are quite well staged action-oriented. It's sort of all-genre encompassing while being entirely anti-genre at the same time.

So, please do try and see Noise. It's not an entire waste of your time. B+