FRESH AIR (M). (Palace) Director: Neil Mansfield Stars: Nadine Garner, Marin Mimica, Bridie Carter, Tony Barry, Julie Hamilton, Simon Lyndon.
First time writer/director Neil Mansfield contends that art can be found in the everyday lives of ordinary people. He tries to prove his theory with this video diary following a week in the lives of three friends who share a house in the inner Sydney suburb of Marrickville.
Kit (Nadine Garner) shares the house with her boyfriend Jack (Marin Mimica), a failed film maker, and her best friend E (new comer Bridie Carter), a uni student who daily compiles her own personal magazine which she distributes to her small circle of friends. The house is situated under the airport flight path. It is this element that provides a thematic focus that runs throughout the otherwise fragmented and loosely structured film. This is an area that Mansfield knows well, and the film is enthused with a passion for the back streets and the residents of this slice of suburbia. Mansfield is inspired by the early films of Godard and the French new wave, and he tries to duplicate some of that energy here. However, not a lot that is particularly interesting occurs, and this is ultimately a dull and meandering film. Some people may find its easy going style charming and endearing, others will merely find it dull.
Mansfield has coined a new term to describe his low budget semi-autobiographical film - "zinema" - which suits its multi-media format. The film combines the cut and paste methodology of magazines with the flexibility of various different film stocks, and still photography, drawings and other objects that interest the characters. Despite the obvious passion displayed by Mansfield and his crew, the film itself is rather artlessly constructed. A couple of scenes use a disconcerting method of jump cut editing. Every line of dialogue in one scene is obviously cut together from several takes, and this scene is symptomatic of the film's overall lack of rhythm and style.
Far from a breath of fresh air for contemporary Australian cinema, this film comes across as little more than a below average, low budget, experimental effort from a film student. Fresh Air lacks the charm and winning humour of Love And Other Catastrophes, another local low budget film which used a similar improvised approach, and seems rather stale by comparison.
* greg king http://www.netau.com.au/gregking
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