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==Criticisms==
==Criticisms==


Modern Love received harsh reviews in Australia with some critics focussing on the ambiguity of the title as well as the disorientating plot structure the film offers. Both [[Alex Frayne]] and [[Nick Matthews]] maintain the title to be valid yet neither has fully explained its origins at any time throughout the film's exposure to audiences. Jake Wilson of [[The Age]] derided the film as being akin to an Australian "[[Tarkovsky]]" work, while dramaturg Phyllis-Jane Rose branded it the "darkest" film ever made. Frayne himself calls the film "Australian Gothic," and "like walking into a nightmare which you wish would last longer." These inclinations explain both the film's art-house success in Europe as well as its muted response in Australia. In France the film picked up the Best Foreign Film award at the ECU Festival in March 2007.
Modern Love received harsh reviews in Australia with some critics focusing on the ambiguity of the title as well as the disorientating plot structure the film offers. Both [[Alex Frayne]] and [[Nick Matthews]] maintain the title to be valid yet neither has fully explained its origins at any time throughout the film's exposure to audiences. Jake Wilson of [[The Age]] derided the film as being akin to an Australian "[[Tarkovsky]]" work, while dramaturg Phyllis-Jane Rose branded it the "darkest" film ever made. Frayne himself calls the film "Australian Gothic," and "like walking into a nightmare which you wish would last longer." These inclinations explain both the film's art-house success in Europe as well as its muted response in Australia. In France the film picked up the Best Foreign Film award at the ECU Festival in March 2007.


== A New Model - "The Jammed" and "Modern Love" ==
== A New Model - "The Jammed" and "Modern Love" ==

Revision as of 15:49, 26 July 2009

Modern Love
File:Poster ozgre32.JPG
original film poster.
Directed byAlex Frayne
Written byNick Matthews (screenplay)
Produced byAlex Frayne, Maureen Ritchie, Catherine Powell
StarringMark Constable
Victoria Hill
CinematographyNick Matthews
Edited byAlex Frayne
Music byTom Heuzenroeder (original music)
Distributed byAccent Film [au], B-Rudfunk, Germany
Release dates
July 30, 2006, Moscow International Film Festival, Nov 23 2007, Australia
Running time
95 min.
LandAustralien
SpracheEnglisch
Budget$150,000 (estimated)

Modern Love is the debut feature film of award winning Australian director Alex Frayne. It was independently financed and filmed in South Australia, where the director lives and works. The team behind the film (Sputnik Films) includes award winning cinematographer Nick Matthews and Australian Film Institute winning sound designer Tom Heuzenroeder.

Modern Love premiered at the 28th Moscow International Film FestivalCite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page). and progressed to dozens of other film festivals, including the Locarno Film Festival, São Paulo International Film Festival, Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page). and the Fajr Film Festival in Iran. It made its Australian screen debut at the 2007 Adelaide Film Festival, where the film was reviewed by Variety Magazine's critic Richard Kuipers who called it:Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page).

"unlike anything else in the entire Australian genre catalogue."

The film earned theatrical runs in Australia (Nova Cinemas), and in New Zealand at the Paramount Cinema in Wellington. Dominion Post film reviewer Graeme Tuckett wrote that it was:Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page).

"the best thing playing in town. No contest."

Cast

Principal Cast and Characters
Mark Constable as John
Victoria Hill as Emily
William Traeger as Ed
Craig Behenna] as Daniel
Don Barker as Old Tom
Barbara West as Motel Lady
Chrissie Page as Mother
Michael Baldwin as Father
Irene Tunis as Rosa
File:Mark constable lead.jpg
(Mark Constable) plays John

Synopsis

John, his wife Emily, and their small son Edward leave the city for what they believe will be a brief foray to the countryside to claim John’s inheritance – a small shack. They find themselves in a strange back-woods rural setting…nothing is what it seems, and John's behaviour becomes increasingly bizarre as he crosses paths with the unusual inhabitants of the area, some of whom he knows from a distant past.

As his connections to the area are gradually revealed, we are shown a puzzle and a tapestry of our hero and his life before he moved away. To his wife's horror we witness a man who belongs to a long lineage of disaster and misshap and rural weirdness. As the realisation sets in of what has happened, the spectre of the next-in-line, his son Edward, becomes spookily evident.

(Nick Matthews) and Ed (William Traeger)

Criticisms

Modern Love received harsh reviews in Australia with some critics focusing on the ambiguity of the title as well as the disorientating plot structure the film offers. Both Alex Frayne and Nick Matthews maintain the title to be valid yet neither has fully explained its origins at any time throughout the film's exposure to audiences. Jake Wilson of The Age derided the film as being akin to an Australian "Tarkovsky" work, while dramaturg Phyllis-Jane Rose branded it the "darkest" film ever made. Frayne himself calls the film "Australian Gothic," and "like walking into a nightmare which you wish would last longer." These inclinations explain both the film's art-house success in Europe as well as its muted response in Australia. In France the film picked up the Best Foreign Film award at the ECU Festival in March 2007.

A New Model - "The Jammed" and "Modern Love"

In November 2007, Dee Maclachlan's film The Jammed broke local box-office records in Australia when it opened on one screen at the Nova Cinemas in Melbourne. Modern Love was screened soon after this to smaller audiences at the same cinema. It has been mooted that these two films, funded completely independently of Government, have inspired a new type of marketing for films that are self-financed and self-distributed. This has led to the Australian Film Institute relaxing its rules regarding qualifying films for the award ceremony to be held in November 2008.

File:A-time-to-kill.jpg
(Craig Behenna) The Madman

Film Festivals

References

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