Published 2018 on Down Under Flix
Director: Rolf De Heer
Director: Rolf De Heer
Stars: Colin Friels, Miles Davis, Helen Buday, Joe Petruzzi
This month is AUSgust, a month devoted to Australian film
appreciation masterminded by The Curb’s Andrew Peirce. You
can read about AUGgust here and follow along on social
media using the hashtag #AUSgust. The work of Rolf De Heer is the theme for Day
2, so here’s a review of De Heer’s 1991 film Dingo. You can also read my take on De Heer's The Old Man Who Read Love Stories here.
In
a 2003 book advocating against dodgy grammar, Lynne Truss shows how an
innocuous description of a panda (“Panda: eats shoots and leaves”) can be
warped into something more sinister with the introduction of an extra comma:
“Panda: eats, shoots and leaves”. Grammar quandaries aside, that phrase “eats,
shoots and leaves” always struck me as an apt description of Australian
filmmakers who shoot some features locally before leaving for international
pastures and bigger opportunities, a trend that started with the Australian New
Wave crop (Beresford, Armstrong, Weir, Miller, Schepisi, Noyce) and continues
to this day, with exports of the past decade including John Hillcoat, David
Michod, Justin Kurzel, Patrick Hughes, and newly minted blockbuster helmer Cate Shortland. Of directors who have
stayed put and enjoyed long and prolific careers locally, Paul Cox and Rolf De
Heer are exemplars, though the latter has flirted with international
co-productions on two occasions, the first being 1991’s Dingo.
While
the title Dingo suggests
a Lassie/Rin Tin Tin-style film about a intrepid canine adventurer (and
had Mario Andreacchio directed, it probably
would be), De Heer’s film instead focuses on John ‘Dingo’ Anderson (Colin
Friels), a husband, father, dingo trapper and jazz enthusiast. After a
childhood encounter with jazz legend Billy Cross (Miles Davis), John becomes a
lifelong jazz aficionado and trumpeter, creating his own music and secretly
saving for a pilgrimage to Paris to reunite with his idol. Following a series
of events which estrange John from his wife Jane (Helen Buday) and make him an
object of ridicule in his Western Australian outback town, John takes the
plunge and travels to France to seek out Cross.
C.S.
Lewis once wrote that “No man who bothers about originality will ever be
original; whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence
how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become
original without ever having noticed it”. De Heer is a filmmaker who
consistently manages to have his cake and eat it too: his films are frequently
novel in their technique & form and/or subject matter, but are also honest
and authentic in their treatment of flawed outsiders and human foibles. These
virtues are apparent in Dingo:
where in other hands this tale would be fairly rote, De Heer and screenwriter
Marc Rosenberg bring empathy and a magical realist quality to the narrative.
The film is grounded in the recognisable and the everyday, but with a smidgen
of the fantastical: Cross literally descends into the young John’s life from
the sky when his plane lands unexpectedly outside town, and bequeaths John the
gift of jazz before ascending back; jazz provides escapism from the mundane for
the adult John; and there’s a Wizard
of Oz subtext where John leaves his everyday environs
(ironically, Oz), journeying to France to see his nominal wizard (Cross) before
returning home content and affirmed. Phil Alden Robinson’s Field of Dreams, released two
years earlier, springs to mind as a film of similar stock, though Robinson’s
film is much more overt in its magical elements.
On
its surface Dingo is
probably De Heer’s most mainstream film (though by no means his most
entertaining or crowd-pleasing), which is a funny thing to say about a magical
realist film about an outback jazz player starring Colin Friels. Friels will be
a familiar face to Down Under Flix readers (see Hoodwink, The Coolangatta Gold, High Tide, Mr Reliable) and is always a welcome one. His likeable everyman demeanour
is a sound match for John, and it’s a shame he and De Heer haven’t worked
together again. Buday, who would reunite with De Heer on the terrific
thriller Alexandra’s Project,
does similarly likeable work as Jane. The role of Cross was originally earmarked
for another music legend, Sammy Davis Jnr, but illness prevented him from
starring (Davis Jnr would pass away in 1990; eventual star Miles Davis died in
1991, the year of Dingo’s
release). It’s difficult to imagine the Rat Packer and perennial Mr Showbiz
disappearing into the role of Cross; Davis Jr was great, but he was a familiar
onscreen presence, not to mention a regular with Australian TV audiences
through appearances on The
Don Lane Show. Miles Davis is an ideal fit; he wasn’t really an
actor per se, and some of these limitations show, but his personality never
overrides the characterisation. He’s recognisable enough a face to evoke a
sense of history and familiarity, but unknown enough (at least outside jazz
fandom) to generate some mystery and mystique. Onscreen, Davis has a nice line
in quiet gravitas, and with his pronounced dark glasses, helmet of hair, and
gravelly voice the late musician makes a strong impression. Admittedly there’s
a touch of the “magical negro” archetype that would become prevalent in American film over the
subsequent two decades, but Dingo evades
the more insipid characteristics of that stock character. Davis also contributed
heavily to the soundtrack alongside Michael Legrand, renowned for his scores
for The Umbrellas of
Cherbourg and The
Young Girls of Rochefort, among others.* I’m not equipped to
critique jazz – I confess I subscribe to the Talladega Nights school of jazz appreciation – but I dug the score.
With
production spanning two continents and use of an overseas star, Dingo carried a heavier
price tag than the director’s usual fare ($5.6 million, albeit still peanuts
compared to most) and was the first of only two De Heer films to be
internationally co-produced, the other being the excellent The Old Man Who Read Love Stories. The headache of working on a larger canvas
with more stakeholders, combined with the ultimately (and undeservedly)
middling reception on Dingo’s
release, were – as noted by Jane Freebury in her insightful book-length study
of De Heer, Dancing to His
Song – definitive in shaping De Heer’s subsequent career
trajectory. His next film would be the independent and idiosyncratic Bad Boy Bubby, which scored him
an AFI award for Best Director and set the tone for the rest of his
independent, idiosyncratic filmography.
*As
a James Bond fan, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Legrand’s delightful score
for Never Say Never Again,
and as a Never Say Never
Again fan, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Klaus Maria
Brandauer’s delightful, top 5 Bond villain turn in said film.
Ben Kooyman