Bliss

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Bliss

August 5th 2010 03:22

Australian director Ray Lawrence made a significant impact when his adaptation of Peter Carey’s award-winning novel, Bliss, was released in 1985. It’s screening at the Cannes film festival was disastrous with major walkouts. Lawrence subsequently re-edited the movie, cutting out twenty-odd minutes. The theatrical release went on to win several AFI awards, but it polarised audiences. In twenty-five years since it’s garnered a modest cult following and is considered an Australian classic, if perhaps a rather difficult one to digest.

Barry Otto as Harry Joy

Harry Joy (Barry Otto in a career performance) seems to have it all; his loving family consists of wife Bettina (Lynette Curran), son David (Miles Buchanan), and daughter Lucy (Gia Carides). He runs a successful advertising agency with partner Joel (Jeff Truman), and his family live in a large beautiful home on the fringes of Sydney. But fate is about to deal Harry a rather cruel blow. He has a heart-attack on his front lawn and is clinically dead for four minutes. When his soul returns to his body and he’s undergone a bypass operation Harry’s life is far from normal.

Bliss Miles Buchanan, Lynette Curran, Jeff Truman

David (Miles Buchanan), Bettina (Lynette Curran) and Joel (Jeff Truman)

He begins to experience nightmarish visions of doom and horror (stitches popping and cockroaches climbing out of his chest wound). He becomes convinced he has either gone stark raving mad, or he’s now living in Hell. His paranoia escalates and he starts spying on his family only to discover his son is dealing drugs and buying sexual favours from his daughter, his business partner is having a torrid affair with his wife. It doesn’t help matters when one of his work colleagues Alex (Tim Robertson) reveals reports that highlight all the products that cause cancer, including Sucrose.

Helen Jones as Honey Barbara

Harry fires all the clients whom be believes are doing the world in, regardless of the financial loss to the company. He moves out of his home and into a hotel suite and meets a prostitute called Honey Barbara (Helen Jones), an alternative-living angel from the forest, who might just save him. But Harry scuttles everything when he’s committed to an insane asylum.

Harry hides in the shed and makes paranoid notes

Bliss has to be one of the strangest mainstream Australian movies ever made. It’s a satire dressed as a surrealist fable, a love story disguised as an existential nightmare. It reminded me a little of Emir Kusturica’s Black Cat, White Cat - the story of a dysfunctional family filmed with surreal references - only without the brilliant visual style or exotic cultural touches. That’s a tenuous comparison I know, but there’s definitely something similar there.

Lucy (Gia Carides) enjoys boring food while Bettina looks on

Barry Otto commands the movie (he’s in most scenes) and he should have won AFI best actor. It’s curious that the majority of the other actors, apart from Lynette Curran, Gia Carides, and Otto, have since almost completely vanished from the Australian screen. Saskia Post makes a very brief appearance at movie’s end as Harry’s new daughter, and there’s a young-looking John Doyle (Roy Slaven) playing a doctor. My favourite role though is the stoned matre’d Aldo played by Jon Ewing.

Hell is when an elephant sits on your car

Lawrence and Carey (who co-scripted the adaptation) both had a background in advertising and struck up a friendship which lead to them collaborating on two screenplays prior to working on Bliss, and the movie feels very much a metaphorical attack and defence heavily laced with irony. Disturbingly the movie feels like an advertisement for cigarette smoking, as almost ever character smokes!

Harry and mistakenly identified Alex (Tim Robertson) in the asylum

But I have problems with the way Lawrence directs; frustratingly he chooses to cover each scene with a modicum of camera angles, often refusing to allow a reaction shot from an actor when it’s demanded. I also didn’t like the overall aesthetic of the movie, but that is more an indication of the time it was made: the mid-80s. No one is attractive in the movie, even olive-skinned supposed beauty Honey Barbara, in her pudding bowl haircut talking with a deep, broad Aussie twang. That’s a quibble, I know, but it stuck out like a sore thumb watching it for the first time in many years.

I’m not denying Bliss was ahead of its time in the way it was abandoning the historical realism of the 1970s and embracing the more adventurous style that would emerge in the 1990s. And that’s not to say that Lawrence doesn’t employ some terrific visual touches from time to time; the two most obvious are the extraordinary floating shot leaving Harry’s body at the beginning, and again up through the canopy at movie’s end. The special effects make-up work courtesy of Aussie legend Bob McCarron is excellent and the score is strong, especially during the end credits.

Saskia Post as Harry's other daughter

The differences between the theatrical version and the director’s cut (essentially the Cannes cut, which surfaced on DVD in 2001) are a few scenes including a lengthy monologue (story) Harry relates at the police station, and a couple of scenes discussing food with Honey and Harry’s kids, but none of these are overly important to the movie as a whole, instead they slow the pace considerably, making the movie feel a bit arduous.

Still, Bliss is without a doubt an important and curious movie, albeit an acquired taste, like raw sardines. If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll know what I mean.

Here's the US trailer:

American VHS cover art which suggested the movie was a lot lighter than it actually is

Bliss DVD (2-disc - incl. theatrical & director's cuts, plus commentaries) is courtesy of Umbrella Entertainment, many thanks!

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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Comments

4 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Jason King

August 5th 2010 11:02

Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness

My first job was in a video store when I was 16 and the cover always creeped me out

I might have put it on once in the store but cannot remember it. I might have to try some raw sardines and try it

Comment by JohnDoe

August 5th 2010 18:25

Film & TV on DVD

Great review of one of my favourite Aussie films Bryn,

Uncompromising and distinctly unique, ignoring the rules and by breaking them making for a very intriguing film.

Comment by Matt Shea

August 6th 2010 00:37

20/20 Filmsight

Never quite managed to see this, Bryn, but have of course heard so much about it. And I know what you mean about the mid-80s aesthetic - I find it a difficult hurdle to leap when approaching some films from the period.