ROMULUS, MY FATHER
Director: Richard Roxburgh Stars: Eric Bana, Franka Potente, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Russell Dykstra, Marton Csokas
Reviewed by PETER MALONE
Coincidence? Signs of the times? The two main award-winning Australian films of 2007 both centred on migrant stories of the 1960s, both focused on two young boys – both of whom had loving but dysfunctional mothers. One concerned migrants from Asia, the other from Europe. Home Song Stories is Tony Ayres’ autobiographical story of his life in Australia with his mother who could not stay in one place but had a profound effect on him. Romulus, My Father is philosopher Raimond Gaita’s memoir of his father and of his depressive, wandering mother.
At a time when the whole world is experiencing extraordinary shifts of people around the globe, these stories of the 1960s in Australia make for interesting alerts to the contemporary families on the move, families and their attempts to settle in foreign, even alien, new surroundings.
Gaita’s book was a popular success. The same should be true of Richard Roxburgh’s sensitive film, from a screenplay by Nick Drake. It is a credit to Roxburgh, better known as an actor (Doing Time For Patsy Cline, Moulin Rouge, Van Helsing) that he should have chosen this story for his cinema directorial first feature and that he should have made it so insightful and finely emotional.
We are taken back to the towns of central Victoria, Castlemaine and Maryborough, 1960, and to the surrounding countryside where families like the Gaitas (father from Romania, mother from Germany) tried to eke out a living on the land, living in fairly basic conditions. The film looks and feels authentic.
The characters are complex. Eric Bana won the Best Actor award for his portrayal of Romulus, a good man, an upright man, a forgiving man, but a man for whom ‘this bloody place’ became too much. Franka Potente (best known for Run, Lola Run) is sympathetic even though she does all the wrong things by her husband, by her son, by the man she goes to live with, by the daughter she bears. Much of the success of the film depends on the young actor, Kodi Smit-McPhee, who plays Raimond around the age of 9-12. On screen for so much of the time, he is convincing as a young boy who could survive such difficulties as a child and still emerge as a celebrated adult academic.
The film keeps moving, short sequences moving into one another, often suggesting so much of what is happening to the characters while they are frequently silent and reflective, the camera focused on them so we do the strong responding. This means that the film is full of minute attention to details of plot and character, including Romulus’ friend and support (Marton Csokas, Best Supporting Actor award), Russell Dykstra as his ill-fated brother.
Bana’s portrait of a ‘new’ Australian trying to find his place in Victoria is well worth seeing. Also, Kodi Smit-McPhee, who won an award for Best child performance. There are small clues as to Raimond’s future as we see him interested in books, reading by night at boarding school, listening to his father’s brief reflections on the cosmos and the inner life and meaning of things. But this is, principally, the story of a love between father and son that is finally able to transcend hardships and pain.