bonjour balwyn

I had the chance yet again to see the remarkable Bonjour Balwyn, one of my favourite films, twice this week. I was showing it to students so I was inspired to purchase a copy on DVD from Nigel Buesst who made the film in 1969. It is an extraordinary piece of work and does not in any way that I can immediately think of suggest the direction Australian film was to follow in future years, and I’m not just talking about the penchant for period films that was to dog the industry in the early days of its revival.

Bonjour Balwyn, if you haven’t seen it, is the story of Kevin Agar (played by John Duigan, later to become famous as a film director) who is in the early stages of running a magazine called Bolo, with his various privileged male friends ostensibly supporting him financially/ spiritually and with money borrowed from numerous sources such as his former fiancée Rhonda. We do not see where Agar lives (he says it’s in Prahran; in the first scene we see him in his parents’ house, where his old room has a large picture of Tiny Tim on the wall, at least I assume it’s Tiny Tim but it might just be Agar/Duigan, which would be disturbing). We see quite a few scenes in the magazine offices, where the sad tale of Bolo’s complete lack of financial success is slowly but agonizingly playing out. The funny thing is, there is a happy ending, but it’s entirely unexpected and bizarre, and in the meantime Agar gets threatened and cajoled and beaten up and harangued by people he owes money to, all the way through the film. The whole thing is a riot, in my opinion. A very funny film with some great characters. I recommend it. That happy ending is quite something: you almost think Agar's moral stance has been compromised and then you remember he didn't have one at any point.

The music is by Carrl and Janie Myriad, and Don Featherstone, another fine filmmaker, was an assistant. Tom Cowan did the exceptional camerawork. Peter Cummins has a great surly role at the very end. Though the filming is quite tight, I’m pretty sure we see some strange bits of lost Melbourne too – if there was a service station once at the north end of the Carlton Gardens on Nicholson, well, that’s what we’re seeing (and with a horse-drawn cart going past no less). Buesst, who did a fair bit of photography I’m told for Robin Boyd c. The Australian Ugliness, manages to introduce a nice bit of Australian Ugliness in there as well, for instance in the scenes from a place which I gather is Seymour.

The next film I’d love to get a copy of is Brake Fluid. This also stars Duigan but had another director I can’t recall. I guess acting’s loss is for a greater gain with Duigan, but he is pretty good in the movie – quite similar in some ways to, or at least in the same basic wavelength as, Stork (was that play produced before 1969? Probably).

Duigan also wrote a book in the early 70s, which I tried to read, and didn’t get far. That’s unusual for me I should have another go. I might just not have been in the mood. I love his films. Lawn Dogs, Year My Voice Broke, Flirting (which I like even better than YMVB), Mouth to Mouth, etc.