|
|
| ALEXANDRAS PROJECT |
 |
|
Director, Rolf de Heer migrated to Australia from Holland with his family as a young boy, worked with the ABC for seven years and during the late 1970s began his filmmaking career. As producer and/or director Rolf de Heer has always pushed the boundaries with his films, exploring subjects and style techniques in innovative ways not unlike Britain’s Mike Leigh (ALL OR NOTHING, also in this current calendar) and the principles of the Dogma philosophy. He questions accepted social values and challenges us always to a more compassionate and moral higher ground. ALEXANDRA’S PROJECT is an intense exploration of a marriage, and is about sex and deception in a relationship not always, if ever, ruled by love. The film is also about love… and the respect that love demands. ALEXANDRA’S PROJECT may be a specific story, but it is also allegorical, and extraordinarily confronting… be prepared to be shocked. You have now been warned; some have been offended. The viewer is at first manipulated to identify with the leading characters in such a way that the emotional jolts as the story unfolds will have maximum impact and a calculated audience response of uneasy guilt. ALEXANDRA’S PROJECT is already an official selection for The Berlin Film Festival 2003. Steve (Gary Sweet) is a middle-management office worker in an Australian city, happily going through the motions of family life as husband to wife Alexandra (Helen Buday delivering an amazingly daring, and brave, performance) and father to their two children, Emma and Sam. It’s Steve’s birthday. He’s just received news of a promotion. And he’s anticipating a surprise party when he arrives home. Instead all is quiet when he opens the door, and there is no sign of life in the darkened house. He finds only a video tape labelled ‘Play Me’… The impact of what the tape reveals causes Steve to panic… He discovers the phone has been disconnected, his keys no longer fit the locks and the security shutters on the windows cannot be opened… The battery in his mobile phone has been removed. Alone, frightened and imprisoned in his own house, Steve has no choice but to watch the rest of the video tape… “…extraordinary film… biting my lip and gaping like a stunned mullet… it’s (Alexandra’s) as confronting and difficult a role as I’ve seen in an Australian film – or any country’s film… complex, nuanced, brittle and courageous… will not be forgotten… nor will the film. …a film not to miss.” – Paul Byrnes, SMH. Margaret and David agree: a total of eight stars– SBS MOVIE SHOW.
BEHIND THE SCENES INFO: Unlike most films, ALEXANDRA’S PROJECT was shot in sequence so that, particularly Gary Sweet’s character could respond to the unfolding plot with maximum conviction. He had not seen the video tape left in the deserted home before actually playing his role for the camera so that his reactions could most accurately reflect the shock experienced by Steve (and the audience).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|