FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1997. All Rights Reserved.
Let's do it
Australia churns out another charming, no-budget film
by Robert TarryLove And Other Catastrophes
directed by Emma-Kate Croghan
starring Alice Garner, Frances O'Connor, Matthew Dyktynski, Matt DayLove And Other Catastrophes is a charming little goof ball romantic comedy that could be the best existential date movie of the year.
Shot for peanuts by 24 year old Australian director Emma-Kate Croghan (so hip her first name is hyphenated. How cool is that?), it's what everyone wished their college experience was / will be. Smoke dope. Get your courses changed. Have cool friends who shoot 16mm home movies. Find a roommate. Fall in love. Listen to good tunes. Call your Prof. by his first name. Be witty.
Into this dream campus canvas drops a simple, meandering tale of a pair star-crossed love between two couples (one guy/girl, the other girl/girl). They cross paths, they fight, they break up, they fall in love, they dodge their thesis advisor, they find they have nothing in common, they smoke dope
Some might call these people (and this film) facile and hollow. And they'd be right. But hey, they're real. Let's face it, most of us ain't exactly Nietzche. And even if we met him in a coffee shop, we'd probably think he was kind of a loser.
No, Love And Other Catastrophe focuses on the small things, the petty things, the simple things that can be big catastrophes in our small lives. Think of it as a whole bunch of tiny little truths bundled together like kindling to form a satisfying little bonfire.
Things like the way lonely people look when they're trying to look relaxed at a party. Or the cruel way two people can break up just by being idiots. Or the dumb things you say to someone new. (Coffee waitress to heartthrob: "So, you don't like foam?").
Or the way existential angst has reached such a point of saturation that even pointing out clichés is a cliché. Which is a cliché in itself, you know?
And talking about those über-clichés in a café sipping latté is a little passé too, don't you think?
So wouldn't you rather just get laid?
Love conquers all.
Omnia Vincit Amor.
How clichéd.
Exactly.
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