Abbie Cornish Astonishes in Australian Filmmaker Cate Shortland’s Debut, Somersault

SOMERSAULT 

(Cate Shortland, Australia, 2004, 106 minutes) 

In her directorial debut, Somersault, Australian filmmaker Cate Shortland turns the idea of the unlikable protagonist on its head by portraying her central character with the kind of empathy this young woman craves. 

Sixteen-year-old Heidi (Abbie Cornish with white-blonde hair and eyebrows, lending her a look both feral and ethereal) has been coasting through life on her looks. She doesn't appear to have any particular interests, though she does carry a scrapbook and a glue stick with her wherever she goes. 

The film has hardly begun when she seduces her mother's boyfriend, Adam (Damian De Montemas). She starts by asking about his tattoo, touching it, and giving him a kiss. Things proceed from there–until her mother, Nicole (Olivia Pigeot), catches them in the act. After making herself persona non grata, Heidi catches a bus from Canberra, where Shortland grew up, to the alpine resort town of Jindabyne where she knows exactly one person. 

 

When her attempt to stay with the former fling goes awry, Heidi drops by a local watering hole, and finds Sean (Ben Tate), another man with whom to crash, though he's mostly just looking for a good time. She gives him what he wants, but it's unclear if it's also what she wants (Cornish, 21 at the time, has several nude scenes). After Sean and his friends--who appear to be skiers--head back to Sydney, she's on her own again, looking for a job and a place to stay. 

She meets Joe (Avatar's Sam Worthington with a spiky mullet), the son of a wealthy farmer, at a rustic diner. They banter for a bit, and though he seems to find her attractive, he isn't exactly swept off his feet, possibly because of the age gap. Convinced they made a connection, she insists on coming home with him, but things end much as they did with his predecessor. Fortunately, kindly motel manager Irene (a warm, maternal Lynette Curran) gives her a temporary place to stay: her metal-head son's old apartment. 

Heidi gets a job at a petrol station next. Though she and Joe meet again, it's hard to tell if he just likes sleeping with her, or if he likes her as a person. 

He's more reserved, and as it turns out, has problems of his own. The actors have chemistry, though–quite a bit. Since Heidi doesn't have any friends, there's a sense that she doesn't know how to relate to women her own age, with the possible exception of her coworker Bianca (Hollie Andrew).

 

This isn't the kind of film where the director focuses exclusively on the central character. Once Joe enters the scene, Shortland shows what he gets up to when he isn't with Heidi. He has one friend, an older gay man (Erik Thomson), who doesn't judge him, and another, a straight man around his age, who does. That friend considers Heidi low class, loose–a slut. 

 

There's another man in town, Bianca's stepfather (Paul Gleeson), who shares the same sentiments, because Heidi flirted with him when she was looking for a job, a decision she comes to regret. He engages in a form of sexism that may not be overt, but it's definitely insidious, and leaves her feeling more like an outsider than ever. Though it's hardly great that she put the moves on her mom's boyfriend, this confused young woman is more than her worst impulses. If anything, she makes the tightly-wound Joe uncomfortable, because she wears her heart on her sleeve. 

 

In Jindabyne, Heidi comes to find she can't run away from her problems when the primary problem is her. It doesn't mean she deserves the treatment she receives, or that she doesn't deserve happiness, just that she needs to learn to have more faith in herself and not to let others define her. 

 

Fortunately, none of this is heavy-handed. Heidi does eventually have a breakdown, but it forces a necessary reckoning. By the end, she isn't so unlikable after all. At the very least, she's more understandable. Nonetheless, in looking through the film's original reviews, I found that women responded more favorably to the film. Two male critics went so far as to describe Heidi as "trampy," which makes me think they missed the point of the thing (kudos to Scott Tobias and Neil Young for their more considered responses).  

 

As for Cornish, she's quite astonishing, whether singing "The Clapping Song" to herself while wandering through the forest or dancing in her skivvies to Alvin Stardust's "My Coo Ca Choo," she's always alive in the moment.

 

I get why Australian actors who made their mark at home would move to the United States where they can secure work that pays better and reaches more people. It worked for Nicole Kidman and for a while it worked for Eric Bana and Simon Baker, too, though both actors eventually returned to Australia where, to my mind, they’ve been doing more interesting work.

 

Since she moved to the States, Cornish has been working steadily, and for all I know she's perfectly happy, but I believe she's given her best performances in Australian films, like 2006's Candy with Heath Ledger and, especially, Jane Campion's 2009 Bright Star with Ben Whishaw. 

In the States, she's worked on more commercial projects that have asked less from her to the extent that Somersault might startle anyone only familiar with Sucker Punch, Limitless, or Prime Video's Jack Ryan, because she absolutely holds the screen in an intensely challenging role.

 

Unlike her leading lady, Cate Shortland has worked primarily in Australia. A surprising exception was Marvel's 2021 standalone feature Black Widow with Scarlett Johansson. On the basis of her previous, modestly-budgeted features, that's not a move I would have seen coming, though her track record as a director of women-in-peril films led Johansson to insist on her, telling Variety that 2012's World War II-set Lore is "a perfect film."

 

Actors and directors sometimes meet at just the right time, and that was the case with Shortland, who was making her first feature after several shorts, and Cornish, who was playing her first lead after several supporting roles. 

Somersault is an exceptionally fine film, eminently deserving of restoration and rediscovery. It's beautifully shot by The Hunter's Robert Humphries and scored with delicacy and restraint by Sydney outfit Decoder Ring, resulting in something simultaneously electric and affecting in its depiction of the kind of young woman too easily dismissed as "easy" when she's anything but. 

 

Somersault plays New York's Metrograph through Feb 28 and opens at Austin Film Society Mar 8 and Toronto's Paradise Theatre Mar 13. No Seattle dates yet–if at all–but it comes to VOD Mar 27. Images from Film Movement via Reverse Shot (Abbie Cornish and Sam Worthington), Google Play (Cornish), TV Guide (Cornish and Lynette Curran), and AFI (Cornish).  

What’s Cooler Than Cool: Michael Almereyda’s Vampire Tale Nadja with Elina Löwensohn

NADJA 

(Michael Almereyda, USA, 1994, 

93 minutes) 

I say what's, what's cooler than being cool? (Ice cold)

--Outcast, "Hey Ya!" (2003)

 

The essence of 1990s cool, Michael Almereyda's black and white mood piece infuses German Expressionism with post-punk attitude. "Nights…nights without sleep," Nadja (Romanian-American actor Elina Löwensohn, who had appeared in Schindler's List the year before) intones at the outset as the filmmaker superimposes her image over fog-enshrouded New York City.

Almereyda then catches up with Nadja on a date explaining that she doesn't have to work, because she comes from money. Her father didn't have to work either, and for the same reason. The night ends with Nadja feeding on her date. She may not have to work, but to survive: she needs to feed.

Cinematographer Jim Denault shot the sequence in Pixelvision–a toy camera created by Fisher Price–and the effect is more arty than scary even as the ravenous vampire ends up with blood all over her face. I was also reminded of surveillance footage, something which will play into Almereyda's 2000 ultra-paranoid, modern-dress version of Hamlet with Ethan Hawke. 

As Nadja's late-night perambulations continue, she drops by an underpopulated, Edward Hopper-esque diner where she asks Lucy (actor-turned-author Galaxy Craze), an androgynous-looking woman, for a light, and they proceed to smoke and engage in a rather personal conversation for two people who just met. She appears to be looking for a friend when she confesses things like, "I'm so alone," but as the evening continues, their platonic rapport turns sexual--even though Lucy isn't exactly single.

While Nadja flirts, fucks, and feasts her way across the city, Van Helsing (Peter Fonda in longhair-hippie mode) kills her father and plots with his nephew, Jim (Martin Donovan), Lucy's oblivious husband, about how to eliminate more of her kind. To him, vampires are "raving idiots, insane, monsters, deformed, the walking dead." A silent movie-style flashback, which evokes F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu, suggests he used to feel otherwise. 

(Since Fonda also plays Nadja's father in flashbacks, it's worth noting that the Beatles took inspiration for 1966's "She Said She Said" from Fonda's declaration, "I know what it's like to be dead," while tripping on acid.)

Beyond Murnau, Almereyda drew from Bram Stoker's Dracula, André Breton's semiautobiographical novel Nadja, Carl Theodor Dreyer's gothic horror Vampyr, and Lambert Hillyer's Dracula's Daughter, a stylish 1936 film about an aristocratic foreigner (below) seeking out London's prettiest necks.

Though Nadja seems lonely, she has a male companion, Renfield (Almereyda mainstay Karl Geary), but he's more like an assistant--"a slave," as she puts it--than a friend or lover. She also has a twin, Edgar (Jared Harris with passable Romanian accent), except he's in a sort of coma, though it isn't clear if he's a vampire or just severely anemic. His nurse Cassandra (Suzi Amis), Jim's sister, serves as his companion. (Three years after starring in Titanic, Amis married James Cameron, and stopped acting around the same time. It's possible she doesn't miss it, but seeing her again made me a little sad.) 

With Nadja's help, Edgar gets better, while Lucy, who has fallen under her sway, gets worse. What appears to be a case of vampirism, however, turns out to be more of a psychic ill, since Nadja, like Countess Marya in Dracula's Daughter, can also communicate and control minds telepathically. 

Though Nadja could rest on her laurels after hypnotizing Lucy, she sets out to make Cassandra her next victim, which leads the nurse to flee Edgar's abode, except no one can ever really escape the vampire. The chase leads to the twins' Romanian castle at which the entire extended family will meet. 

I'm not certain how Almereyda decided which sequences to shoot in 35mm and which in Pixelvision, though it seems more random than not with the exception of the more violent encounters. Then again, Nadja follows his second feature, 1992's Another Girl, Another Planet, also with Löwensohn, which Jim Denault shot entirely in Pixelvision before transferring to 16mm. 

There isn't a lot to Nadja, but if you surrender to its spell, a good time awaits, and I found the final sequence quite transcendent. It also predicts the cool-cat vampire tales to come, like Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive, which takes place in the beautiful ruins of Detroit and Tangier, and Ana Lily Amirpour's Farsi-language A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, which transfers Persian and French New Wave aesthetics to suburban Bakersfield. 

Nonetheless, the story of its making is nearly as compelling as the film itself, since David Lynch and then-wife Mary Sweeney produced and funded the picture--Lynch also cameos as a loopy morgue attendant--and Peter Fonda, who would receive a richly deserved Oscar nod for Victor Nuñez's Ulee’s Gold only three years later, was so enthusiastic about the project that he flew to New York on his own dime and volunteered his services (not the done thing for an actor at any level). I would like to think that Van Helsing's reflective sunglasses are a nod to his mirrored shades in the era-defining Easy Rider. 

Almereyda also stacked the deck with alt-rock and trip-hop, but while working on the restoration with Arbelos, he axed the Portishead and My Bloody Valentine tracks to make way for more of Simon Fisher Turner's shimmering score. This will surely disappoint fans of the original version, though Fisher Turner's score really is pretty terrific, and it was probably quite a coup in 1994 to secure the services of Derek Jarman's favored composer.  

The central character, however, remains the same. When it comes to vampire films, the casting is crucial, and Bucharest-born Elina Löwensohn, with her Louise Brooks-meets-Anna Karina good looks, spectral intensity, and deadpan affect is as perfect for the role of Nadja as Hungarian-born Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó, aka Bela Lugosi, was for Count Dracula.

Nadja, in a new 4K edition, opens at The Beacon Cinema on Fri, Feb 13. Images from Le Cinema Club (Elina Löwensohn), Center for Contemporary Arts - Santa Fe (Löwensohn and Galaxy Craze), MUBI (Gloria Holden), Indiewire (David Lynch), and Arbelos / Grasshopper (Peter Fonda).  

The Return of Los Golfos ("The Delinquents"): Carlos Saura's Searing 1959 Neorealist Debut

LOS GOLFOS / The Delinquents 

(Carlos Saura, Spain, 1959, 84 minutes) 

Los Golfos is one of the most uncompromising films I've ever seen about the trap of poverty. 

Carlos Saura, in his feature-film debut, doesn't even make his protagonists especially likeable, though they're always engaging. He simply shows them building to a plan that could set them on the path to prosperity–or leave them with nothing. There's no middle ground; it's either success or failure. 

Granted, the Spanish title translates as The Delinquents or The Hooligans, but Saura, who began as a director of documentary shorts, isn't being strictly metaphorical, and nor does his film, which he shot on location in Madrid's less photogenic neighborhoods, qualify as exploitation fare. It falls squarely in the neorealist camp, something I wouldn't say about his more stylized flamenco films, like 1983's Oscar-nominated musical Carmen. 

And unlike the American B-movies of the time, these guys aren't tricked out in leather to race around on motorcycles. They're just trying to get by. 

It's always a risk to hitch your wagon to a star, but it's the best option around, so Juan (Óscar Cruz) has been training to become a matador, and his friends will do anything to help him out. Juan is taking a risk, too–the biggest, really–because not everyone is cut out to be a matador. He's also motivated by a porter job that has him lugging heavy baskets of produce. 

For what it's worth, Juan has no reservations about plunging banderillas (long pointed sticks) into bulls' backs. What might seem like animal cruelty to an outsider–and I'm not saying that it isn't–is par for the course for the aspiring matador, who doesn't come across as much of a deep thinker. 

For anyone who struggled with Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar, which centers on an abused donkey, or Albert Serra's bullfighting documentary Afternoons of Solitude, which features several abused bulls, Los Golfos could prove a tough sit, though Saura mostly focuses on life outside the ring. 

Right: Peruvian bullfighter Andrés Roca Rey in Afternoons of Solitude

At first, I assumed the quintet was acting primarily out of loyalty and friendship, but it's only toward the end that it becomes clear they're looking to become part of a matador's entourage, which doesn't exclude loyalty and friendship by any means, but Juan is as much a potential meal ticket as a friend. 

Though the film has abundant Spanish flavor--plaintive flamenco guitar, heartrending folk singing--the narrative could have just as easily centered on a basketball player in Harlem, a football player in South Central, or any number of other athlete-in-the-city combinations. Some professional players are more than happy to share their largesse with the hometown crew.

The film begins as one of the youths robs a blind merchant, the first sign that they aren't stealing from those who can take a hit, but from those who need the money as much as they do. If anything, their victims come across as more sympathetic, but that's Saura's point: they're victims, too. Victims of a system that benefits from their exploitation–little surprise that the film was censored in Spain, even after a well received premiere at Cannes. 

Later, they steal parts from trucks and motorcycles to sell for cash, and they rob a man who's simply going home from work. For what it's worth, they aren't armed, they don't kill anyone, and they don't inflict any permanent injuries, but they're as forceful and intimidating as necessary. 

They also have a moll in Juan's self-possessed girlfriend, Visi (María Mayer), who assists with some of their schemes, like the time she lets a patron cozy up to her at a bar while Ramón (Luis Marín, a standout among the mostly non-professional cast) attempts to lift an unattended wallet. As Juan tells Visi after a night of romance–a sequence censored in Spain since they're pictured in bed–"If I'm lucky and I win, I'll get you out of this place." 

Marín also appears in the terrific 1957 short, La Tarde del Domingo, a damning portrait of a family of oppressors from the perspective of their put-upon maid (Isana Medel); it's included with the new Radiance release.

To Saura's credit, there are no weak links in the cast. Because he keeps exposition to a minimum, it took me a while to sort everyone out, but that has nothing to do with the performances. The filmmaker found young men with distinctive features and personas, who work well together, though most--Marín aside--would leave acting behind afterward. 

The risks intensify when Juan meets with promoter Don Félix (Arturo Ors) to inform him he's ready for competition. Don is happy to oblige, but only if he pays 20,000 pesetas upfront. I'm not sure if he's taking advantage of Juan's inexperience or if it's pay-to-play for all first-timers, but Juan and his friends decide it's worth the price to send him on his way to fame and fortune. 

Since petty crimes won't add up quickly enough, they plan one big score instead. Nothing works according to plan, but these delinquents are relentless, and they won't let anything stand in their way. Since Los Golfos is neorealism bordering on noir, they'll have more unpleasant surprises ahead. 

Saura ends on a note of cruel irony. That isn't to suggest that he's cruel, though you could see it that way, since the director created the pitiless scenario (he wrote the screenplay with director Mario Camus and journalist Daniel Sueiro). If anything, he had to tone down the politics, since the censors rejected the previous anti-fascist projects he had proposed.  

In Michael Eaude's Saura obituary for The Guardian, he states that "its implicit critique of the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco meant that it was forbidden in Spain for another couple of years." Because the 1962 release was censored, it had to be pieced together for this 4K restoration, so it's fortunate the missing elements were accessible, thus restoring it to the version that netted a Palme d'Or nomination at 1960's Cannes Film Festival. 

In the history of Spanish cinema, Carlos Saura is often placed, chronologically, after Luis Buñuel–who also worked in France and Mexico–and before Pedro Almodóvar as the top three filmmakers. (Saura, who dedicated Peppermint Frappé to Buñuel, also considered him a friend.) 

The Criterion Collection has reissued five of his features, including 1976's stunning Cría Cuervos… with his one-time companion Geraldine Chaplin; four of those films are available exclusively as part of box sets, while 13 are currently streaming on the Criterion Channel. 

So, he's hardly an unknown quantity, and it isn't hard to see many--though not all--of his films. Nonetheless, I hadn't heard of Los Golfos until Radiance reissued it last fall, and I'm not sure why, but I think it's a combination of a troubled afterlife and because it doesn't quite fit with the rest of his 44 non-fiction and narrative features, even though he was a fairly restless talent with wide-ranging interests. 

It's a tough-minded picture fueled by fury that doesn't just speak to Spain in 1959, when it was made, but to any country in which young, working class people have few opportunities to better themselves–a situation hardly unknown in the United States, especially in its more impoverished regions. 

For my money, it bears comparison with José Antonio Nieves Conde's Surcos ("Furrows"), Luis Buñuel's Los Olvidados ("The Forgotten Ones"), and Fellini's semiautobiographical I Vitelloni ("The Layabouts"), and deserves nearly as much acclaim as those celebrated early-career films. 

Los Golfos is out now on Blu-ray with author and curator interviews, two short films (including 1955's La Llamada), a handsome booklet featuring an excellent essay, "And the World Goes Round," from British critic Mar Diestro-Dópido, and other contextual extras. Another winner from Radiance Films (available in the US via MVD). Images from Slant Magazine, Pere Portabella (Óscar Cruz), Grasshopper Films / The New York Times (Andrés Roca Rey), Blu-ray.com (Luis Marín), the IMDb (Cruz with María Mayer and Arturo Ors), and Gianni Ferrari / Getty Images / Le Monde (Carlos Saura in 1966).