The Film:
2005 was a damn good year for Australian cinema. We got given The Proposition, an excellent little western/drama, Wolf Creek, one of the most successful horror films of the last decade, never mind 2005 and we got Little Fish, starring Cate Blanchett going back to her roots in a stylish thriller. For some reason or another though, not many people can recall the film that beat out all three of these at the Australian Film Awards where it took home four awards including best film and best director, won the Discovery Award at the Toronto Film Festival and met critical praise at Cannes. This film was Look Both Ways, the live action directorial debut of Sarah Watt who had previously made a few animated films.
Look Both Ways follows various characters who all have to deal with death in some way or another be it a loved one who got ran over by a train, a train driver who ran someone over, abortion or testicular cancer. The film starts with a man being killed by a slow moving train. Photographer Nick (William McInnes) goes to the scene with reporter Andy Walker (Anthony Hayes), who is writing a story about how many deaths that are treated as accidents, might be suicide. Whilst there, he interviews Meryl (Justine Clarke) who is the only witness. The next day, Meryl and Nick bump into each other and romance blossoms and quickly fizzles out as they come to terms with Nick having cancer. At the same time, a woman Andy was seeing is pregnant and wants an abortion. Also chucked in you have the head of the paper who finds it hard to deal with Nicks cancer also.
A film that is very difficult to explain, Look Both Ways is about death and how it effects different people on different levels. Everyone will have to deal with death at some point or another and this film kind of hammers that home, but just as it gets a little too depressing, a little bit of that Australian dry humour is thrown at us. Watts has previously only made animated shorts and she has brought some of that expertise into this movie as it has a couple of animated sections, all depicting death in various horrid means. The acting is first class and the way the story intertwines has been successfully done when really these 'stories intertwining' films can become rather lost in the process. A great directorial debut with room for improvement, I cannot wait to see more from this up and coming director. Well worth a look.
The DVD:
Video:
Tartan have given us an anamorphic transfer at a 1.78:1 aspect ratio and it's pretty mediocre. As is the case with a lot of low budget films, the money available shows through in the transfer with grain and dirt throughout. Blacks are sometimes a little off and the picture somewhat lacking clarity but it is still reasonable and what I would have expected for a film of this ilk. Room for improvement.
Audio:
Although the film is extremely dialogue driven with hardly any action, I'm surprised that a DTS track has been made available aswell as Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 Surround tracks. On the other hand though, this is Tartan and they seem to love their DTS putting it on everything. Whilst not really needed, it does transfer the films score well and surrounds are used to good effect with nothing being 'overdone'. Nothing to complain about apart from the lack of subtitles.
Extras:
Despite the cover saying a making of featurette and trailer are included, we are only actually given a short animated film entitled "Living With Happiness" which shows many similarities with the main feature due to it's use of death, and a couple of pages of notes in booklet form by Miles Fielder.
