Strangely gripping supernatural thriller will keep you guessing
A journalist is tipped off about the existence of a mysterious brick, a jet-black object that is covered with strange hieroglyphics, in Adelaide-made drama Monolith.
Monolith (M)
In cinemas
★★★½
Monolith, an Australian drama made in Adelaide and directed by Matt Vesely, is nothing if not intriguing.
The entire film revolves around one actor, the excellent Lily Sullivan, the Australian most recently seen in Evil Dead Rise, who is on screen throughout, and without whom the film would not have worked as well as it does.
Sullivan plays an unnamed journalist – listed in the credits only as “The Interviewer” – whose career has stalled because of some barely specified error of judgment on her part.
To restore her reputation, she has commenced work on a podcast, entitled Beyond Believable, and spends all her time developing this idea in what appears to be a quite spacious, very well-equipped apartment, with a pet turtle in a water tank and windows that overlook a rural landscape. One day she receives an anonymous email telling her to get in contact with a woman called Floramae, who tells her about the existence of a mysterious brick, a jet-black object that is covered with strange hieroglyphics. Floramae had worked as a housekeeper for a rich couple and was accused of damaging a valuable table, which she denied.
Somehow the brick was involved. The Interviewer is also encouraged to interview Karl Lang, a German art collector who can provide information on these mysterious bricks and who owns several of them.
The podcast goes viral and The Interviewer becomes increasingly obsessed with the existence of the bricks, especially when she discovers a connection to her own past.
This deceptively simple concept, scripted by Lucy Campbell, becomes the core of a strangely gripping supernatural thriller, one that keeps the audience guessing and withholds a few of its secrets. Since we never leave the room where The Interviewer works, and since Sullivan is never off screen – though we hear plenty of the voices talking to her – the film may baffle some viewers and enthral others, but on its own chosen level it works most satisfactorily and it’s another example of an offbeat and impressive Australian film backed by the Adelaide International Film Festival.
Is the title, perhaps, a reference to the sinister black monolith that plays such an important role in Stanley Kubrick’s legendary 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)? If so, Vesely and Campbell aren’t letting on and the viewer is left to solve the puzzle.
Scarygirl (PG)
In cinemas
★★
Scarygirl is an Australian animated feature but a disappointing one. The basic problems are an overly convoluted screenplay by Craig Behenna, Matt Everitt and Nathan Jurevicius, who is also responsible for the far-too-busy production design.
The “scarygirl”, Arkie, voiced by Jillian Nguyen, is the daughter of an octopus and there’s really nothing scary about her, unless you count her black eyepatch and the fact that one of her arms is a tentacle while the other is a hook. Her father, Blister (Rob Collins), is an octopus with an unconvincing head of black hair and a Salvador Dali moustache who seems to spend all his time on the beach rather than in the sea.
The basic plot, which is unfortunately much embellished, involved the usual mad genius, Dr. Maybee (Sam Neill), who believes somehow that an octopus will help him get back his lost daughter and arranges to have Blister kidnapped.
There’s an impressive voice cast including Anna Torv, Tim Minchin, Dylan Alcott, Deborah Mailman and Mark Coles Smith, but their talents are largely wasted on this visually garish and dramatically thin fantasy, which was directed by Ricard Cusso with Tania Vincent credited as co-director. The 12-year-old who saw the film with me was less than impressed.
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