The outlaw returns, again
THE Ned Kelly story inspired one of the world's first feature films, a novel, a series of paintings, a string quartet and various other films.
NO one would be more surprised than Ned Kelly to discover he had inspired one of the world's first feature films (The Story of the Kelly Gang, 1906), a Booker Prize-winning novel, a series of paintings by Sidney Nolan, a string quartet by Graeme Koehne, and various other films, including Ned Kelly (Monday, 4pm, 7Two), a gloomy one from director Gregor Jordan.
Heath Ledger gives us a stern, brooding Ned, brave and principled in his larrikin way, but with a gentle side. The bank robberies, in their naive, fumbling way, look wholly believable, which is more than can be said for Ned's romance with Julia (Naomi Watts), wife of a landowner.
If Ned was the quintessential Aussie hero, Scott (of Antarctic fame) typified the British stiff-upper-lip tradition, seen to advantage in Scott of the Antarctic (Sunday, 8.15am, Gem), a workmanlike account of Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole. And who better than John Mills to play the hero, with Kenneth More (naturally) somewhere to be found amid the balaclava'd faces?
Two late masterpieces from mature-age directors: Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander (Monday, 11pm, SBS Two), a study of family life seen through the eyes of a child in a small Swedish town around 1907 and a powerful statement against religious zealotry; and Mystic River (Friday, 9.30pm, Gem), a film of anguished beauty and mesmerising power from Clint Eastwood, about three boys from a shabby Boston neighbourhood brought together in later life by memories of a tragic crime. In Pay it Forward (Sunday, 8.30pm, Gem), Kevin Spacey plays a school teacher who exhorts his class to do good turns for strangers in the hope that a wave of benevolence will transform the world. A mushy idea that never comes off, though Robin Williams would have loved it.
BEST ON SHOW
Mystic River (MA15+) 4 stars Friday, 9.30pm, Gem
Fanny and Alexander (M) 4-1/2 stars Monday, 11pm, SBS Two
Ned Kelly (MA15+) 3 stars Monday, 4pm, 7Two
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