Sleeping Beauty opens today; Sydney Film Fest’s Q&A with Julia Leigh, Jane Campion and Margaret Pomeranz

A national embarrassment. Undergrad students couldn’t make something this bad if they tried.

Having read the script, I can assure you it’s beyond appalling.

This really is a scandal…

Great..a lot of interesting stuff being said here. I hope that Screen Australia continue to play the mentoring card for future productions, or maybe even roll out a mentor based program as another level of the proven criteria needed to access funding. A mentoring option like this shouldn’t rest on the shoulders of one writer with a provocative script it should be an option for teams that can garnish the appropriate mentoring support. Its a possible door that’s been opened that remains closed for many and should stay open.

Just saw it opening day to support Aus cinema. Poor script: protagonist goes nowhere; we don’t know the stakes or motivations properly; tired old view of prostitution – and very unlikely scenarios; subplots make no sense; many scenes do nothing for the narrative.

It NEEDS rewriting – a lot – obviously. Klunky dialogue

My audience – really underwhelmed.

Some good visual material and an attempt at a visual style circa 1980 – sort of works, but the story is slow, laboured and doesn’t go anywhere.

But, Ms Leigh, I was disappointed. And I felt like vomiting. No – not as an emotional reaction to the story.
The film itself is just boring. There is as I think an English reviewer has said a difference between artistic and arty. Self absorption doesn’t make for good communication.
The only real interest here is the pathetic slavishness of the local media.
Faced with the fact that most people just think it’s a really bad film, they’ve changed the story from the ‘new cinematic voice wins critical acclaim at Cannes’ to ‘Australian makes controversial European-style film’.

It’s NOT a controversial film. It’s not Realm of The Senses.

There should be a controversy about it, but not in any way that encourages people to see it. It’s not challenging Margaret Pomeranz, it’s a boring bad film.

The controversy should be about why it was made. About the people in Screen Australia who funded it, how they did that and what films lost out to this ridiculous experiment, [comment edited]

Ummmm Holden we’re still waiting for an answer about A Heartbeat Away…we haven’t received one..they will blame it on the producer team, but at the end of the day somebody has to give a considered response and the greenlight..the sad thing is this shuts the doors for filmmakers who have made films, possibly even getting into debt going to film school and will now have the door closed in their faces as first time directors, because a known novelist and talented and writer wanted to experiment with film. Imagine anybody else going to Screen Australia as a first time director and saying “I’d like to direct a feature?’, they’d just laugh without having made a film before. I’m all for diversity..its just there doesn’t seem to be any method to it.

I’m disappointed by the passive-aggressive and patronising responses Leigh and Campion gave to the audience’s legitimate questions. The SFF crowd is an educated one. To imply that people disliked the film because they weren’t being spoon fed likeable characters with easy motivations is doing them a great disservice. Do Leigh and Campion really think so little of the audience? The film itself is tedious and sophomoric, which is no great crime. What is a crime, and what many object to, is that it represents a lot of what is wrong with the Australian film industry. Undercooked scripts written by people with nothing much to say which turn into films that favour lush aesthetics over any kind of story or character development. Then, to top it off, local critics who don’t dare admit that the emperor has no clothes. Urgh. I had to read the foreign press to discover, after seeing this catastrophe, that it was booed at Cannes and generally panned by critics. Why is that?

msd it goes like this:
Funding agencies haven’t a clue..its an industry where nobody knows anything..and they have proven time and time again especially in the last 12 months that they might have some hesitations about a script or project, they voice this to the team..but they still give them money if on paper those behind the project have a track record that meets the proven criteria..so if the film is a shocker or fails to connect with the audience they say..hey we gave them advice but at the end of the day we are here to support filmmakers make films, that’s our charter..if they don’t listen to our advice..then that’s there fault..its a little like giving a loaded gun to somebody who has little idea what bad gun management might evolve towards..you might hit the target, you might blow your brains out, you might shoot your foot off..you might kill somebody etc etc..in the end the responsibility lies with the producers, not the person who provided the funds (weird logic I know). What is intriguing is why some people get told a flat out “no” and why others are given a chance..in this case..a massive chance..there just doesn’t seem to be any method and the proven criteria seems to apply to most, but not all.

Agree, Doug.
And msd.
Isn’t there anyone in the Parliament who will take this up? Someone who will ask for some serious answers from Screen Aus about how this decision was made? If Screen Australia was a NSW thing, you could refer this to the ICAC.
Who was in favour? Was there any conflicting advice? Who made the final decision? The staff or the board?
And – what was it up against? At the time this was being funded, other films were being knocked back. What did this exercise in croneyism stop from being made?
I know Screen Australia is just beer money in the scale of the national budget [comment edited].
Where’s Peter Walsh when you need him on a senate committee – teaming up across party lines with Nick Minchin.
[comment edited]

@Paul InnerSydney

I didn’t care too much for ‘Sleeping Beauty’ but then I loved Mallick’s ‘Tree of Life’ and friends of mine whose opinions I respect hated it for basically the same reasons that so many people hate ‘Sleeping’ – pretentious, boring. There’s no accounting for taste. My opinion, your opinion doesn’t really count for much. What’s important is whether ‘Sleeping Beauty’ appeals to its intended art house audience. If it does, Screen Australia made the right call getting so solidly behind a first time director. I haven’t seen ‘A Heartbeat Away’ but judging from the box office, the reviews and comments online it seems that Screen Australia made the wrong call with this particular first time director. Can’t win them all!

I think the worst thing is, this experiment will shut the door for an aspiring first time filmmaker, who actually got into debt going to film school, has made a few shorts and has a film that has something really original to say. When the Producer team go to a funding body and say I have this film, it falls in the art house realm..bang..end of discussion…eyes glaze over..”I’m sorry you need more experience as a Director”. I mean if you actually read the proven criteria for funding features or even accessing development funds, its very clear what will be considered and what won’t. The Producer team behind this film must be able to sell snow to eskimo’s..stella performance on getting this film up..but what we have now is the usual wall of indifference from the funding bodies..I think if you’re going to want to work in a government job and play with public funds you should also be accountable for the rationale as to why you arrived at that expenditure.
I mean this “Julia was like a lioness, she wouldn’t let anyone touch it,”
This alone sends out massive warning bells..a screenplay is one part of a larger collaboration or as Paul Schrader would say ..a screenplay is not art its an invitation to collaborate to create a piece of art. So the fact that a writer has a script and won’t let anybody touch it says to me that if I was in that meeting about funding this thing I’d say “There’s the exit to SA, you can walk back in here anytime you’d like to discuss collaborating on something”. We need to move away from this modern day perversion of narrative and what writing a screenplay is..all these sermon like McKee seminars are turning the screenplay into this omnipresent whoring of narrative where everybody has this near pathological understanding of the heroes journey, effective drama, tension and story blah blah blah. What this is doing is when a script comes along that doesn’t fit that, people see that screenplay as a work of high art or prose..well its not..its a story constructed with juxtaposed scenes that rationalize what has come before each scene..and in fact is an invitation to collaborate. Word on the street is this is a film that just fails to go anywhere..its a mantra I keep hearing. Why not take the audience somewhere?

No, ‘expat’, you can’t win them all. Gotta win some though!

[comment edited] ‘A Heartbeat Away’ and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ (much touted as a brilliant screenplay by Film Development) Screen Australia has demonstrated that it can’t tell the difference between a well crafted screenplay and an amateurish one.

The real problem here is that the same bureaucrats make the same wrong calls year after year and are not held accountable for backing films that no-one wants to see – either mainstream or arthouse audiences. If arthouse audiences in Australia and overseas want to see ‘Sleeping Beauty’, a story without a third act, I’ll be surprised. The opening box office figures do not look encouraging. It may last a few weeks in the cinema on titillation/curiosity value alone then sink without a trace when trhe bad word-of-mouth kicks in. The next we’ll hear of it is when Screen Australia announces its substantial investment in Julia ‘Genuis’ Leigh’s next feature film. [comment edited]

Personally, I loved it.
It was nice having a film bold enough not to offer all the answers, but leaving enough for you to figure it out. It’s a curious movie, but powerful.
I saw it by myself and had opportunity to listen to audience conversations before going into the theater, I’d say the only ‘pretentious’ thing about the film was the audience.

Well..look at the end of the day you have to try these things, even the best in the business don’t know what they’re doing, check it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGaoP1bLLeU&feature=share
Still you’d like to think that a certain level of proven criteria applied to everybody. Maybe a different Director might have enhanced the film and given it some added meaning…most people I’ve been talking to…even fan’s of the art house genre have said that SP didn’t go anywhere..wanted to..but left the audience wanting..I better get along and check it out…with all the other “pretentious” audience members.