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Arts

Film  |  Theatre  |  Art  |  Opera  |  Music  |  Television  |  Festivals

Welcome to ABR Arts, home to some of Australia's best arts journalism. We review film, theatre, opera, music, television, art exhibitions – and more. To read ABR Arts articles in full, subscribe to ABR or take out an ABR Arts subscription. Both packages give full access to our arts reviews the moment they are published online and to our extensive arts archive.

Meanwhile, the ABR Arts e-newsletter, published every second Tuesday, will keep you up-to-date as to our recent arts reviews.

 

Recent reviews

Lee 

StudioCanal
by •
22 October 2024
Kate Winslet as Lee Miller (courtesy of StudioCanal)
The first act set-up of a biopic is almost always laborious. Grandiose voiceover and lines of dialogue are laden with the knowing weight of history; various conflicting images of the subject and their ‘truth’ are forced, often boringly, into narrative harmony. Lee, the feature début from respected cinematographer Ellen Kuras (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, [2004]) and long-time passion project of its star, Kate Winslet, is quick to fall prey to these generic obligations. Characters portentously refer to one another by their full names (‘What are you going to do now, Lee Miller?’) and historical turning points are neatly condensed into one-liners (‘We’re getting ready, aren’t we, for the invasion of Europe?’). ... (read more)

A Different Man 

Kismet
by •
21 October 2024
Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve, and Adam Pearson in A Different Man (courtesy of Kismet)
Where David Cronenberg’s body horrors of the 1980s and 1990s, such as Videodrome, The Fly, and Crash, were fascinating because of the fusion of technology and the human form, a new wave of genre films is anxiously asking: how much can we tweak and tinker before our bodies start to bite back? Like Theseus’s ship, how much can we swap out before nothing of our true self remains? Cosmetic surgery is booming in the 2020s, promoted via social media and normalised across every age group, so it is no wonder that a new generation of filmmakers have bodily modification on the brain. ... (read more)

Eucalyptus 

Victorian Opera and Opera Australia
by •
18 October 2024
Desiree Frahn as Ellen (photograph by Charlie Kinross)
Two new and important Australian operas within a month: Gilgamesh (Symons/Garrick) in Sydney in late September, and now Eucalyptus (Mills/Oakes) in Melbourne in mid-October. This certainly hasn’t occurred for quite some time, if ever. Composer Jonathan Mills, mentored at Sydney University by Peter Sculthorpe, is probably best known for two acclaimed operas. ... (read more)

A Wilde Ballet

by •
14 October 2024
Adam Elmes as Bosie and Jarryd Madden as Oscar (photograph by Christopher Rodgers-Wilson)
As a former dancer who has grappled with questions about sexuality, I was often struck by ballet’s contradictory relationship with queer inclusion and representation. On one hand, the art form – especially in Western countries – has long been seen as a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community. Ballet legends like Rudolf Nureyev, John Neumeier, and Jack Soto lived openly as gay men, and in 1997 an American study estimated that more than half of professional male dancers identified as gay or bisexual. Yet despite the sector’s inclusivity, the art form has also played a role in suppressing queer representation onstage. ... (read more)

Angela Hewitt in Recital 

by •
11 October 2024
‘Angela Hewitt in Recital: The British pianist begins her Australian tour’ by Michael Morley

In a deftly pitched introduction to the evening’s program of Mozart, Bach, Handel, and Brahms, Angela Hewitt mentioned in passing that her first visit to Adelaide had been back in 1991. A packed and responsive Elder Hall audience was quick throughout the evening to show their support and enthusiasm for the artist, her choice of works, and her individual performances. 

... (read more)

The Apprentice 

Madman Entertainment
by •
08 October 2024
Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn and Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump (courtesy of Madman Entertainment)

The Apprentice begins with footage of Richard Nixon addressing a television audience. It is 1973 and the Senate Watergate hearings are underway. ‘People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook … Well, I’m not a crook,’ Nixon intones.

... (read more)

Montessori (★★★★★) and There’s Still Tomorrow (★★★★1/2)

Italian Film Festival
by •
08 October 2024
Paola Cortellesi in There’s Still Tomorrow (courtesy of Palace)
Who are we to judge women like Maria Montessori, Lili d’Alengy, or Delia? Maria, whose son was raised by a nanny in the countryside while she devoted her life to educating children; Lili, who abandoned her disabled daughter to build a life as a courtesan; and Delia, trapped in an abusive relationship, demeaned and beaten daily – why don’t these women make different choices? ... (read more)

Gilgamesh 

Opera Australia and Sydney Chamber Opera
by •
30 September 2024
Mitchell Riley as Enkidu and Jeremy Kleeman as Gilgamesh (photograph by Daniel Boud)
These are the opening lines of what has been described as the ‘first great work of literature’, created more than four thousand years ago in Mesopotamia – modern-day Iraq. The origins of the epic poem Gilgamesh are unclear. It was written in Akkadian cuneiform on clay tablets, and found in the ruins of the library of the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal (c.650 BCE); the literary style suggests an oral origin sung by bards before being transcribed. ... (read more)

Bad Boy 

fortyfivedownstairs
by •
30 September 2024
Nicci Wilks as Will (photograph by George Jefford)
Bad Boy is the second work in a series of what playwright Patricia Cornelius and director Susie Dee have called ‘visceral dramatic monologues’. The first, RUNT (2021), centred on the unnamed homunculus of the play’s title, portrayed with memorable physical intensity and dexterity by Nicci Wilks. ... (read more)

The Critic 

Transmission Films
by •
30 September 2024
'The Critic: Fear and loathing at the cinema' by Barnaby Smith

The Critic begins with a voice-over in Ian McKellen’s gravelly yet sonorous tones. After defining the term ‘critic’ (‘judge’, according to its Latin and Greek etymology), he declares, ‘The drama critic is feared and reviled for the judgement he must bring, but the truth is imperative, the critic must be cold and perfectly alone. Only the greats are remembered.’

... (read more)
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