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1999 / Australia-Japan / Color / 80min.
* 2000 Sydney Film Festival
* 2000 Toronto International Film Festival |
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[SYNOPSIS]
A pizza delivery service in suburban Brisbane, one Monday night. A chain of time frames, each enclosing particular hours of the day, alternatively unfolds a bittersweet comedy of six young employees. The sequence of time is not always followed as the story is structured like a jigsaw puzzle. As each piece of the story falls into place, we begin to see more and more of the "big picture".
First, we see Dom, alone in the shop after the closing time. He trashes the place and verbally abuses someone over the phone; then it switches to the early evening when Misha, still a virgin, lies to his friends about having scored with the popular young actress; Robert and Erin are as close as two people can get, but they have not yet shared intimacy because Robert is really gay; Katie who is in charge of the branch is having an affair with Dom. But, tonight Misha catches them in the act and later, the rest of the employees make fun of her by ridiculous reenactment of Katie and Dom making out. Katie is deeply hurt when Dom, who happens to be present, laughs his head off along with the crowd.
Katie breaks up with Dom and fires him at the same time, which explains the reason of Dom's angry reaction at the beginning of the film. Stacey, a former honor employee turned drug-addict comes to work tonight for a change, but steals from a customer and goes off the edge. Not knowing how to deal with herself any longer, she jumps into the river, only to be saved by Dom, who happens to pass by. As the long night ends and new day begins, the sprinklers start to water the lawn of the riverbank the two are sitting on...
[COMMENTARY]
CITY LOOP unfolds in suburban Brisbane, Australia, surrounded by highways. The suburb consists of neat blocks of apartments and a well-maintained park. The six main young characters, all employed by a pizza delivery service, are trapped in the humdrum of affluence, a by-product of a society driven by rampant consumerism. They are trapped and isolated, desperate for a way out.
CITY LOOP's approach to this mundane situation is unique: the story unfolds over the course of a single night, alternating between the six characters. Time does not always flow sequentially in this film, which is structured more like a jigsaw puzzle. As the pieces fall into place, the audience is intrigued and further drawn into the story.
The relationships portrayed in the story reveal that the characters inhabit an extremely small, closed community. Implied in the title, CITY LOOP, is their experience of going around and around the city, never getting anywhere. The comforts they find are small: a shared secret, a secret affair, illicit voyeurism.
The film portrays the precarious balances between the larger dynamic of the group, versus the individuals which compose it, revealing how easily that balance can crumble. It all starts when Misha catches Dom and Katie in the act. Misha, full of complex feeling for being the only one "unexperienced" in the group, lies that he has an affair with a popular girl at school. Then, Katie is deeply hurt by Dom, who makes a joke out of their affair. Robert, who tries hard to conceal his sexuality, has been acting especially close with Erin, for that explicit purpose. But ironically, his secret is revealed when the two engage in a little Peeping Tomism. Little by little, a night that should have been just as uneventful and boring as all other nights, turns into something special.
It is ironic that the film concludes with Dom and Stacey's discovery of each other as lovers. They share a selfishness and a self-destructiveness that derive from their blind resistance to their enclosed society,which lacks any sense of reality. But the two are liberated by their experiences of being nearly shot and jumping into a river, as though awakening from a long spell which had been suffocating them. |
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by Masaaki OOBA
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The Message from the director :
Alternative ways of telling stories have always interested me more than regular ways, so when I read the script for this film I knew I had to direct it. This film is structured in a way that makes watching it a game for the audience, a puzzle that needs to be put together. Through this structure, I felt the film was also raising questions about how we tell stories and the kinds of meanings those stories produce. But it is not a didactic work at all - it is full of humour and sometimes down right silly, sometimes tenderly sad. The film also gave me the chance to work with a group of young, relatively inexperienced actors. In the contrast, the film had a very experienced crew and I benefited greatly from their knowledge. Especially the cinematographer Josef Demian, who is also a masterful director, was inspirational for me. |
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Belinda Chayko, director :
Originally from Coff's harbour, State of Queensland and Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS) graduate, she is well known as an award winning short filmmaker, as well as being a feature film script editor of high regard. CITY LOOP is her first feature film. She is also a published author of short stories and editor and journalist of newspapers such as Sydney Morning Herald. She lives in Sydney and has recently given birth to her first baby girl.
Staff :
Director : Belinda Chayko
Producer : Bruce Redman, Makoto Ueda (NHK)
Associate Producer : Keiko Iino (NHK ENTERPRISES 21,INC)
Writer of the Original Story / Screenwriter : Stephen Davis
Director of Photography : Josef Demian
Prodction Designer : Luigi Pittorino
Cosutume Designer : Alex Barton
Cast :
Dom : Sullivan Stapleton
Misha : Ryan Johnson
Katie : Hayley McElhinney
Erin : Kellie Jones
Robert : Brendan Cowell
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