moviereview - Night

NIGHT

	Sydney-based filmmaker Lawerence Johnson follows the journey of night, and those who inhabit it, in Australia.	score 3	moviereview rates films from 1 (unwatchable) to 5 (unmissable)
			FIND A MOVIEREVIEW

Cast
Documentary

Director
Lawrence Johnson

Screenwriter
Documentary

Country
Australia

Rating / Running Time
PG / 78 minutes

Australian Release
Feburary 2008

Official Site

Although plunging a cinema into inky black might seem counter-productive, director Lawrence Johnson insists the beauty of darkness is all around us. As night fell, he took a camera into Australia’s urban wilderness to reveal the wonder found therein. He roams (mostly central, mostly Sydney) city highways and byways to poke a restless camera at those who dwell there. It’s a bewitching, sensual experience that makes us voyeurs of this other world, peering into windows and behind doors across the nation. His subjects, caught off guard and defenceless, tell an intriguing story.

Less effective is a voice track of personal commentaries whose intimacy is juxtaposed with the aloof vision. Occasionally we travel into the country, though his point of interest is the intersection between people and the night: abstractions on God, sex, love, hope and fear. Cezary Skubiszewski’s evocative score acts as a super-glue that binds the incongruent subject matter.

In many ways, Night is more about light and the way in which it affects human behaviour. Johnson seeks to balance the visual discourse against commentaries by friends and colleagues who discuss their nocturnal experience, though many are thin and not nearly as poignant as the film deserves. They become a major distraction and less would have been considerably more in light of the enthralling ocular experience.

With some meanderings far off topic and the lack of diversity in locations (does nothing happen at night in the ‘burbs?), the film is divested of much of its power. However Night has an enormous future on DVD as a chill-out essential: turn off the commentary to create a haunting and very immediate vision-and-score variant on Baraka. Until then, it’s an interesting if flawed journey into the heart of darkness.

// COLIN FRASER