Flathead
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“This is natural, this is the real Australia”
Overview
Shot in striking black-and-white, Jaydon Martin’s directorial debut is part documentary about day-to-day life in coastal Queensland – with a cast playing themselves – and part dream-like narrative. A former drug addict whose life has been marked by tragedy, the frail Cass leaves Sydney and heads back to Bundaberg to take stock of his life. Religion helps console him, while drinking and partying help pass the time. Most touching of all is a budding friendship with Andrew, a Chinese-Australian chip-shop owner who is dealing with his own grief. Observational and contemplative, heartwarming and eerie, Flathead is a memorable portrait of regional Australia.
“A feast of gorgeous monochrome cinematography and a soulful, quietly spiritual work.”
“Captures very effectively the raw, rough-edged spirituality of the place and its people.”
Why You Should See This Film
This acclaimed Australian debut combines social realism and an immersive documentary feel, to tell the story of an elderly man returning home to Bundaberg on a spiritual quest. Described by the filmmakers as “dramatised verité”, Flathead taps into a seldom-mined vein of Queensland Gothic in the heart of sugar cane country, where picturesque wide streets and bougainvillea mask substance abuse and a faltering agricultural economy propped up by itinerant labour.
Flathead is screening in Sydney exclusively at Golden Age Cinema
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