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aka - Tim Winton's The Turning
Australia 2013
Directed by
Various
180 minutes
Rated M

Reviewed by
Bernard Hemingway
3 stars

The Turning

Whilst no-one will dispute the artistic credentials of The Turning which transposes Tim Winton’s book of the same name to the big screen, many will be questioning producer Robert Connolly’s decision not just to preserve the format of 18 short stories but to have each segment realized by a different set of creatives both before and behind the camera. 

Although taken in themselves each segment is top drawer with directors such as Warwick Thornton, Tony Ayres and Justin Kurzel and high profile actors such as Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Miranda Otto and Richard Roxburgh contributing, most audiences will be struggling to cope with the narrative and stylistic shifts from one story to the other.  Not only are the stories non-chronologically ordered but where there  are common characters, they are played by actors with no identifiable physical resemblance to each other. The result, at least for audiences who haven’t read the book, is likely to be a gradual process of attrition as the quantitative disjunctions tend to overwhelm the qualitative continuities during a demanding three hour run-time.

For all that, the film does justice to Winton’s desire to represent the regional Australia in which he grew up (West Australia as it happens). As a portrait of a time and place The Turning is a storehouse of treasures, a rich tapestry of the everyday in the Land Downunder.

FYI: The DVD comes with a useful booklet that helps to understand the connections between the different stories whilst the home theatre format which allows the viewer to determine their own interaction with the film arguably more appropriate than the more passive experience provided by the big screen.

 

 

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