Corroboree

Corroboree (M) is the last five breaths of a director filled with the women of importance in his life. Literally the story has a different meaning but that is how I see this meditatively elegant film.
Ben (Hackworth – director) loves actors. He adores them. So let them draw the audience into the mystery of the unfolding events. It was always going to be a slow edit (153 cuts) to allow the story to be related by what the characters do in or outside the frame.
It doesn’t mean every cut wasn’t thought about, debated, explored. If there were seven shots for a scene it wasn’t unusual to ignore three of them. It was a matter of when to cut and not find the norm always. Let it be odd but within reason.
My favourite edit in the film is the first cut from the opening shot of the quiet bus station with the orchestrated movements of people to the empty bus bay where you can hear the bus and then see its headlights on the concrete pylons before it caterpillars away in the back of the frame. This telegraphs to the audience they are not about to experience the normal.