Look if your idea of cinematic engagement is to watch some actors sit on seats and tell yarns, then this may well be the movie for you. Me ... seriously you have to be kidding. Intriguing concept perhaps, but I was already over it, during the first story when after 5 minutes we were still facing the one expressionistic type portrait of some bloke sitting in a corner, while the female narrator, who eventually appeared, droned on. Twelve more similarly delivered stories followed, most with some sort of indigenous theme. This sort of thing would have stronger impact and audience involvement performed in a theatre or perhaps at some sort of book or writers' festival. But as a successful cinematic piece of work, it makes for a wonderful soporific.
Plot summary
Writer and Director Warwick Thornton has assembled a collection of the most poignant, sad, funny and absurd ghost stories from around Australia. He will bring them to life with the help of some of Australia's most iconic actors as the storytellers.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
June 03, 2022 at 12:27 PM
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What Were They Thinking?
A unique and thoroughly enjoyable exploration of real Australian and Torres Strait Islander's experiences of the chilling and unexplainable . . .
As a lover of *interesting* "horror" and "thriller/chiller" films and also being a person who often stays up quite late, I was lucky enough to see this on free-to-air TV, and geez, was I impressed!! The actors chosen to tell the personal tales of real people (most of whom are/were Aboriginal Australians) were TERRIFIC as were the stories themselves, which, while ranging from deeply moving to somewhat humorous to downright spooky, were also filmed beautifully; the set-up of the camera(s) - focusing on the actor and not moving - lent an eeriness to the film, and, whether digitally imposed or not, I SWEAR I saw figures (very faint figures) moving occasionally in the background of the shot (in at least two, MAYBE three of the stories; now how often can we say with modern "chillers" that we're not SURE if we saw a ghost/figure etc.??) Really, a sign to me of great and fun filmmaking!! On another, very relevant, note, it is TERRIFIC to see *so many* of our beloved Aboriginal (and white) actors together in one film, as well as a few actors who, until now, were unknown to me, whether because they are new to film or because they are stage actors (I'm too poor to get to the theatre as often as I'd like - and *ought to*!!