By Rachel

** Warning: Spoilers and discussion of sexual assault

Now finished its third and final season, the newest episodes of British crime drama Broadchurch have revealed many things to its viewers that were never thought possible in previous decades of the genre. Strong-willed female characters can dominate crime and (no surprises here) still make it great television. Some offences (not necessarily of the criminal type) are forgivable and can even change a person’s life for the better. And, perhaps most surprising of all, Detective Hardy can be found on Tinder.

Amongst the crime and the intrigue, there is a consistent sense that women are integral to the unravelling plot of this show. A no-brainer for some – of course women work in law enforcement – but there is still a persistent domination of the crime genre by male characters, providing not-so-nuanced perspectives of criminals and their wrongdoings from a male point of view, even regarding crimes that specifically affect women. On the other hand, Broadchurch provides the viewer with an insight into a more diverse police force. This allows for a subsequently distinct outlook on crime and the people affected by it.

Detectives Miller and Hardy make one unstoppable team. (Image Source)

Season Three in particular has demonstrated a very unique portrayal of sexual assault in only eight episodes. The season begins with local woman Trish Winterman (Julie Hesmondhalgh) speaking to Broadchurch police after being raped days earlier at her friend Cath Atwood’s (Sarah Parish) 50^th birthday party. What will surprise viewers is that Trish is in her 40s, and not particularly representative of the rape victim stereotype reflected in other crime shows. Trish is mother to a teenage daughter and recently separated from her husband, Ian (Charlie Higson), also in attendance at the party. It is later revealed that she has been sleeping with multiple sexual partners following the separation, including Cath’s husband in a one-off affair on the morning of the party. A thought-provoking binary – on one hand, Trish has experienced an undeniably brutal crime and, on the other, has committed an in many ways unforgivable offense against a friend.

Of course, a brutal rape and a consensual sexual indiscretion are in no way comparable. Nevertheless, after hearing the news of the affair, Cath lets her anger get the better of her, incredulously asking: ‘Of all the women at that party, why would someone rape you?’ Cath’s situation is not enviable – she is seemingly stuck in a marriage devoid of love and intimacy, and has just lost a close friend due to a moment of weakness and a bad decision. But ultimately, we side with Trish – she makes some terrible life decisions, as almost every character in the show does. However, none of her minor wrongdoings are deserving of punishment by a horrifying sexual assault.  

She is portrayed as an everyday person, trying to survive a slightly messy break-up with her husband, but having a bit of fun in the meantime – and who can blame her? But the writers of Broadchurch are in one way testing the viewer – does our perspective of Trish as a survivor of rape change after we learn the news of the affair? It shouldn’t, and this is indeed one of the novel elements of the show.  

Trish revisits the scene of the crime with Detective Miller and Beth Latimer. (Image Source)

Again, this might be a no-brainer – of course a rape committed by another person has nothing to do with the victim’s life choices. But past film and media would suggest otherwise. When Jill Meagher was raped and murdered by Adrian Bayley, a criminal whose past crimes should have been enough to encourage the public to focus on what he had done wrong, Jill was instead criticised for walking home at night rather than getting a taxi or accepting a lift from a friend. Speaking to the press regarding the murder of 17-year-old Masa Vukotic in almost broad daylight at 7pm (during daylight savings), homicide squad chief Detective Inspector Mick Hughes suggested that women walk or run with a companion in parks rather than alone. Well, maybe we should just lock ourselves up inside (where many of violent crimes against women occur anyway) and not interact with the public at all? When men are murdered in public, why is no similar suggestion made?

Alcohol consumption, level of sexual activity, how one dresses - all are aspects of a rape case that, when mentioned by the media, suggest the victim intentionally chose to be in a particular place, in a particular state, with the full knowledge that they would be raped. (In the now over-quoted film Taken, for example, it always bothered me that the more sexually willing friend of Bryan Mills’ daughter who invites the kidnappers inside is raped and drugged to death, whilst her naïve friend – a virgin – escapes this fate. Perhaps not an intentional metaphor, but an unwelcome one all the same.)

In Broadchurch, Detectives Ellie Miller (Olivia Coleman) and Alec Hardy (David Tennant) reiterate over and over again to Trish: ‘This is not your fault.’ Trish’s one-time affair with Jim Atwood (Mark Bazeley), whilst somewhat relevant in terms of finding a suspect, is not at any point made an issue in terms of the reliability of Trish’s story. Miller and Hardy believe Trish, and they want her to know that.

Meanwhile, Miller is dealing not only with the personal aftermath of Season Two, in which her husband Joe is acquitted of murdering Danny Latimer, but with the recent actions of her teenage son. Reeling from the crimes of his father, Tom (Adam Wilson) is caught at school with pornography on his phone. Miller is furious – in many ways that you would expect, at one point smashing his laptop with a hammer when she discovers him with the porn still on his phone. This reminds us that Miller is exposed to the threat of sex crimes in a way that her son is not, and seems to connect pornography with the rape culture still prevalent in their town.

Miller’s aging father comments that these days everyone’s a victim of rape, reflecting the still unbelievably strong conviction that intoxicated women cannot be victims of sexual assault. Miller proceeds to inform her son of how important consent is, no matter what the situation; she wants to make sure that Tom does not commit the crimes of his father or the unidentified rapist, and she views his exposure to porn as relevant to this.

 Michael Lucus (left), the later-revealed rapist, shares pornography with Detective Miller’s son Tom (right). (Image source)

Whilst no character is perfect, the writers’ emphasis on the flaws of a large number of the town’s male population can’t really be denied. In this season especially, we’re introduced to serial cheater Jim Atwood, stalker Ed Burnett (Lenny Henry), installer-of-software-on-ex-wife’s-computer-so-he-can-spy-on-her Ian Winterman, and, finally, the person responsible for the rape – 16-year-old Michael Lucas (Deon Lee-Williams) who has been ‘groomed’ to assault women by a slightly older and arguably more despicable man (who many viewers would no doubt consider the true villain of the story).

And yet, even after seeing the intense trauma experienced by Trish as a rape survivor and the desperation of Miller and Hardy to apprehend the person responsible, the final result is a sad, unsatisfying, one. Rather than feeling outright fury towards the rapist, I felt mixed emotions of anger, incredulity, and sadness This is because a young, extremely impressionable man has committed a horrifying, life-changing act. Trish, too, on hearing the news, appears more shocked than angry, because her rapist is a boy that her daughter knows from school.

We are reminded that just as rapes can be committed against anyone, so too can anyone become a rapist. Whether in cases of alcohol consumption and ‘confusion’ over consent, or of more aggravated assaults and kidnappings, Broadchurch demonstrates that rapists are not ‘monsters’ – many, if not most, are what society considers ‘ordinary’ men; the men that we don’t expect to be committers of violent sexual crimes. 

As Tom Meagher, husband of Jill Meagher, wrote following the conviction of Adrian Bayley, the public and the media must no longer spread the pervasive ‘monster myth’ of the rapist. The idea that brutal rapists are inhuman monsters, whilst other, supposedly less serious sexual criminals, such as someone’s husband, boyfriend, or one-night stand, are just people who ‘make mistakes’ is a dangerous one. Although Hardy may tell Miller that Leo Humphries (Chris Mason), the man who pressures Michael to rape Trish, is not like other men, the reality is that the actual rapist in this situation is a seemingly ordinary teenager, with an undesirable home life, who is peer-pressured into assaulting a vulnerable woman. And yet, as ordinary as he is, he is still, and will always be, a rapist. That the ordinary can also be the despicable is a reality that many of us still need to come to terms with, and is something that Broadchurch portrays in a nuanced and confronting way. 

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This post appears on Bitch Flicks. It is cross-posted with permission. 


By Zoë

When I saw the trailer for Pablo Larraín’s Jackie (2016), my first thought was, “Why do I feel so afraid?” I was unsurprised then, to discover that the woman behind the music was Mica Levi, who composed the score to Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin (2013). After seeing Jackie, it occurred to me the two films that Levi has composed music for have more in common than it initially appears. Under the Skin is a sci-fi angle on the femme fatale, where Scarlett Johansson plays an alien who seduces and kills men in Scotland. Jackie is the Oscar-ready biopic of Jackie Kennedy, centred on a masterfully emotive performance by Natalie Portman. Yet both films feature women who are lost, distanced from others and profoundly alone. Those around them cannot understand them, and so they are alienated. It is the haunted feeling of such alienation that Levi’s scores illuminate.

Johansson’s alien in Under the Skin is of course the more literal embodiment of alienation. She blankly visits human settings such as shopping centres and nightclubs, never sure of how to arrange her face to fit in with those around her. She lacks human empathy, illustrated starkly in a scene where she leaves a baby on a beach with a tide coming in. When she experiences sex with a human man, she is so overwhelmed that she flees. Levi’s score is fittingly otherworldly, pulsing with unidentifiable noises, the viola screeching like a wounded animal. It’s utterly unlike other film scores, giving the audience no easy emotional cues. The nails-on-chalkboard discomfort it conjures makes audible the colossal distance between the alien and humanity. One cannot relax when listening to the score, instead feeling a constant sense of dread at what this unknowable creature might do next.

Scarlett Johansson in Under the Skin

This constant dread, this grim unease, are present also in Levi’s score for Jackie. Jackie, in contrast to the alien, is utterly, familiarly human. Her grief and trauma over her husband’s death is the bedrock of the narrative. The audience knows how she feels, due to Portman’s highly expressive face. Jackie is also privileged, famous and powerful. But as the narrative demonstrates how quickly Jackie loses her power, Levi’s score highlights the instability of Jackie’s world in the aftermath of her husband’s death. The score is more lush and regal than the score for Under the Skin, in part because there’s an orchestra and in part to reflect the high-class American world that Jackie inhabits. But the discomfort that Levi brought to Under the Skin is present in Jackie, too. Many times when the score begins, it sounds light, almost cheerful, before being undercut by low, ominous strings that lurk obtrusively in the background. The result is a feeling of disturbance, that something familiar and romantic has been polluted by a grim terror.

Natalie Portman in Jackie

Just as Under the Skin showed how Scotland was a completely foreign world to the alien, Jackie displays how the First Lady losing her title and home throws her into a world that’s entirely unfamiliar. Visually, this is represented through particular, subtle moments: the look of shock on Jackie’s face when Lyndon B. Johnson is greeted as “Mr President” hours after JFK’s death; the camera lingering on Lady Bird Johnson picking out new White House curtains while Jackie watches, unseen. Jackie is constantly filmed on her own, without even the presence of bodyguards or servants to lessen the impression of her alienation. Her friendship with her assistant, Nancy, is shown to be of great value to her, but the film’s repeated shots of a solitary Jackie make clear that she feels cut off from everyone around her. In the film’s final minutes, a happy sequence of her playing on the beach with her children is concluded with a close-up of her grief-stricken face, and her children out of the frame. Then, she sits alone on the couch while the Life interviewer talks on the phone. Then, at the burial of JFK, she stands starkly apart from everyone else. The final shot is of her dancing at a party in JFK’s arms, placing her feelings of joy and belonging firmly in the past.

Angelica Jade Bastién writes that Jackie uses horror movie techniques to illustrate Jackie’s grief. Levi’s score is an integral part of this, the relentless, ominous strings suggesting that life has changed for Jackie in a most terrifying way. When she finally returns to the White House from Dallas, the score is fundamentally eerie, sadness undercut with grim foreboding. It’s a score suited to a dangerous expedition into unknown territory, rather than a return home. Levi’s score communicates what doesn’t need to be said through dialogue; the White House isn’t home anymore, and Jackie’s power has disappeared with her First Lady title. The terror of being cut off from a familiar world, and the subsequent alienation, are made salient in Levi’s grim, uncomfortable music.

The alien in Under the Skin has no possessions apart from her classic predator’s white van, and the outfit she chooses to resemble the common woman. Although dressed in the finest of outfits, Jackie finds herself similarly dispossessed, telling the Life reporter that the White House and her current house never belonged to her. “Nothing’s mine, not for keeps anyway,” she tells him. Separated from the home planet or the White House, both women are anchorless, adrift. Even when surrounded by revellers in metropolitan Glasgow, or watched by thousands at her husband’s funeral, the alien and Jackie remain fundamentally alone. Haunted by their inability to connect with others, to slot in to this world, they stand lost and detached. Jackie’s deeply emotional outbursts may stand in stark contrast to the alien’s lack of empathy, but both women share a troubling alienation from the people around them. Levi’s scores make this alienation audible, the grim discomfort of her music allowing the audience to feel, even for 90 minutes, the terror of such a solitude. 

By Claire.

Small town Western Australia, 1965. The bright and inquisitive Charlie Bucktin is woken in the middle of the night by the town’s mixed-race outcast, Jasper Jones. Begging for help, Jasper lures Charlie to a clearing in the bush on the outskirts of town to find a sinister end for local girl Laura Wishart. Charlie is thus whisked into a whirlwind of mystery and secrecy, as he tries to find out who killed this girl. Three kids swept up into a complicated adult world, Jasper Jones is the ultimate young Australian gothic, and one of the best Australian films I have ever seen.

Prior to university, when I thought of Australian film I thought of the low calibre, ocker and subversive. This perception was founded on too many viewings of Round the Twist, and little actual knowledge of Australian film. Here’s the thing, though: Australia can make great films, of high calibre - they just occur few and far between.

(left to right) Angourie Rice as Eliza Wishart, Aaron L. McGrath as Jasper Jones and Levi Miller as Charlie Bucktin

Directed by Rachel Perkins, Jasper Jones is an example of the standard that Australian films can demonstrate. What Perkins achieves, and sets the film apart, is a deep understanding and respect not only for the text, but for Australian stories. This level of respect is something last year’s Joe Cinque’s Consolation fell short of achieving. Both stories of crime, both adapted from books, but both with vastly different outcomes. In an article for The Guardian, James Robert Douglas argues the issue with Joe Cinque’s Consolation was that the author of the book, Helen Garner, wasn’t involved in the adaption. Based on a true story, instead of a straight adaption of Garner’s investigation, director and writer Sotiris Dounoukos chose to dramatise the events of Joe Cinque’s murder, in a way which had myself and others in the cinema cringing, not gasping. Harsh words, but the film had a distinct aura of not taking itself seriously. This could be due to it being Dounoukos’ first feature, or a lack of understanding as deep as only Garner’s investigative reporting and writing can provide. 

On the other hand, there is Jasper Jones. Adapted from the Australian modern classic by Craig Silvey, Silvey was primary writer on the screenplay and actively on set every day, keeping a close eye on the adaption and providing support as a person who knew the story. In addition, as revealed at the Cinema Nova Q&A, what eventually led producers Vincent Sheehan and David Jowsey to choose Perkins for the role of director was her deep understanding of the book. What results is a story taken seriously and filled with intricate details, and a film that hits the mark, spot on.

Charlie and Jasper confronting Mad Jack Lionel in Jasper Jones

This successful inclusion of the author is also the case for The Dressmaker. Directed by Jocelyn Moorehouse and based on the book by Rosalie Ham, The Dressmaker opened at #1 in the Australian box office - no small feat in a culture which often overlooks Australian film for the latest US blockbuster. Unlike Silvey, Ham did not write the screenplay for the adaption of her book, but early interviews indicate she was active in the production.

Like Jasper Jones, The Dressmaker is a mid-century Australian gothic set in a small town. In the hands of any other directors both films could have fallen into the all-too-familiar pit of the ocker and larrikin typical of many Australian male directors, as evident in the absurdly successful Crocodile Dundee in the 1980s and ever-present in Australian films ever since. The effect this has had on Australian films is the notion of cultural cringe, parodies of Australian life, as if the filmmakers are embarrassed of telling an Australian story. Perkins and Moorehouse avoid this, though, and tell Australian stories with heart. Perhaps this is due to them being women. The ocker and its ties to Crocodile Dundee is a masculine perspective, whereas women are not included in this identity. The ocker does not influence their style, and thus female directors offer a fresh perspective for Australian screens.

(left to right) Judy Davis, Sarah Snook and Kate Winslet in The Dressmaker

This is not to say Australian men can’t make beautiful films, such as Simon Stone’s The Daughter and Garth Davis’ Lion, but the perception of ockerness persists. The inclusion of female directors gives a fresh, more serious point of view to Australian cinema. Due to being outside of the traditional Australian identity, female directors know how to make a good film, as they aren’t bound to Australia’s history of the ocker and the subversive. Of course, this is improving, with Screen Australia’s Gender Matters initiative, and active conversations happening around the country and throughout the industry. Women need to be given more opportunities to tell stories, because time and time again these films have shown what should define the Australian film industry.


Jasper Jones is out in cinemas March 2nd.

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Cause a Cine do not own any images used in this post.

By Kate

The Bechdel Test originates from Alison Bechdel's comic 'Dyke to Watch Out For'

Last year I saw the film Swiss Army Man (2016, written and directed by Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan), featuring Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. It was funny, endearing, creative and it had more heart than any film I’d seen in a long time. Yet it was about the woes of two middleclass straight, white guys, hardly a ground breaking concept. We demand better representation of race, gender and sexuality etc. in our media so can I justify liking and supporting a film that does none of these things? Shouldn’t I put my money where my mouth is?

My moral crisis is not I cannot like a film like Swiss Army Man because of its poor representation, but that I should not. I should not support a film that does not hire diversely, on and behind the camera. Where you spend your money matters. It tells the people who are making the thing to please keep making the thing the way that you are making the thing. If you want the studios to stop making the remakes of everything ever, stop going to see them. If you want the studios to stop making these blindingly white, male centric films, stop giving them money to do so. The power of the consumer is where ethics and economy meet.

A film does not necessarily have to jump over these bars that we set it to be a good film. There is no question in my mind that Swiss Army Man (and many other films that do not pass the Bechdel Test) is a good film. It is incredibility creative, charming, funny and beautifully written, shot and acted. It is, in essence, a good film, an excellent film and simply meeting the requirements of diversity in representation that we demand does not necessarily a good film make.

So could Swiss Army Man have been made differently? Certainly if an actor of colour had replaced Dano or Radcliffe it wouldn’t have made a world of difference to the film. If an actress had replaced Dano or Radcliffe we would probably have a very different film on our hands. Whether Swiss Army Woman would have been a better or worse film we will never know. 

Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe in Swiss Army Man

Whether or not I can love a film that isn’t diverse is simple: I can. I do. The Daniels have told a story that touches me somewhere in my heart. Whether I should like a film that is not diverse is more complicated. It disappoints me that more women weren’t written into the story in some way but I can appreciate the story that is being told. It disappoints me that the casting wasn’t more diverse but I will still praise the performances of Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe. It doesn’t align with my values but does that mean that I should swear off this film like a vegetarian swears off meat? Is it enough to be aware of the problematic elements in a film that is otherwise an excellent and original piece of cinema?

The conclusion I have come to is that I will continue to support Swiss Army Man because it does things that I do value and that I want to see more in cinema. It is an original and well-told story with heart and a message that makes me think. I will continue to demand diversity in my media but I will recognise a good story where it is due.

Cause a Cine does not own any images used in this post.

By Claire.

Warning: vague spoilers 

Movies where the protagonist is forced to go back to their home town after a tragic event and confront life (do I dare borrow from The Big Chill and call these stories of ‘Lost Hope?’) are some of my favourites, bonus if it’s an ensemble cast. I think this comes from my own upbringing in a country town which I couldn’t wait to get out of. It was for this reason, the casting of Kyle Chandler and the imagery shown in the trailer which all accumulated in me paying money for a ticket to see Manchester by the Sea. I wish I didn’t.

For the past three years, my sister and I have done our Big Oscar Watch, where we endeavour to see as many, if not all, of the Academy Award Best Picture nominations before the awards broadcast. All but too aware of Casey Affleck’s sexual abuse allegations, I went into Manchester By the Sea with a guilty heart. I tried my best to keep an open mind, but as soon as the credits (finally) started to roll, I broke my rule of waiting for the house lights to come up and was out of my seat and out of the cinema.

Manchester by the Sea is a story about Lee Chandler (Affleck), a domestic janitor forced to go back to his small, seaside hometown of Manchester, after the sudden death of his brother Joe (Kyle Chandler). Lee is now left with the guardianship of his teenage nephew, and the memories of the tragic events which forced his leave from the town in the first place. Basically, this movie is sad. It was sadder than I anticipated, and while the emotion was felt, the whole production came off as being for show. Despite being equipped with beautiful imagery and camera work in picturesque seaside Massachusetts, I’m ready to call out this movie for what it truly is: nothing more than a star vehicle to establish Casey Affleck as a Serious Actor, by giving him the role of the tortured soul.

Casey Affleck's one facial expression, as Lee (Left) and Lucas Hedges as his nephew, Patrick (Right)

Let’s be real, who had even heard of Casey Affleck before this movie came around? A name which has in no small feat only been escalated in the media due to his sexual abuse allegations, and outrage over his recent Golden Globes and BAFTA win, as discussed in this post. What better way to bring him into the Hollywood spotlight than by giving him a role where he seldom talks unless he is organising other people’s lives without explaining himself, punching men in bars just for looking at him funny, and has the same stoic expression on his face. I will admit, not all the acting was bad, but there are enough tortured soul white male roles out there, we don’t need another one.

What I also found disturbing is the treatment of women. This movie is so obviously made by men, it’s laughable.

First, let’s address Lee’s sixteen-year-old nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges), and his two girlfriends. Not only is this knowledge made known in the trailer, but is brought up in the film without any repercussions. Like, are we supposed to be ok with this? Without going into the polygamy debate, the reason this irks me so is that neither girl knows about the other. While the brunette Sylvie (Kara Hayward) provides emotional support for Patrick while he grieves, the blonde Sandy (Anna Baryshnikov) only acts as an object for Patrick to have sex with, as goes the only plot point in their relationship. Why not get a girl who can do both? The secrecy of Patrick’s infidelity is a form manipulation and reinforces the idea that women exist for nothing more than consumption and pleasure, as so often told around the teen boy narrative such as teen sex comedies.

Secondly, I think Michelle Williams did an excellent job as Lee’s ex-wife Randi, given the circumstances her character are given. By this, I don’t only mean in her ability to grieve and move on, but how her character was written, especially in regards to Lee. In the scene where Lee and Randi bump into each other on the street and they both cry out their emotions, I understand the pain and need for closure. Yet, while Randi is sobbing out apologies for the harsh words she said all those years ago, Lee says nothing about his mistakes. She isn’t angry to see him back in Manchester, and if I were in her shoes, I would be.

Michelle Williams as Randi, confronting Lee (Affleck)

Dear Randi: your wicked words were and are still valid, this man’s negligence freaking killed your kids! I understand it was an accident, I understand you have found it in yourself to move on, but what I fail to understand is why you are standing there, in front of your ex-husband with your new born baby from a man who probably has his life together, sobbing apologies for a few harsh words and wailing “I still love you’s!”.  It is only in a man’s world in which a woman—a mother—would be so forgiving in such a situation, and still in love with their ex-husband who effectively murdered their children, without any, at the very least, on-screen confrontation.

During the scene, Lee, thick with tears, contends “No, there’s nothing there” in reaction to Randi’s declarations of love. This distances himself from her, and is a responsible reaction, as he recognises he is no good for her. Yet, due to the scripting and characterisation of Williams’ character, the resulting dynamic between the two though leaves Randi as the wailing woman, crazy and hopelessly in love with Affleck’s brooding, tortured soul. Like Patrick’s girlfriend’s, Randi is a device to redeem Lee as a character. What we are left with is the feeling that, if his ex-wife can still love him, he mustn’t be that bad of a man.

There are enough movies about the tortured white male, who can be an asshole without judgement because life has dealt him some bad blows. Furthermore, there are enough movies which feature 2-dimensional women, who only exist to make the tortured males look good. In today’s political and cultural climate, we don’t have the time for such movies, especially during award season. It is a record-year for African American stories and filmmakers at the Academy Awards, it’s no wonder Manchester by the Sea is receiving little to no recognition. I have already said my piece on the injustice of the continuous celebration of men in the film industry who are known sexual abusers in regards to Affleck’s Golden Globe earlier this year, but it’s no wonder it is getting overshadowed by Moonlight and Hidden Figures. We don’t need movies like this anymore, and quite frankly, I’m more than happy to see them go. 

Cause a Cine do not own any of the images used in this post.