LOVE THE BEAST

Australia, 2009, 92 minutes, Colour.
Eric Bana, Jeremy Clarkson, Dr Phil Mc Graw, Jay Leno.
Directed by Eric Bana.

Love the Beast is the auto autobiography of Eric Bana.

Those interested in Eric Bana as a person, personality and film star will find this an interesting autobiography, allowing for the long sequences of cars and motor racing. The film takes Eric Bana back to Melbourne and his boyhood, his strong relationship with his parents who are interviewed during the film and are a strong supporting couple and mother and father. They supported his interest in cars, his father helping him buy his original car. The film shows him as a teenager, his love for cars, the strong bonds with his friends. The film does not give a great deal of attention to his television career or even his career in films in Australia. However, it acknowledges that he is a film star, shows him walking the red carpet for the film Lucky You with Drew Barrymore. It also shows him appearing on the Jay Leno Show.

The film also shows Bana with his wife, his children, and an interview with his wife. He comes across as a genial man, a family man, able to take film stardom and international reputation in his stride.

However, the beast of the title is his beloved car. The film is really a film about cars, irrespective of who it is that loves driving them.

The film shows Eric Bana with his car, obtained by his father at the age of fifteen, the years working on it with his friends. There are many interviews with the friends who come across as strong personalities, the strong bonds with Eric, the interest in racing. There are also interviews with Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson, discussing the relative merits of cars and Bana’s devotion to them. There are also interviews with Jay Leno on his television show but also visits behind the scenes to the enormous collection of cars that Leno has in his garages and the psychology of owning them and knowing that they are there. This psychological trend is followed up in the discussions with television’s Dr Phil, Phil Mc Graw. Dr Phil comes across as a genial psychologist, discussing the implications of Bana’s obsession with cars, with driving, with owning them and the experience of possession. It also deals with his grief at crashing the car, the prospects of rebuilding it, with some sound advice from Dr Phil.

There are also interviews with an Australian couple who have a car, love it, and are hoping to continue keeping it on the road as well as rebuilding it.

One of the focuses of the film is a race in Tasmania, showing the beauty of the Tasmanian countryside. The film shows the treatment of the car, building it up and readiness, getting to Tasmania, his friends and team, Bana’s co-driver. The film shows a lot of the sequences on the road, ultimately concluding with the car crashing and going down a hillside. This has a strong effect, needless to say, on Bana. He leaves the car in the garage, not sure whether he has the strength to rebuild the car. The smashed car is shown in close-up and the audience can understand Bana’s grief as well as his hesitations.

The film ends optimistically, with his father unveiling his old car and the two going for a drive.

The film is very Australian in its tone, accent, ironic jokes. It also shows the Australian love of sport and fair play.

The film incorporates a lot of home footage, Bana directing himself as well as his friends in material that fills out this documentary on automobiles and autobiography.