HEAD ON
Australia, 1999, 104 minutes, Colour.
Alex Dimitriades, Elena Mandalis, Julian Garner, William Zappa,
Directed by Ana Kokkinos.
Head On is a confronting film about several issues: multicultural Australia, youth, unemployment, sexuality. The film has already gained some notoriety with some sequences of homosexual behaviour that has meant the film is classified Restricted.
While the sexuality issues are central and cannot be ignored in society today, the Greek background of these Melbourne characters is powerfully presented and its effect on the youth generation is dramatised emotionally and thoughtfully.
Alex Dimitriades, in a very strong and challenging performance, leads a cast of mainly Greek Australians. While it is an 'out of the depths' film, there are some glimmers of hope. It would be a pity if the issues were not acknowledged because many audiences would find aspects of the film distasteful. Confronting.
1. The reputation of Christos Tsiolkas? His novels? Their themes? Alienated young people? Greek migrants to Australia and their way of life? Community issues? Individual issues? Sexuality? Homosexuality?
2. The work of the director, her interest in extreme themes? Greek background, insight?
3. The Melbourne locations, the landmarks? The suburbs, homes, Greek clubs, the Greek community? Nightclubs? Police precincts? Some of the seedier
side of Melbourne? The Greek musical background? The use of popular songs of the 80s and 90s?
4. The prologue, the black-and-white footage from migration days, the voice-over comment, the hopes for the migrants, acceptance into the community, their traditions, prosperity?
5. The perspective of the film in showing the Greek community after four decades, settling in Australia, the use of English, speaking Greek, schools, religion? The Greek clubs and the community? The hard stances of the older generation? The rebellion of the next generation? Music binding the group together, dance? Strict religious attitudes, social attitudes? The importance of marriage? Externals? The non-admission of homosexuality?
6. The film as a portrait of Ari, his age, place within the family, speaking Greek and English, unemployed, relying on the family the home, for money? His mother and her concern, devotion, his respect for her yet hurting her? The clashes with his father, his father’s supervision and strictness? His sister, her wanting to break free, boyfriend, sexual behaviour? Ari and his treatment of her and her saying he was worse than their father?
7. Ari, his prospects? The suggestion that he be married and then free to do anything else? His attempt at a heterosexual relationship, the girl, his manner, tenderness, but her realising the truth about his sexual orientation? The discussion about John Cusack?
8. Ari, the casual partnerships, the factory and the young man, the old man in the streets and Ari’s violent behaviour? The attraction towards Sean? The sexual pressures, the masturbation? His friendship with Johnny, ambiguous? Going to the club, the patrons, the cruising? In the taxi? The discussions with the taxi driver, from Turkey? Going to the club, Johnny and his dancing, drinking? The response to the police, being taken to the precinct, abused verbally, humiliated, stripping, the physical fighting, the policeman of Greek origin and his special viciousness?
9. The character of Johnny, at home, the make up, his dresses? His father and Ari’s discussion with him, the father’s friendship with Ari’s father? Having to accept the truth? Johnny, going out, loud, club, the demonstrative dancing, patrons and their reaction? The drugs? In the taxi, carrying on, the abuse of the police, the brutality of the police towards him?
10. Ari and the relationship with Sean, going to the house, the sexual encounter, Ari and his anger, heightened, Sean and his reaction, the physical fight, Sean leaving, leaving Ari in the corridor?
11. The background drugs, Ari and his taking the drugs, the drug contacts? A world of drugs?
12. Did Ari change throughout the film, his angers, glum, sexual repression, finding outlets, abusing people? Prospect of job or not? And at the end, his saying that he was sorry?
13. A portrait of a generation, of a Greek generation, in the Australian context? A film of the 1990s?
From an interview with Ana Kokkinos:
In terms of Head On, leaving aside the sexual issues, it is one of the best pictures of the Greek experience in Australia. The stills at the beginning and the end remind us of this history. You have done a great deal for the Greek- Australian? film with Head On and Only the Brave. With the very large Greek population in Melbourne, it's a wonder there haven't been more films.
Exactly. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that it's obviously taken a while for the new generation to find its way into the arts. What's exciting now is that we're suddenly seeing Greek directors, artists, architects. All kinds of people are now starting to percolate and bubble up to the surface. That always takes one or two generations to happen. Like me. I went and did law when I first started off. There was an enormous amount of pressure to get a good job, to become a lawyer or a doctor. You didn't go out and become a film-maker, because that was considered not to be a real job, how ridiculous. There was an enormous amount of pressure on young people to get an education, to get good jobs, to climb out of the lower rungs of society.
Our parents would actually say to us, 'We sacrificed everything for this next generation. We have sacrificed. We have moved halfway across the world to give our children an opportunity to get an education and do the right thing'. So imagine the incredible pressure on us as the next generation to fulfil our parents' dreams, to fulfil their wishes. That's why, in a film like Head On, when Ari is dancing at the end on the wharf, I juxtaposed the images of our parents coming off the boats - that's very much, for me, about us needing to reinvent ourselves and to give ourselves the freedom to be more independent in the way we view things, but at the same time we do that utterly from a place of being connected to our families and our communities and our Greek heritage.
The sexual orientation issues symbolised that?
Well, no, it doesn't. It just so happens that Ari is gay. I hope the film is a very human story. The point is that this young man is confused, he is searching for his place in the world. The fact that he happens to be gay in reality should be irrelevant because it's a human story. It's about this young man who is really struggling with these questions. I think it's a tragedy that young people have to be put in situations where they have to struggle so intensely when, if there was a bit more understanding and compassion and tolerance, then perhaps Ari wouldn't have to go to the extremes that he does.
Somebody said sadly at the end of Head On, 'That was very nihilistic'. But I remembered that Ari said, 'Whatever I do' - even if he prostitutes himself - 'well, I'm still alive and breathing.' You were expressing a kind of hope. It was disappointing to hear somebody think the film was non-redemptive and nihilistic.
I think it's a very life-affirming ending. Some people read it in that very nihilistic way, but for me it's about this young man saying, 'I'm a survivor and I will stay true to myself'. We know, of course, as an older audience, that this young man is on the verge of adulthood, he's on the precipice of something new for himself. But as a 19, 20-year-old, given what's gone before, to have him saying, 'Life's wonderful and I've sorted myself out', would have been a very false way to end the film. The whole point is that as a 19, 20-year-old at that moment he's going to reassert his own pigheaded notions of an energised nihilism, as I would call it. But we know this young man is a survivor, he'll move on and he will find himself.
And there's the symbol of Ari as somebody who has gone through those struggles.
Yes.
People were commenting - I read the book and found it very drab, one of those Helen Demidenko kind of "this happened, this happened, this happened," and I don't remember what was in the film so much and not, but it seemed to me that the value of a film is that while the text of the novel was fairly plain, drab even, or grunge or whatever, when you have colour images, light, sound, music, you actually brought the whole thing alive. So I wanted to say that, that I enjoyed it. Don't tell the author that. Different experiences. But I did enjoy the film far more than the book.
Thank you. Well, look, the book is one thing and obviously a film is another thing, and obviously film is about an aural, sensual, visceral experience, which is something I always felt was inherent in the book and very much wanted to re-create and capture, if you like, on screen. So yes, they're different experiences.
In a way, you're the film-maker of Melbourne's western suburbs. Geoffrey Wright portrayed them in Metal Skin and Romper Stomper. In fact both of you tackled the migrant issues. These films have brought Melbourne alive, and its western suburbs landscapes, in a way that the Sydney films haven't.
Yes, I agree. It's true, and I think it's great. It's great that Geoffrey has done it and that I've done it. Certainly speaking personally for myself, that's where I grew up. That's the landscape I know so intimately, so well. I felt that both my films expressed something of this. It had been a relatively neglected point of view, the way we've tackled the Greek- Australian? questions in both Only the Brave and Head On. So it was very important, as a film-maker, starting off creatively, that this is naturally the place I went back to. I thought, 'I have got things to say about this. I've got something to express that's quite different, quite unique. I can bring my own perspective to this landscape and to the people I grew up with and know so well'.
