|
Kiss me deadly >> Bill Bennett on his latest, Kiss or Kill by MATTHEW HAYS
Bennett, the director/writer behind such Aussie hits as Backlash and Malpractice, certainly hasn't delivered pink with his latest, Kiss or Kill. The film involves the exploits of Nikki (Frances O'Connor) and Al (Matt Day), two sexy grifters who seduce businessmen (employing the feminine wiles of Nikki), rob them and take to the road. When one of their scams goes terribly wrong, the businessman they've drugged ends up dying. They take off, realizing they've just upped their criminal ante; now murderers, they examine the loot they've stolen from their victim and find a videotape implicating a popular Australian sports star in a sex scandal. Soon enough, Nikki and Al are on the run in a bizarre cross-country road race, desperately hoping to elude both the sports star and police. Bennett, a veteran award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker, relied heavily on his actors' talents during the filmmaking process. The film's script involved detailed descriptions of scenes, and then heavy rehearsal during which the actors were allowed to explore the material and expand on it. "The idea was to give it a real edge," says Bennett. "There's something very static about scripts. There's something invariably contrived about screenwriting. "There's a screenwriting exercise that involves recording conversations and then transcribing them. I'm always amazed when I look at those transcriptions, at the rhythms and the discontinuous line of speech. But when you look at it on camera it looks terribly real. Getting the actors to examine their characters through dialogue worked really well. We've got a lot of really talented actors in this country and I like to use them to their full potential." When Bennett made Kiss or Kill, he was coming off the rather dismal experience of making Two if by Sea, the flop starring Sandra Bullock. Bennett says the experience was a good lesson; the film got lost between his aspirations and the studio's aspirations for the final result. He escaped L.A. and returned to Australia, where he decided to go back to making personal, distinct films. "I really didn't think Kiss or Kill would be a commercial success," Bennett says of the film, which has netted five Australian Oscars. "I thought it would be a small art-house film in Australia and that would be it. The universality of it surprised me. I thought it was pretty distinctly Australian, but people are seeing things that they can connect with their own culture." Opens Friday, Jan. 16. See film listings for showtimes
|
Bill Bennett is intent on setting himself apart from various trends in Australian cinema. "Muriel's Wedding and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert are what I call pink films," he explains. "They're pink in their art direction. And there's no way I want to make a pink film."