Arid Visions REFLECTIONS IN THE DUST, GENDERED VIOLENCE AND EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA
It’s not a big surprise that a film like Reflections in the Dust (Luke Sullivan, 2018) might court controversy. In an era of monolithic mega-blockbusters, a micro-budget slice of arthouse Australiana demands some kind of hook to pierce the bubble of cinematic complacency. So why not promise scandal? Suggest a whiff of something illicit, something beyond the realms of polite society?
Anyway, it worked on me. When an email from distributor The Backlot Films arrived in my inbox offering something ‘too extreme’1 for audiences, how could an aficionado of fringe cinema deny the call? The full quote – which has been reproduced in various synopses of the film online – is as follows:
The Australian government deemed the film was too extreme for audiences and strongly suggested it not be completed during production, however director Luke Sullivan pushed on with the film, asserting that such an extreme story needs to be told in an era where ‘we are losing grandmothers, mothers, sisters and friends to senseless acts of violence perpetrated by men’.2
I couldn’t deny the allure. I quickly requested a screener, won over by the promise of not just extreme cinema, but something purposeful, political. Confronting. And, while I can’t speak to the veracity of the synopsis’s assertion of behind-the-scenes controversy – the film remains proudly in place on the Screen Australia website, a fact that seems to controvert such claims, but I’ll avoid dabbling in backyard investigative journalism – there’s
