Heavy Here and Now ALENA LODKINA’S STRANGE COLOURS
The ‘strange’ colours flagged in the title of Alena Lodkina’s remarkable debut feature are first glimpsed in a banal, everyday setting: a shop window. Opals are on sale inside, which cues us in to the fact that opal mining is the main activity in the remote place to which young adult Milena (Kate Cheel) has travelled by bus: Lightning Ridge in northern New South Wales. The immediate motivation for Milena’s trip is the heart attack recently suffered by her now-hospitalised father, Max (Daniel P Jones). But the looming issue of how Milena and Max will come to terms with each other emotionally is sidelined for almost half the film; meanwhile, Milena will wander around this place, encounter its people and spend some reflective time alone.
Lightning Ridge, as we see it here, is an intriguing place. Its inhabitants often remark on its peace and quiet, and its welcome distance from the stressful rat-race of the big cities. Everybody knows and helps out one another, but also respects the desire to be left in restful or pensive solitude. Strange Colours takes its stylistic cues from this environment: it is a patient, contemplative film, keen to record details of place and time, and to evoke the emotions and impressions this setting arouses.
Just as the soundtrack leaves room for delicate moments of complete silence, the images (enhanced by Michael Latham’s cinematography) dwell in a spectrum of shifting colours – much like those
