Lucky Miles
Can we shift gears into First Person for a moment? Thanks. I’m not proud of it, but should admit my occasional cultural cringe towards Australian cinema. When I heard “first time director” alongside “refugee comedy” Ifeared the worst – well-meaning choir-preaching combined withblunt-force political laughs – so no one was more surprised than me to find that Lucky Miles is actually very, very good.
Iraqi and Cambodian refugees are abandoned in the Western Australian desert,waiting for a bus that never comes. So they walk, lost, arguing about directions, pursued by the authorities. Director Michael James Rowland uses the landscape to great visual effect, shooting the men at greatdistances, dwarfed by their new surroundings, trapped outside theregular rules of our road movies. The humour’s exactly the right kindof old-fashioned. Without pop-cultural jokes to date it, you can imagine this film still being screened in a decade’s time.
The political statement Lucky Miles makes isn't preachy or complicated: just that no matter where they come from or how they arrive, the people who arrive here are – you know –people.
Format: Cinema
Mood: Rad
Keywords: Australian, Comedy, James Rowland
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