The tyranny of ability (The Black Balloon)

Some countries are good at a particular genre... Italy did horror well in the 70's, Japan in the 90's. Egypt does great melodramas and India has romance coming out of its pores. The UK got social realism right in the Thatcher years while it took the second gulf war for the US to do right by Iraq - cinematically, that is. I'm sure much has been written about why this happens and what political, cultural, historical and social contexts make these specializations possible, and I won't attempt to unpack them here.

As I wrote in a previous post, adolescent Australia, there's one thing Australian filmmakers have been almost consistently good at, and that's coming of age movies. I don't have an insightful analysis as to why that is, beyond the fact that (white) Australia is a relatively young country, itself coming of age, defining its identity and deciding what kind of adult nation it wants to be. It seems natural for white and immigrant filmmakers who call Australia home to make films about their own coming of age, and for those films to reflect the transformations in Australian society. These are often personal, partly autobiographical stories, and in a country where many filmmaker unsuccessfully attempt to ape American genre filmmaking, this is probably why they are often of a comparatively high standard.

Actor Luke Ford and writer-director Elissa Down

The Black Balloon is a welcome addition to the Australian coming-of-age genre. While it doesn't offer anything terribly original in terms of ingredients or recipe, it does what it set out to do extremely well.

Thomas (Rhys Wakefield) is about to turn 16. He's just moved to a new home and started a new school and all he wants is fit in. When his pregnant mother (Toni Collette) has to take things easy, his father Simon (Erik Thomson) puts him in charge of his autistic older brother Charlie (Luke Ford).

Things are tough at school, especially in the cruel world of swim practise, but at least his brother - who goes to a school for kids with special needs - can remain a secret. When his beautiful classmate Jackie (Gemma Ward) accidentally meets Charlie, Thomas is forced to come to terms with his ambivalent feelings about his family.

Luke Ford is convincing and entirely watchable as Charlie. Having prepared for the role by spending time with one of filmmaker Elissa Down's autistic brothers, he makes the physical and behavioural attributes of autism, hearing impairment and ADD entirely his own. Gemma Ward is also very good as Thomas' girlfriend, getting the mix of vulnerability and maturity just right.

Much has been and will be written about these two performances, the former because it is transformative (actor Luke Ford doesn't have a disability) the latter because it is redemptive (20 year-old supermodel Gemma Ward is more than a pretty face). But while Erik Thompson and the gifted Toni Collette are great as the overwhelmed parents, it's Rhys Wakefield who truly shines as young Thomas. His is almost the hardest job of all, playing the teenager who yearns for normalcy in a cast of colourful eccentrics. His nuanced portrayal is consistently engaging, earning and retaining audience sympathy throughout.

The screenplay, meanwhile, is an example of confident storytelling, avoiding the pitfall known to many insecurely scripted Aussie dramas, which consists in injecting dramatic juice when none is needed. Each opportunity for eventful development (social services call! a fight breaks out at school! Charlie runs in front of a speeding truck!) is elegantly brushed aside in favour of the rich drama inherent in the details of the day-to-day life of this unique family.

The film climaxes in a musical number in which Thomas and Charlie play - of all things - performing monkeys (the film's only false note: apparently the rights to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats - featured in the original script - were too expensive). The scene efficiently captures Thomas' mature embrace of his own inner autism - his acceptance that normalcy is not an end in itself - and Charlie's newfound ability to function alongside his brother. It's easy to imagine a film about a disabled boy ending in an uplifting talent show - but even in this clichéd, movie-of-the-week setting, Elissa Down manages to steer clear of easy sentimentality.

Like all good coming-of-age films The Black Balloon provides a specific, richly textured environment - in this case Australian suburbia circa 1991 (gorgeously captured by cinematographer Denson Baker) - a sense of time and place against which the protagonists can measure their sense of self. For Thomas Mollison, suburban Aussie culture is something that is embraced unconditionally, even when it threatens to stifle core beliefs.

One of its tenets is a cult of the body and its physical prowess. The ability for boys to swim, run and fight becomes the measure of a real man. Charlie's disability prohibits access to adulthood, especially as it is defined by the culture. In this context, any feat of physical ability achieved by Thomas - such as his attempt to win the Bronze Medallion in lifesaving - feels like a betrayal of his brother. Such is the tyranny of physical ability.

The film's greatest accomplishment is to merge the thematics of ability with those of adolescence. A person with severe autism is a person in some ways unable to become an adult. Charlie's disability thus becomes the perfect conceptual framework for Charlie's coming of age.

What makes Thomas' journey so engaging is the invisible tug of war between normalcy - the key to fitting in at school - and idiosyncrasy - the key to fitting in within his eccentric family. Beyond Charlie's autism, the Mollisons struggle with a variety of other disabilities: the heavily pregnant momis unable to care for the kids while the army dadis useless around the house.

Thomas is given the means to achieve what his brother (and to a certain extent, his parents) cannot, thereby inheriting a burden of guilt key to adolescent discomfort. His passage into adulthood is defined by the acceptance of his abilities, and the responsibilities that they bring.

The Black Balloon recently won the Glass Bear for Best Feature in the Berlin Film Festival's Generation sidebar: titles for kids 14 years and over. While the film is definitely not sold as a film suitable for children in Australia (it even has a ridiculous M rating), I would definitely recommend it to a teenage audience.

There's a lot of talk in Australia at the moment about the dubious quality of the films we make and the diminishing popularity of our national cinema, at least domestically. Elissa Down's accomplished and truthful film deserves to be seen by many - it's a homegrown flick we can truly be proud of.



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The Black Balloon is released today in Australia.