David Michod

There's something about David Michod and his ability to tell life at it's most real. I don't know if its something he strives to achieve but what I have seen of his work so far has strung a chord with me somewhere deep inside my soul which scares the crap outta me. For someone to reach in like that and offer up all these feelings you know only too well, that's talent.

I found this little gem accidentally after I decided to check out Aquarius Films, the production company in charge of the upcoming feature, Wish You Were Here, starring Teresa Palmer and Joel Edgerton. I didn't realize until I hit the link that this was another film from Blue-Tongue but after watching for just a few moments, I would have been able to identify that style eventually.

The film is another great story, one based almost on what you would call an urban myth.  Told in an extremely voyeuristic manner from the POV of an anonymous narrator, the camera glides around the set like another character, revealing to us this dysfunctional family but not letting us relate to them too well. Its the same way we would probably remember our childhood. Growing up with "that" house down the road our mothers always told us not to stand too close to. We never really knew what was going on in those houses but we knew it was trouble. All the more interesting for curious child-minds.

Michod taps into that desire to know the unknown and I have found that like Animal Kingdom, he likes to reveal stories about people who most of the Australian public would probably have no personal connection with. In Crossbow, it was cheap, drug taker. In Animal Kingdom, violent criminals. We're attracted to these stories in the same way people used to be attracted to the freak show at the circus - because it felt so far removed from our own existence it had to be worth a look.

I know this film is an old one (2009) but its clear Michod is developing his niche. I just hope he doesn't change for the sake of fitting into the mainstream.