Powerful

Don't Believe the Hype

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Thank you Shirley Barrett for writing and directing this movie because you have created a masterpiece. I begin to live in 1928 when I watch this movie. I feel I can step into the screen, help Meredith unpack her belongings and set-up my room in that lovely old house, put the kettle on, and walk outside in that bitterly cold air. I wear the scratchy woollen coat that Meredith wears, the hand knitted woollen vest, the skirt, and loose thick stockings bunching up at the ankles. I look at Mr Fleet (the exceptional Marton Csokas) and am drawn to his shy wounded persona, his awkwardness, and his pain. This movie is astonishing because It draws me into the time of these characters (like no other movie can). I have watched this movie about 8 times and I never tire of it. It was in this movie that I first saw Csokas. I couldn't believe how surpub his performance was. I asked, who is this incredible actor? I have since watched him in many movies and his capacity to express vastly different personalities in every role is just stunning. What an observer of human behaviour and non-verbal communicator! The isolation, the cold, the children, the lonely residents, and those who choose to be alone - the depiction is so real and so true, you feel like you are intruding in conversations. The pace is right, and the music so suited to the telling of the story, and so sublime, that I bought the soundtrack too. I wrote this review because there are so many award winning movies that are appalling, ('la la land' comes to mind), yet masterpieces like this one are overlooked. If you enjoy a love story with warm, gentle characters who are very real (imperfect), if you enjoy the thought of isolation and staring at the wind-swept seascape like in a Bronte novel, and if you like to gently explore the personality of someone you find increasingly fascinating - this movie is truly for you.

South Solitary is an Australian story told on a small canvas - a lighthouse off the Victoria coast. The cast of isolated characters makes for often intense, often comic, interactions overlaid by the propriety of 1920s manners. The domineering father and lighthouse keeper played by Barry Otto tries to impose his will on his niece and domestic servant Meredith (Miranda Otto) and on the two assistant keepers. The story revolves around Meredith as her back story is slowly revealed. Her growing friendship with the war damaged assistant keeper, Fleet, consumes the second half of the film but there is no Hollywood ending here. There is superb acting even among the children. The Ottos are two of Australia's finest actors but don't get the recognition overseas they deserve because they do not seek "stardom". Miranda did, however, play in the Lord of the Rings. The music is a character in the story on its own setting the mood without overwhelming.We were playing the CD long before we saw the movie.

Take nine rather unpleasant people who treat each other badly, put them on a small, desolate, windswept island and you should have the makings of a film that even Ingmar Burgman would find tedious Shirley Barrett, who seems to have a predilection for making films about unattractive people, manages to turn these ingredients into an elegy to "hope". Hope, you may be aware, is a member of the trilogy of eternal virtues that can redeem the lives of people who refuse to succumb to feelings of self-loathing and despair.The other two eternal virtues are faith and love, and if I have a criticism of this film, it is that Barrett does not allow the last two humans standing on the island to consummate their growing mutual attraction, at least within the confines of the film The prop she uses to make this believable is the lighthouse they manage to keep illuminated, shining in the darkness of the surrounding stormy sea Miranda Otto gives us a grown-up reprise of the character she created in Barrett's first film, "Love Serenade"Marton Csokas crafts his performance as a World War I shell-shock, neurotic so organically that we can believe his stilted overtures to greater intimacy at the end of the filmBarry Otto's light house keeper has taken a different route to dealing with the moral void uncovered by the evil and stupidity of World War I. He too has been damaged by the experience, but instead of succumbing to the numbing silence of Csokas, he has embraced a near military conformity to the idea of the benign authority of human institutions, all appearances to the contrary. It is a mark of Barrett's skill as a writer-director, that she allows his niece to acknowledge his care for her when she had attracted the disapproval of polite society.Barett has crafted a small, quietly spoken, life affirming film that draws the viewer into the lives of its protagonists and leaves them feeling richer for the experience.

If you don't mind watching a film populated with flawed but easy to identify with characters, then I urge you to check out South Solitary. I enjoyed this film very much, particularly the performance of Miranda Otto as Meredith, as it would be very easy to find this character unlikeable if it had not been handled as beautifully and sympathetically as Miranda does. It was also interesting to see the inner workings of an operational light house from that period as I new very little of the life of a light house keeper going into the screening. The sound design is also brilliantly weaved throughout helping to add a lot of emotion within the probably smallish budget. I found South Solitary both wryly funny and human in just the right proportion and for the right audience it will be a pleasant surprise.