what´s all the fuss about this movie?!

Actually, TRASHYSTUFF quite clearly stated that they liked slow character dramas.

Dont see FAST AND FURIOUS.

Check out Immamuras THE EEL, Langs THE WELL, Brooks JAPANESE STORY, Bergmanns PERSONA, Altmans THREE WOMEN and IMAGES and SHORT CUTS, Fritz Langs M, Cassavettes A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, SHADOWS, FACES, MINNIE AND MOSKOVITZ, OPENING NIGHT, Fellinis NIGHTS OF CABIRIA, Allens INTERIORS, .....

Lantana is at best a televison movie. Not a bad one. A good tv hour. Thats why it didnt get into any respectable European film festivals.

Eh, That's not fair at all - this film was boring, lackluster and lacking in any realy good acting.

Not liking it does not doom you to a life of enjoying brainless blockbusters, I know thats not my taste at all and this still did nothing for me.

Fair point, the acting was good. However, good acting on its own does not make a good movie. What is the movie experience? Is it to see extraordinary events and extraordinary people? Well, Lantana had neither. Is it too see a great story? The plot is what you'd expect in a 30 minute TV series episode. So all we are left with is a film about relationships. Now that would be OK if you connect with it, if you see something of yourself in one of the characters then maybe you will like it.

I'm not a fan of dumb Hollywood films but are we happy if this is the alternative? It is better than the latest Hollywood teenage horror/comedy but it is not good enough to get too excited about. I'm not saying it was bad but I'm not saying it was very good either. In 10 years time how many people will even remember it when trying to think of their favourite films?

EXCUSE ME!

I am a fan of Pressburger, powell, Bergmann, Fellini, Cassavettes, Varda...and more. This film is not an intellectual exercise. IT is an expositional obvious tv drama! There is nothing original about these performances or the framing. No personal vision of the auteur (which was clearly demonstrated in his previous film BLISS) OBVIOUSLY ten years in advertising has blanded his personality. I would rather have seen TRASHY STUFF direct this terrible script.

If you want a list of good films..Ill give them to you. But dont berate somebody for having a very clear instinct that this is not Cinema.

Cannes Venice Berlin and ROtterdam film festival all agreed with TRASHYSTUFF. So maybe you can learn a thing or too.

so now somebody has to watch a TELEVISION drama like Lantana to have CLASS? What sort of class are we talking about? Middle class? I would rather watch A SWEDISH PORN anyday. At least its epic, funny, sexy, bizarre and hopefully ORIGINAL!

Where is the poetry? Where is the nightmare? We are seduced by a TV TAWDRY COP SHOW DRAMA then our lives must be pretty safe and ordinary MR PRANAVAN.

Or maybe you have 007 ON your numberplate and you go round houses at night waking up the neighbours....This is crap.

GOOD CINEMA: check out: POWELL, IMMAMURA, FASSBINDER, COCTEAU, BUNUEL, GODARD, CASSAVETTES, RUIZ, ALMODOVAR, ALLEN, HARTLEY, HAYNES, BOGDANOVICH, PRESSBURGER, OZU, KIORASTAMI, KAURISMAKI, FELLINI, PASOLINI, FOSSE, RUSSELL, SCHLESINGER, VARDA, DEMY..AND MORE.

Magnolia was not great either. but stop taking the piss out of his job at MC DONALDS you middleclass twat? His instincts for good cinema are in fact correct.

This film was not accepted into any reputable festivals like CANNES or Venice..the europeans hated it...and I personally think that the drama in this movie is overly earnest and cinematically unadventurous.

If i wanted "personal" tawdry cinema like this...I would read a self help book called Speed Healing or Emotional Molecules. Id rather get the facts from a scientist. Cinema is meant to be crazy, epic, nightmarish, inexplicable...like good art.

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Interesting. I'm a twenty year old Aussie who has 'never been involved in a long-term relationship' and I still loved it. The characters were fascinating, and the story reveals its many hidden depths and layers, (as do the characters) on repeated viewing. A comment further up said who would remember this film in ten years. I think for its weaving of plots, the tightly packed narrative, (it fits more into 108 (or thereabouts) minutes than PT Anderson (who I respect as a film-maker) could manage in his occasionally interesting, but ultimately overblown and bloated 180m.+ opus MAGNOLIA) and its outstanding performances by a gallery of talented Aussie actors, LANTANA will certainly be remembered as a landmark Australian film, and, (prediction:) one of the first great films of the new millenium, (right behind TOMCATS(!).)

That's my opinion. What interests me is that my 40+ year-old father saw the film, having been married for 20+ years (naturally!) and his opinion reflected some of those expressed here; his first comment after seeing it was, "But it was just so SLOW! Nothing happened! Who wants to see some p*ss-ant bores farting on about relationships!" What I think the missing link is, and why some may miss the brilliance of the film, is a disinterest in personal relationships. My father isn't interested in 'relationship' movies; I think he prefers movies about externalised concepts, not necessarily Michael Bay blockbusters.

I think if you are disinterested in the way human beings relate to each other, you're not going to find much to satisfy you in this film, and it has nothing to do with your place of work, or age, (although I wouldn't recommend it to very young people,) and to say that is to arrogantly disrespect another's point of view, and be virtually worthless as a participant in film discussion.

Glumpy.

Im glad that in your world...Relationship...ahem...is a level you attain.

THen you get your beach house, your country house. Your sports car. You sound so *beep* middleclass.

Maybe you need to experience pain, my friend. This film is NOT about outsiders...it's not about beauty, suffering, the inexplicable desire to survive. It's about sewing up the plot. It's about American self help psycho babble therapy thats lost and then found in our landscape...giving us a real sense of pseudo cultural identity. What a weak politics this film fills us with?

Are you satisfied that this American woman fulfils the gaps in our lives? Wouldnt it be more interesting if we punished her for leaving us empty?

You are a laconic knock about. There is nothing wrong with a Harvard education, especially when you've had one.

Without having waded through this entire thread, I thought I would add my own two cents.

Lantana is the best Australian drama I have ever seen. In fact, it's one of the best dramas I have ever seen. I honestly don't understand how married adults could not appreciate this movie...maybe they shouldn't be married in the first place? Anyway. What I love about this movie is its tension. It is a slow build up of traumatised, subtle characters, their interactions and their convergence before a truly brilliant plot twist.

This movie has some of the most insightful, personal, emotional dialogue of any I have ever seen, and its ensemble cast delivers such a fine-tuned performance...wow. I can't speak highly enough of Lantana. Geoffrey Rush is simply breath-taking; Glenn Robbins delivers an unusual (yet not unexpected) convincing perfomance; Peter Phelps is fantastic...I think what Lantana does so well is take some very ordinary people, place them in an unusual circumstance, and shows us every single degree of emotion that they each go through, and how this affects others around them.

I have never been married but I have been in emotionally confronting relationships and Lantana captures this perfectly. It's happy, sad, torcherous, violent, sensual...

I love this movie.

I disagree with both your points.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, American acclaim is the only acclaim that seems to be worth anything. I wasn't aware it was ever even given a formal release over there.

Lantana is the movie I hold up as the height of Australian movies (of the ones I've seen, anyway). I also love Moulin Rouge, but they are too different to be compared. Different genres completely, different cinematography and direction, different acting...just COMPLETELY different (let's not even mention budgets). Anyway, I like Lantana more.