Silent Partner
Rescued Films. 2001.
Producer/Director: Alkinos Tsilimidos
Part 1: Film Information
Director:
Alkinos
Tsilimidos
Starring:
David
Field as John
Syd
Brisbane as Bill
And
Introducing:
"Hebe"
as 'Silent Partner'
Screenplay:
Daniel
Keene
Producer:
Alkinos
Tsilimidos
Associate
Producer:
David
Field
Cinematography:
Toby
Oliver
Music:
Paul
Kelly
Gerry
Hale
Production Designer:
Justin Kurzel
Sound Designer:
Peter
Walker
Editors:
Alkinos
Tsilimidos
Ken
Sallows
Production
Company:
Rescued
Films (in association with):
Australian
Film Commission
The
Premium Movie Partnership
SBS
Independent
Release and
Box Office details
Silent
Partner was released
August 16th 2001 and finished the year on place 222 in the
Australian Box office. The film made AUD $12, 001 upon release and AUD $33, 101
throughout the year. You can say that Silent Partner was not a hit at the box
office but was part of the official selection at international film festivals
in Montreal, Toronto, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in 2001. Considering the
$13, 500 budget it was made with, however, the film did not rate too badly. Silent
Partner was released on
video and DVD on the 24th of April 2002.
Duration
84
minutes
Classification
MA
15+
The
SBS movie show website (http://www.sbs.com.au/movieshow/reviews.php3?id=744)
features
interviews with the director Alkinos Tsilimidos and David Field, who plays the
role of John in the film. I could not find any other interviews that were
accessible to the public.
Reviews
Due,
presumably, to its poor performance at the box office and small budget, Silent
Partner was not a major
presence in the international media. All reviews I found were from media based
here in Australia. Also, due to it's box office ratings, most reviews must have
been scrapped from archives due to low demand.
Although
the reviews were not common, they did provide great insight into the film and
brought up some interesting points about Australian film and its status in the
international market.
*
Cinefile review: (http://www.cinephilia.net.au/show_amovie.php?movieid=1219)
*
Filmink review: (http://www.filmink.com.au/search/displayarticle.asp?article_id=319)
*
Empire review: (http://www.empireonline.com.au/new/html/past/films/Review.asp?MovieID=250)
*
John
Flaus review: (http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/16/silent.html)
*
SBS movieshow: (http://www.sbs.com.au/movieshow/reviews.php3?id=744)
*
JJJ review: (http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/review/film/s350168.htm)
Reviews featured on the films website (http://www.palace.net.au/silentpartner) were from
Filmink and IF magazine. Both were very short and quite likely, edited.
The
film Silent Partner received little media coverage and it was therefore
difficult to find any reviews or interviews with the cast or crew. The ones
mentioned above were basically all I could scrape together. Since my searches
were done on the Internet, I thought it would be easiest to get information and
archival responses to the film. This was not the case. Maybe the film did not
receive much media coverage due to its poor success at the box office or due to
its late release in the year. It was strange, though, considering the amount of
reviews that praised the film and its cast and crew. Maybe bad publicity,
although not warranted, would have given it better media coverage.
Online,
the film was there, but multiple searches revealed the same results, which were
little and most did not really help as they gave synopses and short summaries
of the impact it did not have on the international market. The only reviews I
found were those listed above. The only interviews I found were those two on
the Movie Show site and another interview with the director that was only
available by subscription.
Silent
Partner received no mention in books that I could find (which is why I decided
to base my search on the Internet in the first place). I would put this mainly
down to the films lack of media coverage and importance in the Australian film
industry. It received little to no international media coverage and although
screened at major film festivals across the globe, did not receive any awards.
Basically,
searching for any information on the film was time-consuming (sorting through
the internet-junk) and frustrating. Most of the information I found was
irrelevant or scattered and apart from the cast and crew information, very
vague. Most of the cast and crew information came from the video (even the
film's own website did not have that) and the money-side of things came easily
from box office information sites.
Silent Partner is the story of two
Aussie blokes, Bill and John who spend their days drinking VB and compulsively,
and unsuccessfully punting at the Greyhounds. One day, they seemingly get a
lucky break, when the mysterious racing identity Alex Silver offers them the
chance of a lifetime: to race a greyhound of their own, with minimal expenses
and a 30 per cent cut.
They
name their red brindle bitch Silent Partner. After coming second in a country
race, Silent Partner gets a shot at the city races where she comes in fourth. A
distressed John takes it upon himself to inform Alex of the blunder, who
instructs the two mates to dope the dog for her second city appearance, after
which they have the opportunity to buy out the dog for $5000.
They
back their dog with all the money in they can scrounge in a week and see here,
Silent Partner wins the race by two lengths and at excellent odds. The boys
celebrate but soon discover another blunder: the dog is dead (presumably from
an overdose). Broke and without an asset to their name their friendship seems
to tear at the seams. A drunken fight breaks out between the two and they both
learn valuable lessons about loyalty and trust, the bases of a friendship. The
film ends with a silent reconciliation breakfast.
Silent
Partner
stars David Field (Two Hands, Chopper) and Syd Brisbane. It was produced and
directed by Alkinos Tsilimidos and written by Daniel Keene.
Silent
Partner was
shot in just 7 days with a crew of 5 on location in inner city Sydney, Australia. It had a
self-financed shooting budget of $13,500 and subsequently received
post-production funding of approximately $300,000 after reaching double head
rough-cut stage. It
was then picked up for a limited Australian distribution by Palace Films and
went on to participate at Toronto, Montreal, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and
Athens film festivals.
Prior work
The
director/producer
Alkinos
Tsilimidos
Silent
partner is
only the second feature film by the award-winning director and was his
long-awaited return to the screen.
His
first feature Everynight...Everynight (1994) received critical
acclaim both locally and internationally. It was awarded Best First Film (Prix
D'Montreal) at the Montreal World Film Festival. It was screened in competition
at the Stockholm Film Festival, the Athens Opening Nights Film Festival and the
Oslo International Film Festival in 1994 and made its Australian premiere at
the Melbourne Film Festival the same year.
Alkinos
was nominated for two AFI awards for direction and screenplay for Everynight...Everynight
in 1994 also.
The lead actors
David
Field
At
the time of Silent Partner's release, David field had appeared in ten feature films
including Broken Highway,
Everynight...Everynight
and On Our Selection.
More recently he has appeared in award winning films Chopper and Two Hands as well as a major role in Mr
Accident.
David Field is considered one of Australia's most dynamic actors for his on
stage and on screen abilities.
Syd
Brisbane
Syd Brisbane is one of
Australia's best character actors according to some with a career spanning 17
years. His theatre highlights include Daniel Keene's Low and Terminus. His film highlights were Dead
Letter Office,
Struck by Lightning
and the critically acclaimed Bad Boy Bubby.
The writer
Daniel
Keene
Daniel
Keene has been writing for the stage and the screen for 25 years. His highly
acclaimed works include All Souls, Terminus and Silent Partner. His plays have been
produced in Australia and internationally.
Daniel
has won The South Australian Premiere's Literary prize for Drama once and the
Victorian Premiere's Literary prize for Drama twice. He received the Wal Cherry
Play of the Year Award for Beneath Heaven and the Australian National
Playwright's Centre/New
Dramatists (New York) Summer Locke Elliott Fellowship. He also won the Louis Esson prize for Drama in 1989 for Silent
Partner. In
1996 Daniel Keene also won Best New Australian Play in the Green Room awards
for All Souls.
The
cinematographer
Toby Oliver
Toby
Oliver's career started in 1986 when he made student films at the Swinburne
School of Film and Television in Melbourne. In 1993 Toby shot his first feature
film Everynight...Everynight, which was directed by Alkinos Tsilimidos. He won an ACS
award for cinematography for his efforts. His further works have included
Stitched (Gregor Jordan, 1996) and the Australian box office hit and AFI award
winning film, Looking For Alibrandi (Kate Woods, 1999).
Critical
Uptake
Cinefile
review:
Cinefile points out that "as an Australian film Silent
Partner is relatively unusual in that it
does not follow the well-worn approach of playing up the stereotypical cultural
artefacts and idioms". It does however provide the background for the
development of the characters. Cinefile shows that Silent Partner seems more like
an extension of a short film and that this hardly makes it crowd pleasing and
this may be why it did not fare too well at the box office. For those
interested in studying film it is a solid piece of craftsmanship in all
departments of filmmaking.
Filmink review:
Filmink
rates the film with two three star ratings and one four star rating. Silent
partner's dialogue is again pointed out to be better suited to theatre. This
review praises the acting abilities of the two lead role actors and also the
characters themselves. This review is based more on the script than on the
cinematography or other filmic elements, so its fairness could be questioned.
Overall I believe a highly credible review, though in that its main theme is
that: "as a film this two-hander just works".
Empire
review:
Oscar
Hillerstrom reviews the film for Empire magazine. He points out that the script
is more suitable to the stage than the big screen but that it is "poetic in its
visual squalor...[and] spot on in idiom and dialogue". He also identifies how
well David Field interprets his character, John. Hillerstrom also commends the
film on its comedic value. He rates Silent Partner with three stars.
John
Flaus review:
John
Flaus reviewed this film in September of 2001. Although having some interesting
points, Flaus seems to be a little bitter in his review and extremely
pessimistic when it comes to putting the film in an Australian perspective. He
believes the David Field to be merely "overacting" his role of John (unsubstantiated
by his later comments) and that the characters are a combination of the Upper
classes "exaggeration, antipathy and the presumption of audience superiority
over the colony's home grown version of Cockney". Personally, I believe his
extreme left-wing comments to be clouding his judgment, as a certain amount of
unhealthy paranoia kicks in. Still, the review provides an interesting
counterbalance to the overall positive reviews the film received from other
sources.
SBS
Movie Show:
Again,
Margaret Pomeranz points out the films inability to function without the
elements of the stage taking over. She commends the film on excellent acting
skills and its "boozy poetry". She also says that it seemed like a contemporary
version of Waiting for Godot in that the script "tends to be a series of drunken
conversations between two losers who take a punt and experience some
disappointment and pain but find that they actually belong together". Overall,
she credits the film for its efforts with a low budget and difficult script.
JJJ
review:
Megan
Spencer believes that this film provides not only an interesting insight into
the underbelly of Australia's culture, but also points out that the results at
the box office were not reflective of the importance of films of this type. She
believes that these two hander films, about the "scum" of lower class Australia
show the Australian public a certain truth about Australian society that is
usually ignored. Megan Spencer also commends David Field's efforts in that she
claims, "the production design is the film's star, almost a character in this
film. It serves to truly heighten Silent Partner's authenticity and the poignancy of
Keene's dialogue".
My Opinion
Overall I commend the film on its
splendid cinematography and its intelligent story. I believe its budget;
position in the box office and overall achievements did not reflect its
position in the Australian film industry. Although it did not achieve
financially, I believe that artistically and creatively it supersedes many other
more prominent Australian feature films.
There
were a few features about the film, which I believed to rate very highly.
Firstly, I thought the cinematography was excellent. For such a low-budget film,
there were some very impressive and meaningful shots in the film. I agree with
the films cinematographer, Toby Oliver, when he says that working at both ends
of the budget spectrum can fuel the creative process with innovative aesthetic
solutions whilst maintaining a clear idea of economical and visual
storytelling. He has certainly achieved that here. What he also achieved was
that the low budget cinematography added to the credibility of the two
characters and ultimately the audience's empathy for the characters.
Secondly
I thought the acting was absolutely superb. David Field has been known only for
his tough roles, such as in Chopper and Two Hands. This character gave David
the role to prove himself as a versatile actor in that his character John is very
different to the norm expected from David Field. John can not be described as
tough, but more a hopeless, unlucky hero, who's drunken, philosophical insights
into working class Australia give him comedic value.
Syd
Brisbane, although credited with filmic and theatrical achievements, has never
landed a lead role. This role has really given him the chance to expand and
prove himself, which he does extremely well. His character Bill is the loveable
counterpart to John, who's optimism throughout the film, keeps the characters
and the story going.
The
story was good, but its adaptation from the theatre was obvious in places, with
dialogue being confusing at times and the conclusion being more suitable for
the stage than the screen. I agree with Margaret Pomeranz (from the Movie Show)
that the story is like a modern day cinematic version of Waiting for Godot, not because of its story, but because
of its cryptic dialogue and philosophical overtones that were similar to the
play. This was the only thing that really let down the film, although I believe
the other elements certainly made up for it.
If
I were a professional, who I am most certainly not, I would rate the film 4/5
stars.
"Forget the "little
Aussie battler" - we don't make nearly enough films about our ever-growing
underclass, the "have-nots" that's for certain. And when you see a film like Silent
Partner,
we're reminded just how few of these stories turn up on our screens. Stories,
which are undoubtedly just as culturally valid and interesting as the genteel,
"quirky" comedies we so often celebrate and automatically laud in Australia."
(Megan Spencer, Triple J)
I
agree with Megan Spencer that Silent Partner should have attracted a greater
audience than it did. Maybe this just points out certain ignorance in the
Australian people in that they like to think that the characters do not exist
in real life. It may also show a reluctance of an Australian audience to view
Australian feature films because they do not rate them as high in quality as
their American counterparts. This has changed in recent years, but only after
Australian actors started breaking ground in Hollywood and Australia became a
more popular setting for American productions, has Australian cinema been
recognised highly in the public eye.
Silent
Partner rates highly
among its fellow Australian films as it shows some great creative input on
behalf of the actors and the cinematographer in particular. This being achieved
on a small budget and in seven days no less just shows how highly the
Australian film industry should rate compared to overseas industries.
Financially, both in input and in output it cannot compare to some of the other
films produced in 2001, such as Moulin Rouge for example.
Overall,
I believe that Silent Partner
did not get nearly enough credit from the Australian public as deserved.
Judging from its lack in media coverage, it did not receive much international
recognition. Personally, I believe this is because the themes and character
traits speak more to an Australian public than an international one.
Culturally, Australia has developed its own, distinct values which are
reflected in the film, but which other cultures will fail to understand.