The 2013 Sydney Fringe Film Festival spotlighted two films that mesmerised punters at their sold out screenings at Newtown’s Dendy Theatre. While the titles of the films, Boy and The Naughty Room hinted at an overlapping subject matter of coming of age, secrets and youthful masculinity, the two features could not have been more different in look and focus.
The protagonist of Boy is an unnamed teenager in an unidentified small New Zealand town. At high school he’s a lonely misfit and a target for bullies of both genders. He is creative and secretive and his home life seems happy, but empty of father figures. He’s also a rent boy who operates in shadowy public toilets. In an early scene, a young woman is killed in a hit and run motor accident. A chance encounter between the boy and the killer driver in a public toilet plants the seeds for Boy’s discovery of the hit and run killer’s identity. Boy wraps the light and darkness of the protagonist’s life around justice (or not) for the dead woman, and rinses it in dreamy colours.
This interplay and choppy narrative is a source of power and weakness for Boy. Lacking dialogue, the storyline is sometimes incoherent with random characters shifting in and out and key events not properly set up. The mantra of “there are no angels on earth” is emblematic of nihilism in the film. Despite this, Boy is a beguiling and provocative story.
Cosmo Jarvis’ The Naughty Room is the story of Sam or Subaru, a young Englishman who has recently graduated from adolescence but hasn’t taken up the responsibilities of adulthood. Subaru doesn’t have a job, lives at home with his mother and spends most of his waking hours in a marijuana-soaked haze. His father was killed in a motor vehicle accident when he was a child. Subaru’s head might be high in the pot clouds, but he realises something must be done when he discovers a mystery person living in the residence of Mrs. Kennedy, the neighbour who apparently lives alone. This mystery person is Todd, a young man literally trapped indoors for most of his life by his mother.
Subaru’s humorous, deadpan voice, and voiceover, powers The Naughty Room. It is the keel upon which the film’s blend of comedy, naturalism and suburban horror turns. The story has a dark heart of grief and blame. This dose of heart with the light of Subaru’s voice works nicely, although at the loss of deeper explorations of characters’ lives. Arguably it would have been more courageous for the director to lighten the whimsical dose so his audience could feel and think more.
The performances of the leads, in particular the actors playing Subaru and Todd, are convincing. Director, writer, producer and jack-of-all trades Cosmo Jarvis is Todd, the young man who might as well be a boy. Cosmo Jarvis’ hands are everywhere over the film and reading the credits is in itself an entertaining experience.
Boy and The Naughty Room formed a satisfying bill. The Sydney Fringe Film Festival is on an upward trajectory and this reviewer looks forward to 2014.
Karen Vegar is a Sydney-based reviewer and novelist.
“Karen Vegar is a Sydney-based reviewer and novelist.”
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