Lost Treasures
Flirting (1990)
director: john duigan
cast: noah taylor, thandie newton, nicole kidman, bartholomew rose, felix nobis, josh picker, liri paramore, marc gray, greg palmer, joshua marshall, david wieland, craig black, leslie hill
“I
don’t think fate is a creature or a lady like some people say. It’s a tide
of events sweeping us along. I’m not a fatalist because I think you can swim
against it, sometimes grasp the hands of the clock-face and steal a few precious
minutes. If you don’t, you just cartwheel along. Before you know it, the magic
moment is lost… and you’re just left with what might have been.” So says and
lives Danny Eh-Eh-Embling (Noah Taylor), the stuttering outsider at an all-boy
prep school in John Duigan’s “Flirting”(1990).
Danny’s existence is a little grim. It’s the early 1960’s and the prep school he’s attending is run like a twisted blend of Alcatraz and a Ms. Manner’s charm school. Danny doesn’t feel sorry for himself, though. The beatings from teachers and verbal abuses from fellow students are dispensed as a matter of routine and Danny handles it with razor sharp humor. He’s a smart kid and he takes comfort inside his head. He reads constantly, mostly heavy intellectual stuff like Sartre and Marx but he also likes Cassius Clay’s (Muhammad Ali) poetry. And he thinks wistfully of the all-girl prep school that sits across a lake from the boys’ school -- the buildings facing each other, “like two brooding volcanoes”.
At
the girls’ school there is a new inmate, Thandiwe Adjewa (Thandie Newton),
who arrives in the middle of night. When she wakes the next morning, a crowd
of staring, young women greets her. Evidently, they have never seen a black
woman before. Finally one of them asks, “Anyone got a banana,” and
that’s as close as a welcome as she ever gets. Colonialism and white supremacy
are still thick in the Australian air of the 1960’s. After all, these are
the sons and daughters of the English colonizers of a “wild” continent and
the aborigines are viewed as savage primitives. But Thandiwe is not Australian,
she’s from the newly independent African nation of Uganda, a place that her
fellow classmates have never heard of or are even remotely curious about.
Both Danny and Thandiwe’s fortunes change for the better during a “debate” held between the boys’ and girls’ schools. The position of the teachers is that, “Intellectual pursuits are the highest form of human endeavor.” The girls are to argue the pro position and the boys to argue the con. It’s a fixed game and nothing more is expected than that the students come to the “civilized” conclusion that the mind is more important than the body. The whole thing is ho-hum until Danny gives a very eloquent and impassioned speech (stuttered, of course) on why Australian football is one of the ha-ha-highest forms of hu-hu-human endeavor. When Thandiwe’s turn comes, she switches sides and also eloquently argues the merits of physical pleasure. She points out to the uncomfortable teachers that contemporary artists seem more interested in “bodily functions” than intellectual pursuits. She goes on to recite Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti”, “I don’t want you toast my bread. I don’t want you make my bed. I don’t want your money, too. I just want to make love to you… A Womp Bop a Lou Bop, A Bop Bam Boom.” It’s at this point that Thandiwe and Danny form a mutual admiration club.
Despite
Thandiwe and Danny’s outsider status, the story isn’t really about how they
become their own little club or clique. It’s really about how it’s a big world
full of all kinds people. At some point, we all encounter the bigger world
and have our fundamental assumptions about life challenged. Some people react
with fear and seek refuge in their religion, their class and/or their race
as a way of coming up with quick, easy and comforting answers. As Danny observes,
“People wonder how Hitler managed to get so many followers. It never surprised
me.” But some people react with curiosity and have their ideas broadened and
realize that it’s not a black and white world but a complicated one filled
with shades of gray. The first type of reaction is more common but Danny,
Thandiwe and some of their classmates belong to the other group. It’s their
exploration of each other’s differences that helps them grow. Danny’s only
friend, Gilby (Bartholomew Rose), advises him that, “They can be pretty desperate,
these black women. Just look at National Geographic.” And that’s what Danny
does. He starts thinking of National Geographic and Hollywood movies like
“Tarzan” and realizes that he knows nothing at all about Africa or Africans.
It’s his relationship with Thandiwe that helps Danny to feel that, “There
were much bigger worlds and some small place in them for me.”
“Flirting” is the sequel to “The Year My Voice Broke” (1987) and is one of the few follow-ups to be even better than its predecessor. It’s also distinctive because it starred three little known actors who have gone on to recognition the world over. Noah Taylor played the young David Helfgott in “Shine” (1996), Nicole Kidman went on to be Mrs. Tom Cruise and “HO’s” Babe of the Month, Thandie Newton, stars in this summer’s “Mission Impossible 2” opposite Tom Cruise. It’s funny how, every once in a while, a brilliant little movie comes out with basically unknown actors that, as the years pass, turns out to be an “all star” cast (Sort of like John Boorman’s “Excalibur” which had Helen Mirren, Patrick Stewart, Gabriel Byrne and Liam Neeson, none of whom were well known in the United States in 1981). Despite the heavy handed dissecting of “Flirting’s” themes in this column, John Duigan’s direction is light as a feather and the tone is that of a sweet comedy. After seeing “Flirting”, you’ll be thinking about how nothing is destined and that taking little actions, even if it’s just flirting with someone special, can change your whole life. -- Tom Graney
© 2000 Hollywood Outsider™