Pop Culture

Crackers

SOMETHING TO CRACK YOU UP, SERIOUSLY

The Canberra Times, 27 June 1998

Many of the best comedies are much funnier than they sound.

Case in point: a film reviewer for one major newspaper recently dismissed the Coen Brothers' film, The Big Lebowski, by explaining that it centres on three guys who loaf around and play frequent games of ten-pin bowling.

Sure, that description does not make it sound very amusing. Then again, what's so funny about a young woman obsessed with marriage, or a family fighting to save their house from destruction. Nothing, in this context, but Muriel's Wedding and The Castle were both very successful.

David Swann, the writer/director of Crackers, believes that his film should also appeal to a broad, international audience. It's all in the characters.

Again, the idea is not funny in itself: a family, who don't really like each other, spend Christmas together. "The thing that makes it universal is not that it pegs its jokes on Christmas," says Swann, "but that Christmas brings families together. They're forced to endure everyone's company under the facade they all really love each other."

The idea for the script came to him one Christmas morning, some years ago. He was happily spending the time with friends, until two of them had to leave. "An air of gloom pervaded the atmosphere," he recalls.

One of the friends explained their misery: "We have to go to the family for Christmas lunch."

Swann found this attitude funny, but sad at the same time. "I thought, if it's that hellish to endure a couple of hours with your family, it says something pretty tragic about the nature of Christmas."

In Crackers, which begins screening in Canberra on July 9, Christmas is a trial for every member of the dysfunctional family, including the old larrikin Albert (Warren Mitchell); his stressful grandaughter Hilary (Susan Lyons); her new-age boyfriend Bruno (comedian Peter Rowsthorn); and certainly for Hilary's disturbed, 12-year-old son, Joey (Daniel Kellie).

But while many of the scenes (bored, tuneless carol-singing; drunken arguments over lunch) would be familiar to anyone who has enjoyed a family Christmas, the humour is broad, full of slapstick routines and slightly twisted characters, with a soundtrack which at times sounds like something from a Keystone Cops chase.

"I was fascinated by Christmas. It's one of the few religious rituals which has survived, and the only source of original songs that I know. I don't know the national anthem, but I know Silent Night. I know the words to Good King Wenceslas, whatever they mean."

A seasoned character actor and comedy performer, Swann decided to become a film-maker after becoming "disillusioned" while working on a TV show. "I started making super 8 films with other actor mates who were unemployed. A lot of the early films I made were silent comedies that I acted in myself, directed myself, and I learned an enormous amount."

This led to such TV shows as the bombastic comedy-soap Let the Blood Run Free (1989), which faded quickly in Australia, but was a big success in Europe. His first short film, the acclaimed Bonza, was the basis for the short-lived sitcom, The Bob Morrison Show, about a family seen through the eyes of a dog. "They asked me to be involved in the writing of it, but I met with one of the writers and realised that we had two completely different visions. What I saw on the screen was a safe, happy, stereotypical family."

The leap from short films to features, he says, was a "leap across the Grand Canyon. You basically learn from making mistakes. I made every mistake and I'm still making them."

Amongst all the silliness, Crackers has some serious moments, and one of the more poignant scenes drove audiences to tears at test screenings. "Ultimately, a comedy has got to have heart as well. It's got to say something, rather than just being a joke-fest. I think you have to have a serious intent for it to survive."

So far, its survival chances look promising. It was recently screened at the Cannes Film Festival, resulting in sales throughout Europe. It has also been supported by Australia's major cinema chains - never a certainty for an Australian film, even one which doesn't aim at the "art-house" film crowd.

Swann is understandably pleased. "I didn't make it for the film elite. I made it for the public, for my daggy brother who lives in the suburbs."

If the public is receptive, all his Christmases might come at once.