Down Under movie tackles infamous Cronulla riots with comedy
/When the mob violence that became known as the Cronulla riots erupted just over a decade ago, there was much analysis about what it meant for Australia and multiculturalism.
Now a new film, Down Under, is tackling the issues that sparked Cronulla's most infamous day using comedy.
"When people hear it's a movie about the Cronulla riots, the obvious question that gets asked, 'Is it too soon, can we stomach a movie like this?'" director Abe Forsythe told 7.30.
"And then you say, 'And it's going to be a comedy,' and then people are even more like, 'OK, what are you doing, what's your approach?'"
But Forsyth believes it's the perfect genre to explore what happened.
"The comedy in this movie is used to highlight certain absurdities inherent in racist behaviour," he said.
"I thought if we're going to highlight stupidity in a different way, then I think that seems like the best way to do it.
"I wanted to create a cast of characters that you could be horrified by but then in equal terms find kind of funny and empathise with them even."
'We wanted to avoid anyone knowing we were making this movie'
The action is set the day after the riots.
"Two car loads of people, one from both sides of the 'fight'. One is on a retaliation or revenge mission to kind of get revenge for what happened to them, then the other car's defending their turf," Forsythe said.
"And so it's about these two sort of contained environments of angry young men looking for some outlet for this aggression and invariably they do meet."
Given the subject matter, the filmmakers avoided actually shooting on location.
"The closest we got was [nearby suburb] Kurnell," Forsythe said.
"We wanted to avoid anyone knowing that we were making this movie until after we'd finished and that's just because we didn't want people to get the wrong idea, so the best way to not get the wrong idea was to stay under the radar."
An incident during filming showed that was probably a wise move.
"One of my Middle Eastern cast members, Michael Denkha, who plays Ibrahim, they were getting out of a car, being driven to set ... a car load of four Anglo people drove past and saw a Middle Eastern man with a beard and all shouted, 'Aussie, Aussie, Aussie' when they saw him," the director says.
'This is frighteningly relevant now'
Between the stereotypical extremes of angry, nationalistic white men and equally angry Middle Eastern men stands the character of Evan, played by Chris Bunton.
Loading..."My character, Evan, is just an innocent young man who came from the countryside, came to visit his cousin, and I was at the wrong time, in the wrong place," Bunton told 7.30.
"I had to be myself. Natural, natural character, natural person with Down syndrome, which I am."
This was Bunton's first experience as a film actor. He's also a Special Olympics gold medal-winning gymnast.
"Obviously there was so much about Chris that we really just wanted to capture, but at the same he should give himself a little bit more credit," Forsythe said.
"There's one scene in particular which goes for about two minutes and it's just a two hander between Alex England and Chris, and you just really get to watch and appreciate the level of performance that Chris gives and the humanity that he has been able to put into the character of Evan."
The director said the issues of multiculturalism and intolerance raised at the time of the riots were still incredibly pertinent today.
"We certainly didn't think we would be releasing a film in the climate that we're in right now," Forsythe said.
"And now it's like, wow, this is frighteningly relevant now both here but also overseas as well."
Down Under opens on August 11.