Australian Christmases may be too hot and sweaty to inspire film-makers while the Australian public prefers to watch cool Christmas classics from the Northern Hemisphere.
QUT Faculty of Creative Industries lecturer in film Dr Mark Ryan said Christmas in Australia is so completely removed from the traditional white Christmas it may be an important reason why just a handful of local films have been made on the subject, including Bush Christmas (1947), the Bush Christmas (1983) remake starring a young Nicole Kidman, and Crackers (1998).
“Crackers was a great and uniquely Australian film about an extremely dysfunctional family. It remains a memorable and extremely quirky film, but it is a rarity. The Christmas movie genre is almost non-existent in Australia,” said Dr Ryan who is also the new President of the Screen Studies Association of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand.
“Culturally we experience such a different Christmas from that we see in films made in the United States, the UK and Europe, which is why you won’t find an antipodean offering in the latest Timeout 50 Best Christmas Movies list.
“Christmas in Australia is usually a hot, sweaty affair involving sandy beaches, pools, BBQs and prawns rather than a hot roast dinner and frost on the windows. All the favourite films feature snow, even darker comedies like Bad Santa or Scrooged.
“Sentimental favourites like It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) or Miracle on 34th Street (1947) are the same whereas in Australia at that time we produced Bush Christmas with Chips Rafferty. It was shot around the Blue Mountains and a hit in Australia and Britain at the time but is now largely forgotten.”
Dr Ryan said another reason Australia was not known for its Christmas movie output was the fact family and children’s films have been rarely produced by local filmmakers over the last three decades.
“Australian filmmakers have not made many family and children’s films in the past 30 years although there have been some classics like Babe (1995), and FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992). But we are starting to see them comeback; films like Paper Planes (2015), while a string of animals movies like Happy Feet (2006), Red Dog (2011), and Oddball (2015) have been recent local successes,” Dr Ryan said.
“Yet Christmas movies have been few and far between. Crackers had a bizarre quirky edge that I think we would see more of if our filmmakers did turn their hand to Christmas movies; heat, BBQs, squabbling families and bizarre antics and rituals in suburban settings.
“The traditional schmaltzy Christmas film, be it a comedy or a romance, tends to be formulaic. There is an obligation to catch up with family but there’s tension between characters, everything goes wrong/or they work it out, Christmas brings everyone together and they learn an important life lesson in the process. Films like Bad Santa turn that on its head and I like that.”
QUT is part of a national collaborative group of five major Australian universities that form the ATN (Australian Technology Network of Universities).
Media contact:
Amanda Weaver, QUT Media, 07 3138 9449, amanda.weaver@qut.edu.au
After hours: Rose Trapnell, 0407 585 901, media@qut.edu.au
