The Jammed
Jim Schembri, ReviewerAugust 16, 2007
Just when it was beginning to look like a ho-hum year for Australian film, along comes The Jammed.
The Jammed
Genre
Drama
Run Time
89 minutes
Rated
MA 15+
Country
Australia
Director
Dee McLachlan
Rating
stars-4half
Just when it was beginning to look like a ho-hum year for Australian film, along comes The Jammed, a low-budget, locally made shock of electricity that further restores one's faith in just how good Australian social-realist films can be.
Set largely in the underworld of Melbourne's illegal sex trade, the film is a prime example of how a factually based story about a hot-button topic can be morphed into compelling fiction. For want of a more eloquent analogy, watching The Jammed is the cinematic equivalent of having a bucket of cold water thrown into your face.
The film kicks off with a traditionally frenetic "what the hell is going on?" opening sequence as an illegal immigrant working as a prostitute undergoes interrogation in an immigration office, on the verge of being deported.
We then jump back in time a mere three weeks for the back-story and are introduced to five women. Crystal (Emma Lung), Vanya (Saskia Burmeister) and Rubi (Sun Park) have been imported into Australia with false papers and forced to work as prostitutes. Sunee (Amanda Ma) is a frightened Chinese mother with a purse full of cash looking for her missing daughter.
Linking these women is Ashley (Veronica Sywack), a bored, single insurance clerk who unwittingly becomes involved in the search when she meets Sunee while picking up somebody at the airport.
Reluctant at first to help this stranger, Ashley is overtaken by growing compassion for her plight, first putting up missing posters on poles then pressing an ex-boyfriend into service to help her out. She, of course, has no idea how nasty and violent the underworld is, and at one point is the recipient of the most violent verbal threat since Robert De Niro told Nick Nolte in Cape Fear that he was going to learn about loss.
The film is unrelenting in its detailed dramatic exposition of the physical and psychological conditions these women endure. It also explains how criminal brothel owners are able to enslave women without the need for chains, and without the fear that they will run off at the first opportunity and tell the police.
The story rides on a strong undercurrent of information about the Melbourne sex slave trade, reflecting the extensive research that went into the film. Thankfully, though, the film does not sidestep its duty to tell a story by resorting to the docu-drama format.
The film's primary obligation is not as a public service announcement but to deliver an engrossing dramatic thriller. Dee McLachlan deserves an award for the quality of her direction of that rarest of all beasts - a finely honed screenplay.
Every frame of the film breathes with authenticity, whether it is showing how bored Ashley is with her desk job, how women can be forced to become prostitutes, or why anyone would sit motionless while her tormentor urinates over her.
And though there are some nasty characters here, McLachlan avoids easy stereotypes. Even as one brothel owner disciplines a girl by repeatedly raping her - a singularly harrowing scene - there is an implicit understanding of what violence will happen to him if he does not bring her into line.
The performances throughout are outstanding, even in the minor roles, but the work of young Melbourne actress Emma Lung is a revelation. As the naive Shanghai woman who has come to Australia "to be a dancer on the table", Lung is positively spellbinding. You need to remind yourself that this is the same actress from Peaches and the TV series Cooks. The same applies to Saskia Burmeister. It really is the same girl from Hating Alison Ashley.
In terms of type of films the Australian industry should be making, The Jammed, easily the best local film of 2007, serves as a perfect contrast to Lucky Miles, which is easily the worst.
Despite the praise it has received, Lucky Miles represents the type of flaccid, one-act film we thought we had seen the last of with Somersault. It basks in the illusion of topicality while failing to make good the promise of its opening 20 minutes.
The Jammed, on the other hand, is contemporary, immediate, vital, controversial and enthralling to behold. Like Wolf Creek and The Proposition, it uses the conventions of genre as a narrative template to tell a unique, and uniquely Australian, story.
Regrettably, the film has managed only a limited release at the Nova until 29 August. Please don't miss it.
Jim Schembri, ReviewerAugust 16, 2007
Just when it was beginning to look like a ho-hum year for Australian film, along comes The Jammed.
The Jammed
Genre
Drama
Run Time
89 minutes
Rated
MA 15+
Country
Australia
Director
Dee McLachlan
Rating
stars-4half
Just when it was beginning to look like a ho-hum year for Australian film, along comes The Jammed, a low-budget, locally made shock of electricity that further restores one's faith in just how good Australian social-realist films can be.
Set largely in the underworld of Melbourne's illegal sex trade, the film is a prime example of how a factually based story about a hot-button topic can be morphed into compelling fiction. For want of a more eloquent analogy, watching The Jammed is the cinematic equivalent of having a bucket of cold water thrown into your face.
The film kicks off with a traditionally frenetic "what the hell is going on?" opening sequence as an illegal immigrant working as a prostitute undergoes interrogation in an immigration office, on the verge of being deported.
We then jump back in time a mere three weeks for the back-story and are introduced to five women. Crystal (Emma Lung), Vanya (Saskia Burmeister) and Rubi (Sun Park) have been imported into Australia with false papers and forced to work as prostitutes. Sunee (Amanda Ma) is a frightened Chinese mother with a purse full of cash looking for her missing daughter.
Linking these women is Ashley (Veronica Sywack), a bored, single insurance clerk who unwittingly becomes involved in the search when she meets Sunee while picking up somebody at the airport.
Reluctant at first to help this stranger, Ashley is overtaken by growing compassion for her plight, first putting up missing posters on poles then pressing an ex-boyfriend into service to help her out. She, of course, has no idea how nasty and violent the underworld is, and at one point is the recipient of the most violent verbal threat since Robert De Niro told Nick Nolte in Cape Fear that he was going to learn about loss.
The film is unrelenting in its detailed dramatic exposition of the physical and psychological conditions these women endure. It also explains how criminal brothel owners are able to enslave women without the need for chains, and without the fear that they will run off at the first opportunity and tell the police.
The story rides on a strong undercurrent of information about the Melbourne sex slave trade, reflecting the extensive research that went into the film. Thankfully, though, the film does not sidestep its duty to tell a story by resorting to the docu-drama format.
The film's primary obligation is not as a public service announcement but to deliver an engrossing dramatic thriller. Dee McLachlan deserves an award for the quality of her direction of that rarest of all beasts - a finely honed screenplay.
Every frame of the film breathes with authenticity, whether it is showing how bored Ashley is with her desk job, how women can be forced to become prostitutes, or why anyone would sit motionless while her tormentor urinates over her.
And though there are some nasty characters here, McLachlan avoids easy stereotypes. Even as one brothel owner disciplines a girl by repeatedly raping her - a singularly harrowing scene - there is an implicit understanding of what violence will happen to him if he does not bring her into line.
The performances throughout are outstanding, even in the minor roles, but the work of young Melbourne actress Emma Lung is a revelation. As the naive Shanghai woman who has come to Australia "to be a dancer on the table", Lung is positively spellbinding. You need to remind yourself that this is the same actress from Peaches and the TV series Cooks. The same applies to Saskia Burmeister. It really is the same girl from Hating Alison Ashley.
In terms of type of films the Australian industry should be making, The Jammed, easily the best local film of 2007, serves as a perfect contrast to Lucky Miles, which is easily the worst.
Despite the praise it has received, Lucky Miles represents the type of flaccid, one-act film we thought we had seen the last of with Somersault. It basks in the illusion of topicality while failing to make good the promise of its opening 20 minutes.
The Jammed, on the other hand, is contemporary, immediate, vital, controversial and enthralling to behold. Like Wolf Creek and The Proposition, it uses the conventions of genre as a narrative template to tell a unique, and uniquely Australian, story.
Regrettably, the film has managed only a limited release at the Nova until 29 August. Please don't miss it.
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