Wednesday, September 5, 2007
THE JAMMED FOUR STAR REVIEW IN THE ADELAIDE ADVERTISER...
When you've had your arm twisted to pick up a stranger from the airport, you don't expect to end up in Melbourne's seedy underworld. Ashley reluctantly offers to help an Asian woman search for her missing daughter. It emerges that the daughter maybe a victim of the sex slave trade, a world that Ashley knows little about.
Rated:
Director:
Dee McLachlan
Running Time:
89 mins
Stars:
Emma Lung, Veronica Sywak, Saskia Burmeister
Movie Review
Rating: 4 stars
Vicky Roach
THIS taut Australian thriller about the sex slave trade has generated an almost unprecedented level of hype.Initially slated for a oneoff Sydney screening, The Jammed now has a wider theatrical release on the back of rave reviews by ABC TV and a Melbourne critic.The enthusiastic critical response to the film is thoroughly deserved. Dee McLachlan's deft direction of her own well-crafted screenplay is supported by strong performances from a solid young cast.Veronica Sywak deserves special mention for the breakout role of Ashley Hudson, an ordinary woman who finds herself in an extraordinary situation.Through a thoroughly convincing group of circumstances, the newly single office worker finds herself adopted by a Chinese mother (Amanda Ma) who has come to Melbourne to lookfor her missing daughter. The search for Rubi (Sun Park), who may or may not want to be found, leads Ashley deeper and deeper into Melbourne's underworld, a place she didn't even know existed.It's a clever narrative device.Like Ashley, most Australians imagine crimes like human trafficking occur only in third world countries. Her journey is an eye-opener, rupturing the familiar fabric of our society.The film, which was inspired by newspaper articles and court transcripts, also shows how relatively simple it is to enslave sex workers by retaining their passports and keeping their money. An illegal immigrant, whose only other option is a detention centre, is hardly going to go to the police.If I have one criticism of the film, it's the casting of Emma Lung in the lead role of Crystal.The actress does a good job in terms of an accent and postural transformation, but it's still difficult to buy her as a Chinese immigrant, even after the screenplay's explanation that she has an English father. The fact that Lung is so obviously acting, with a capital "A", jars with the film's otherwise realistic tone.Saskia Burmeister, however, is completely credible as her Russian counterpart.A standout example of the can-do school of filmmaking.
Rated:
Director:
Dee McLachlan
Running Time:
89 mins
Stars:
Emma Lung, Veronica Sywak, Saskia Burmeister
Movie Review
Rating: 4 stars
Vicky Roach
THIS taut Australian thriller about the sex slave trade has generated an almost unprecedented level of hype.Initially slated for a oneoff Sydney screening, The Jammed now has a wider theatrical release on the back of rave reviews by ABC TV and a Melbourne critic.The enthusiastic critical response to the film is thoroughly deserved. Dee McLachlan's deft direction of her own well-crafted screenplay is supported by strong performances from a solid young cast.Veronica Sywak deserves special mention for the breakout role of Ashley Hudson, an ordinary woman who finds herself in an extraordinary situation.Through a thoroughly convincing group of circumstances, the newly single office worker finds herself adopted by a Chinese mother (Amanda Ma) who has come to Melbourne to lookfor her missing daughter. The search for Rubi (Sun Park), who may or may not want to be found, leads Ashley deeper and deeper into Melbourne's underworld, a place she didn't even know existed.It's a clever narrative device.Like Ashley, most Australians imagine crimes like human trafficking occur only in third world countries. Her journey is an eye-opener, rupturing the familiar fabric of our society.The film, which was inspired by newspaper articles and court transcripts, also shows how relatively simple it is to enslave sex workers by retaining their passports and keeping their money. An illegal immigrant, whose only other option is a detention centre, is hardly going to go to the police.If I have one criticism of the film, it's the casting of Emma Lung in the lead role of Crystal.The actress does a good job in terms of an accent and postural transformation, but it's still difficult to buy her as a Chinese immigrant, even after the screenplay's explanation that she has an English father. The fact that Lung is so obviously acting, with a capital "A", jars with the film's otherwise realistic tone.Saskia Burmeister, however, is completely credible as her Russian counterpart.A standout example of the can-do school of filmmaking.
VERONICA SYWAK INTERVIEWED INFILM..
Australian cinema’s surprise success story of 2007 is The Jammed (now playing in cinemas), a hard-hitting expose on illegal prostitution in Melbourne. Starring Veronica Sywak, who campaigned relentlessly to get it released, The Jammed was given the cold shoulder by the local film industry until it eventually found a national audience. Sywak talks to Luke Buckmaster about her incredible experiences on and off the set.
In the late 90's Melbourne entrepreneur Gary Glazner ran two pubs well known for strip shows and scantily clad women. His reputation however belonged to a more insidious mantle: Glazner was also known as one of the biggest traffickers of women in the city. Glazner brought at least twenty Thai women into Australia; they lived in premises provided by him and were forced to work as prostitutes at various spots in CBD. He kept their passports, controlled their movements and earned around $1 million from their labour. But when police finally caught up with Glazner he wasn't charged with anything as serious as trafficking or false imprisonment, instead, Melbourne's number one sex slave operator went to trail charged with five counts of being an unlicensed service provider and two counts of living partly off the earnings of prostitution. In December 2001 Glazner was issued an eighteen month fully suspended sentence and a fine of $33,000.
Fast forward five years and Veronica Sywak is door knocking in the CBD. She is coasting between brothels, quizzing prostitutes about their thoughts and experiences in the sex industry - how do they get through their days? What do they think about when they're with their clients? What do they know about human trafficking and the sex slave trade? Sywak is researching for her new role in a controversial, culture-exposing film called The Jammed. At one stage the screenplay was so intense she literally threw it down in disgust; it is a hard-hitting expose on the grimy culture of illegal prostitution.
"The simple reason why human traffic has proliferated in this country," says Sywak, "is basic commerce - supply and demand. A million dollars a week is made from the work of these women. Someone is cashing out. Someone is putting their AMEX down. Someone is pulling hundred dollar bills from their wallet."
A few years after Gary Glazner's trial, filmmaker Dee McLachlan studied the court transcripts and began writing The Jammed. Sywak plays Ashley, a career woman who reluctantly assists Chinese visitor Sunee (Amanda Ma) in the search for her missing daughter. Rubi (Sun Park) is trapped in exactly the kinds of circumstance Glazner took advantage of. Like her colleagues Vanya (Saskia Burmeister) and Crystal (Emma Lung) Rubi is caught in an inextricable rut of prostitution and illegal citizenship. If she goes to the police, she gets deported. If she stays in Australia, she waves the right to her body. Sywak believes the sex slave industry is not just proliferating in Australia, but also operating right in front of our eyes.
"It's so easy to spot these places," she says. "If you look in sex directories at the back of local papers, you can tell illegal brothels where there are trafficked girls. They say 'new girls every week, all Asian,' blah blah blah. It's just so obvious."
"The Jammed is a G rated version of what is happening. There was a brothel in Port Melbourne with underage boys and girls from South East Asia. Really scary stuff, and it's happening in our most affluent suburbs."
In the late 90's Melbourne entrepreneur Gary Glazner ran two pubs well known for strip shows and scantily clad women. His reputation however belonged to a more insidious mantle: Glazner was also known as one of the biggest traffickers of women in the city. Glazner brought at least twenty Thai women into Australia; they lived in premises provided by him and were forced to work as prostitutes at various spots in CBD. He kept their passports, controlled their movements and earned around $1 million from their labour. But when police finally caught up with Glazner he wasn't charged with anything as serious as trafficking or false imprisonment, instead, Melbourne's number one sex slave operator went to trail charged with five counts of being an unlicensed service provider and two counts of living partly off the earnings of prostitution. In December 2001 Glazner was issued an eighteen month fully suspended sentence and a fine of $33,000.
Fast forward five years and Veronica Sywak is door knocking in the CBD. She is coasting between brothels, quizzing prostitutes about their thoughts and experiences in the sex industry - how do they get through their days? What do they think about when they're with their clients? What do they know about human trafficking and the sex slave trade? Sywak is researching for her new role in a controversial, culture-exposing film called The Jammed. At one stage the screenplay was so intense she literally threw it down in disgust; it is a hard-hitting expose on the grimy culture of illegal prostitution.
"The simple reason why human traffic has proliferated in this country," says Sywak, "is basic commerce - supply and demand. A million dollars a week is made from the work of these women. Someone is cashing out. Someone is putting their AMEX down. Someone is pulling hundred dollar bills from their wallet."
A few years after Gary Glazner's trial, filmmaker Dee McLachlan studied the court transcripts and began writing The Jammed. Sywak plays Ashley, a career woman who reluctantly assists Chinese visitor Sunee (Amanda Ma) in the search for her missing daughter. Rubi (Sun Park) is trapped in exactly the kinds of circumstance Glazner took advantage of. Like her colleagues Vanya (Saskia Burmeister) and Crystal (Emma Lung) Rubi is caught in an inextricable rut of prostitution and illegal citizenship. If she goes to the police, she gets deported. If she stays in Australia, she waves the right to her body. Sywak believes the sex slave industry is not just proliferating in Australia, but also operating right in front of our eyes.
"It's so easy to spot these places," she says. "If you look in sex directories at the back of local papers, you can tell illegal brothels where there are trafficked girls. They say 'new girls every week, all Asian,' blah blah blah. It's just so obvious."
"The Jammed is a G rated version of what is happening. There was a brothel in Port Melbourne with underage boys and girls from South East Asia. Really scary stuff, and it's happening in our most affluent suburbs."
To read the full interview head over to: http://www.infilm.com.au/features/sywakandthejammed.html
AUSSIE MOVIE OF THE YEAR SAYS THE WEEKLY TIMES..
The Jammed is Aussie ‘Movie of the Year’!
Australian movie ‘The Jammed’ has proved an instant box office smash hit following its release last week and nomination as “the Australian Movie of the Year” by the critics.
The film nearly didn’t see light of day in a movie house but for the grit and determination of Epping’s John L Simpson of fledgling Titan View distribution company.
John L Simpson had to take a second mortgage on his family home to raise money to fund the screening of the newly acclaimed masterpiece of storyline, acting and direction.
Overnight the film has gained international attention and demand following rave reviews including four and a half star ratings from Melbourne’s The Age newspaper’s Jim Schembri and now the same from The Sydney Morning Herald film critic.
ABC TV’s David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz also acclaimed it best Australian film of the year with a four star rating.
The Jammed is a dramatic social thriller about human trafficking, illegal prostitution and government deportation inspired by actual events and court transcripts.
The film is currently screening at The Palace Verona Paddington and The Palace Norton Street and The Hayden Orpheum Cremorne.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
FILMINK REVIEWS THE JAMMED.....
THE JAMMED
Rating
MA
Time
89 minutes
Country
Released
August 30
...tough, moving and eye opening...
Initially headed direct to DVD, a glowing and rallying review on the ABC’s influential At The Movies has resulted in debut writer/director Dee McLachlan’s dramatic thriller The Jammed getting snatched up for a quick cinematic run. Thankfully, the film is gutsy and topical enough to stand on its own, and should rate as more than just a little film with an interesting back story.Through the eyes of everyday paper-pusher Ashley Hudson (an impressively natural and unaffected turn from Veronica Sywak), we are drawn into the ugly, brutal, shadowy world of people smuggling and sex trafficking in Melbourne. Though essentially an innocent bystander, Ashley soon finds herself an unlikely participant in the lives of three young women – Crystal (Emma Lung), Vanya (Saskia Burmeister) and Rubi (Sun Park) – who have been sold as sex slaves, and ply their trade in a seedy brothel owned by the outwardly respectable Vic Glassman (Andrew S. Gilbert). Taut and consistently gripping, The Jammed truly succeeds when it sticks to the personal side of the story. The plot strand involving Crystal, Vanya and Rubi is so loaded with emotion that it comes through with ravaging force. Their horrific plight and the fact that it’s happening in our backyard adds great weight to the film, while the powerful performances of the three actresses hammer things home to great effect. The framing story involving Ashley is not quite as impressive, despite Sywak’s strong work. Her coincidental involvement is never quite plausible, and the thriller-style elements that she drags into proceedings largely detract from the very personal story that is at the heart of this tough, moving and eye opening film.
-Erin Free
THE JAMMED REVIEWED IN BRISBANE'S WESTENDER
"The Jammed" - Australian Thriller Reveals A Dark Underbelly In Human Trafficking
- Megan Yarrow
One of the Australian films that screened at this year's Brisbane International Film Festival is 'The Jammed', a story set amidst the human trafficking and illegal prostitution that is taking place in our cities
The film begins as Crystal (Emma Lung), a young Indonesian girl, is questioned by immigration officials and about to be sent to a detention centre. It then shifts back three weeks, as insurance clerk Ashley Hudson (Veronica Sywak) is drawn into Melbourne's sinister underworld when she reluctantly agrees to help a Thai woman Sunee (Amanda Ma) find her daughter Rubi (Sun Park).
Speaking at the BIFF screening of 'The Jammed', writer and director Dee McLachlan said that her film presents a "huge cultural calamity" currently taking place in Australia. "This is about displaced people," she said, referring to the victims of human trafficking - 30% of whom have no idea they will be working as prostitutes.
"They work for nothing, and then get deported," she said. Ms McLachlan said that the inspiration for 'The Jammed' came from a series of court cases, in particular the case of Gary Glasner who in the late 1990s, was found guilty of violations of the Victorian Prostitution Control Act (the federal slavery and sexual servitude legislation had not been introduced at that stage). Glazner received a penalty of 18 months imprisonment (fully suspended for two years) and a $31,000 fine.
According to Ms McLachlan, one criticism of the film, put to her by a human rights advocate was that the girls should have been shown working in a legal brothel, because in reality, that's where they are. Actress Veronica Sywak (who had initially auditioned for the role of Vanya - played by Saskia Burmesiter) also spoke at the screening. Of her role as Ashley, Ms Sywak said she had to "plumb the depths of human debauchery and sadness." "It was an incredibly emotionally charged set," she said. Ms McLachlan said that such was the potency of the subject matter, on difficult days the assistance of a "talent alignment" person was sought for counselling purposes.
“The Jammed' is a powerful piece of cinema that delves into Australia's dark underbelly - a confronting and unpleasant place - that like Ashley Hudson, many of us would prefer to turn our back on. It was interesting to see Debra Lawrence (Pippa from 'Home & Away') in the role of the heartless DIMIA Case Officer, and Kate Atkinson ('Seachange's' Constable Karen Miller) as Ashley's detached, middle class friend Gabi.
'The Jammed' screens exclusively in Brisbane at the Dendy from August 30.
- Megan Yarrow
One of the Australian films that screened at this year's Brisbane International Film Festival is 'The Jammed', a story set amidst the human trafficking and illegal prostitution that is taking place in our cities
The film begins as Crystal (Emma Lung), a young Indonesian girl, is questioned by immigration officials and about to be sent to a detention centre. It then shifts back three weeks, as insurance clerk Ashley Hudson (Veronica Sywak) is drawn into Melbourne's sinister underworld when she reluctantly agrees to help a Thai woman Sunee (Amanda Ma) find her daughter Rubi (Sun Park).
Speaking at the BIFF screening of 'The Jammed', writer and director Dee McLachlan said that her film presents a "huge cultural calamity" currently taking place in Australia. "This is about displaced people," she said, referring to the victims of human trafficking - 30% of whom have no idea they will be working as prostitutes.
"They work for nothing, and then get deported," she said. Ms McLachlan said that the inspiration for 'The Jammed' came from a series of court cases, in particular the case of Gary Glasner who in the late 1990s, was found guilty of violations of the Victorian Prostitution Control Act (the federal slavery and sexual servitude legislation had not been introduced at that stage). Glazner received a penalty of 18 months imprisonment (fully suspended for two years) and a $31,000 fine.
According to Ms McLachlan, one criticism of the film, put to her by a human rights advocate was that the girls should have been shown working in a legal brothel, because in reality, that's where they are. Actress Veronica Sywak (who had initially auditioned for the role of Vanya - played by Saskia Burmesiter) also spoke at the screening. Of her role as Ashley, Ms Sywak said she had to "plumb the depths of human debauchery and sadness." "It was an incredibly emotionally charged set," she said. Ms McLachlan said that such was the potency of the subject matter, on difficult days the assistance of a "talent alignment" person was sought for counselling purposes.
“The Jammed' is a powerful piece of cinema that delves into Australia's dark underbelly - a confronting and unpleasant place - that like Ashley Hudson, many of us would prefer to turn our back on. It was interesting to see Debra Lawrence (Pippa from 'Home & Away') in the role of the heartless DIMIA Case Officer, and Kate Atkinson ('Seachange's' Constable Karen Miller) as Ashley's detached, middle class friend Gabi.
'The Jammed' screens exclusively in Brisbane at the Dendy from August 30.
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