Influenced
by Ken Loach's style and guided by talented
Australian directors like Ana Kokinos,
Rowan Woods and Fred Schepisi, Vincent
Giarrusso's directorial debut Mallboy
reaches the screen with an impeccable
pedigree. Giarrusso who also composed
some of the music spent time with
directors in mentor relationships, to
get a crash course in filmmaking under
th
the guidance of
producer Fiona Eagger.
The
script started out as a long 'poem'. Its
cinematic imagery was triggered by his
personal experiences as a youth worker,
at which time he had the frustration of
seeing kids who needed help being failed
by the system. Shaun, the central character
of Mallboy, is based on
one of the kids he met "who had
huge potential," says the director, "but
ended up following in his father's footsteps
into petty crime and drug addiction. Shaun
represents a more optimistic view of how
such a kid might end up.
"I
wanted to make a film about a 15-year-old
that was complex, that didn't push the
easy buttons, that wasn't undermining
and that didn't just view a 15-year-old
as some moronic consumer product," he
continues. "I wanted it to have psychological
depth. Shaun is on the cusp between being
a boy and being an adult. He can make
a choice..."
"On
the surface," says producer Eagger, "Mallboy
is a simple story just three days
in this boy's life but in those three
days you're introduced to a world that is
incredibly complex and fragile. What appealed
to me about the script is that it is not
patronising to
its
characters. It's compassionate, funny
but not sentimental. There are moments
of real laughter and moments that are
absolutely devastating."
The
six lead youngsters were cast from Melbourne's
pool of young actors. "Largely due to
the amount of children's television being
produced in Melbourne, the calibre of
the young actors was outstanding," explains
Eagger.
Intensive
work in pre-production paid off during
the shoot, says Giarrusso. He collaborated
closely with cinematog-rapher Brendan
Lavelle, the first assistant director,
the editor and the script supervisor in
developing a shot list and storyboards,
to ensure that his intention for each
scene was clear.
"We
wanted the camera subconsciously to reflect
that these weren't characters you laughed
at and put in a box from a middle class
point of view," says Lavelle. "Rather,
you are led gently into their stories
and they have a status within the story
their own worth within their own
world and that's how they saw their
lives, too."
Andrew
L Urban
