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| Going Down |
With a bold disregard for convention, director Haydn Keenan combines documentary and cinéma verité with Super 8 earthiness to craft this largely unnoticed landmark in Australian independent filmmaking.
Starring Tracy Mann,
Going Down takes its inspiration from the inner-city communal households of Australia's 1970s counterculture and is considerably more optimistic and less drug-oriented than other films of the period.
Look out for brief appearances by Gary Foley as a dance organisor and Claudia Karvan as a child whose toy panda is stolen.
Haydn Keenan writes:
"Remember running home from the cinema copying Superman or the cowboys you'd just seen. Well, do that after seeing
Going Down and you'll get locked up. This is a film which makes you want to head out to see some music, have a few drinks and a bit of the other. Made with all the joy, passion and care that real commitment brings; this film came out of nowhere to become a classic. Unlike nearly all its contemporaries,
Going Down had no 'chocolate box' settings, wide brown vistas, government money or tired middle class views. It's contemporary, youthful and urban. This is a film for, by, and about its audience. It's a true story which still speaks truly.
Going Down screened at the Sundance Film Festival as well as Newcastle on Tyne, Turin and Hof film festivals. Self-distributed, the film became a huge hit, running for 14 weeks in Sydney; but it died the death in Melbourne when we opened in Grand Final Week, during The Royal Show, and in a cinema which had been running porno the week before! With a title like
Going Down, we learnt a very hard lesson. With music by Randy Newman, Nick Cave, James Reyne and The Dynamic Hepnotics, this is a rip-roaring night on the town you won't forget."
January 2008
