Goodbye paradise (AFC)

Cited by Scott Murray as “one of the most underrated films of the post-1970s revival” ‘Goodbye Paradise’ freely references film-noir conventions including the voice-over and the hero as world-weary outsider. Set in a hyper-corrupt Queensland on the verge of a right-wing coup, the films follows a boozy investigative journalist (Ray Barrett) who stumbles upon the coup plot while searching for a senator’s wayward daughter. Murray describes the film as a ‘very clever piece of controlled fabulation which bursts out of genre strictures into liberating anarchy. Having the absolute courage of its convictions, it takes ideas and boldly pushes them beyond the safe and into a poetic and powerful hyper-realism’. Reference: ‘Australian Film 1978-1994’ Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995, p. 128. Winner of AFI 1982 Best Actor - Ray Barrett, Best Screenplay. Cast also includes Robyn Nevin, Guy Doleman, Lex Marinos, Paul Chubb and Kate Fitzpatrick.