Dimboola

Australia 1979

Dir: John Duigan

85 mins

Cast: Bruce Spence, Natalie Bate, Max Gillies; based on the play Dimboola by Jack Hibberd

Rating: M

Based on the smash hit play of the same name by Jack Hibberd that was performed with a good deal of physical vigour and audience participation at Carlton’s Pram Factory, a focal point of counter-cultural activity at the time, Dimboola has been broadened from the single set wedding reception of the theatrical original to the story of the travails of Morrie (Bruce Spence) and Maureen (Natalie Bate) as they essay the institution of Holy Matrimony in their small home town of that name.

Scripted by Hibberd and made on a budget of $350,000, the film is on one level a concatenation of typical Aussie ratbags and oddballs doing typically dim-witted Aussie things, usually whilst chucking back a tinnie and trying to crack onto a sheila. To justify the display of heart-warming barbarisms, a semi-anthropological device is contrived of having a visiting English journalist (Max Gillies) in town to study the quaint ways of the natives, who periodically opines on such via a voice-over.

Although Duigan's Dimboola resembles the Ocker sex comedies like the Alvin Purple and Barry Mackenzie, films that fuelled the revival of the Australian film industry in the early 1970s, coming as it did at the end of the 70s the film was generally viewed as flogging a horse that had run its race and regarded as a significant disappointment given its well-considered theatrical origin. In hindsight and free of cultural cringe, its irreverent exuberance gives the film a certain charm whilst occasionally a satirical light peeks through, lifting it above the more purely exploitational examples of the style.

Bernard Hemingway, cinephilia.com.au

Poor old Bruce Spence; in the course of the film he has to down, all in one go, a big glass of milk, one beer and a bottle of what looks like Advokaat. But then in Dimboola, drinking is a widespread practice and even the clergy indulge. Based on his own play, Jack Hibberd's screenplay is as rumbuctious as a feisty Aussie outback town, and John Duigan's spirited direction gives the film a sizzling pace. In today's environment, the film seems tame, but it's a gem that celebrates what is a sadly passing Australian ethos.

In the characters and their attitudes are the embers of a social code that combines the larrikin spirit with the big heart of a community that recognises that humanity is weak - but never too weak to share a drink.

Bruce Spence is the gangling funny Morrie, an innocent tricked into sin; Max Gillies is the outsider, the London reporter who sees it all from his own vantage point - and is seduced by the place and its people. Natalie Bate is a lovely bride and Max Cullen makes up half the entertaining duo with Chad Morgan.

Invite some friends, order a pizza, grab a beer or two and enjoy a slice of Australia of not-so-long-ago.

Andrew L. Urban, Urban Cinephile