Karl Puschmann revisits and re-evaluates art from Aotearoa with a deep dive into 1997′s award-winning film Topless Women Talk About Their Lives.
The film opens with two women walking along an empty West Coast surf beach. They are talking about a movie script written by their friend.
“It’s a bit
“It’s not weird,” Liz replies, snatching the script out of Pru’s hands. Laughing, she rips the pages apart and begins tossing them into the crashing tide. “It’s crap!”
From out of nowhere a German tourist appears. He asks if they’re on the beach where Jane Campion filmed The Piano. He can’t hide his disappointment when they tell him no. Crumpled pages from the script begin washing back up on the shore at their feet.
The camera then zooms down to the pages floating in the water to reveal the title page of their friend’s “crap” film, Topless Women Talk About Their Lives.
This sort of hip, ironic, meta-referencing had washed over mid-90s pop culture like a winking, self-aware tsunami. In this regard, Topless Women is very much on trend. After the premiere of the fictional Topless Women Talk About Their Lives, the scriptwriter asks what people thought.
“It was a disaster, mate,” his friend tells him. “Everybody hated it. It sucked.”
Wink-wink.
Such negativity did not greet the actual movie Topless Women Talk About Their Lives when it hit cinemas in New Zealand in 1997. Instead, it was the talk of the town. Everybody loved it. It ruled. At the New Zealand Film Awards, it won eight categories, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.1997 was a huge year at the cinema. Mike Myers released his shagadelic spy spoof Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Quentin Tarantino followed up his global smash Pulp Fiction with the somber Jackie Brown. And director James Cameron launched his titanic romantic blockbuster Titanic.
Against these cinematic heavyweights, the punk rock flick from our own backyard held its own.
In the August 1997 issue of music magazine Real Groove, film critic Veronica McLaughlin said Topless Women was “destined to become a New Zealand classic”. Nicholas Reid of North & South scaled down his praise to comment that “its cult status [is] probably assured”.
Both were right. The local film community holds it in great affection. As do those who saw it back in the day. We cannot overstate the impact writer/director Harry Sinclair’s film had at the time. It was everywhere.
It has a lot going for it. A cast of our top acting talent and a kick-ass Flying Nun-centric soundtrack. The direction has a frenetic, ramshackle style that draws you in. And its progressive story was groundbreaking at the time, focusing as it does on 20-something Liz and her unwanted pregnancy. In an even rarer move, an actually pregnant Danielle Cormack stars in the lead role.
It’s labelled a comedy but the movie is more of a slice-of-life dramedy. There’s a dark streak shadowing its lighter feel. In an interview with National Radio’s Kim Hill in 2011, Harry revealed that before working on this film he’d been writing a “very dark thriller”. It’s fair to say that some of that DNA soaked into his work here. Few comedies feature a violent knife attack, a suicide attempt and grim death.
Topless Women Talk About Their Lives was born out of a scrappy micro-TV series of the same name. A viral hit before that was a thing, its four-minute episodes screened late at night on TV3. The show was a labour of love with Harry roping in his actor friends to make it with him.
The cast included Danielle as Liz, Willa O’Neil as her bestie Pru, Ian Hughes as the neurotic aspiring screenwriter Ant, and Joel Tobeck as bartender and Liz’s love interest Neil. All worked without pay every weekend to bring this show about a small group of 20-somethings going (and talking) about their lives to life.
“When I started making Topless Women that was something I did for free with friends,” Harry said. “It was a very liberating thing for me because, by working with the actors, it kind of generated a lighter spirit in my writing that was much more fun to watch.”
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
With its attention-grabbing title, DIY aesthetic, wry humour and innate Kiwiness, the show became a must-watch. So it was with a heavy heart that after 40-odd episodes Danielle told Harry she was pregnant. She’d accepted that this meant he’d have to write her out of the show.
Yet, Harry went the other way with it. He found himself excited by the story possibilities her pregnancy offered. He told Kim Hill that he rushed straight to the Film Commission to beg for funding to make a feature.
“I said, ‘Please give us the money quickly because she’s not going to be pregnant for long’.”
He got his money.
Danielle gives a charismatic, fearless and star-making performance as Liz. She carries the film as her character comes to terms with the pregnancy she’s forced to carry after missing her appointment at the abortion clinic and negotiates around the three men in her life — her current ex, recent ex, and an old ex.
There’s a degree of ambiguity over who the actual father is. Two of the three show varying degrees of interest in becoming a dad, but at no point does Liz lose any of her independence or go begging for them.
During a failed attempt at reconciliation in which one promises her the world her waters suddenly break.
“Do you want me to come along with you?” he asks with a hopeful smile, as she leaves her flat to go to the hospital. “No, don’t worry,” she replies, “I can do this by myself.”
The film also follows neurotic screenwriter Ant and his mental crisis over the poor reception of his film Topless Women Talk About Their Lives, the break-up of newlyweds Mike and Pru, and the cheating Geoff earning his comeuppance.
These disparate plots barrel towards each other before colliding with fatal consequences. It concludes in a moment of happiness, leaving the tragedy and darker threads to unspool in our imagination.
Harry described the writing of the movie as “interactive”. He’d assemble the cast, feed them ideas and find story angles out of what came up while they improvised. It could be something major like an improvised line that offers a new road to go down (“Do you love me?” “No.”) or something as minor as “a glance between the actors” which sparked something off.
The production flew by the seat of its pants, with Harry writing scenes the day before they had to shoot them. This approach gives the film undeniable energy and engaging immediacy, especially when coupled with Harry’s close-up and fast-moving shooting style. But it also leads to some confounding scripting.
The intense shock of the unexpected stabbing fails to have any repercussions or resolution in the film. That Mike and Pru would separate over Mike telling Ant the truth that his film stinks seems unlikely.
These stretch the movie’s credibility. The film’s also tainted by its displays of 90s toxic masculinity, verbal and physical. Liz and Pru are both called “bitch” during rows and, of course, there’s that sudden stabbing. It’s jarring to watch nowadays and ages the movie far more than its haircuts do.
But, you’re not supposed to sympathise with the men. A good thing because, for the most part, they’re not particularly likeable. Oliver Driver, in particular, does a great job hamming it up as the worst sort of wealthy wanker imaginable. With the exception of Shempal Lelisi’s character Mike, all the men in the film display a profound sense of entitlement that undercuts any growth their arcs provide. You’re left wondering what Liz saw in any of them.
One place where Topless Women remains ahead of the game is with its strong female characters. Liz is never needy of any of her past lovers. Pru leaves her husband over what she sees as a betrayal. And Bryony, played by Josephine Davis, is a love ‘em and leave ‘em type of gal who is more angered by Geoff’s feeble attempt at covering up his cheating than by his actual cheating. Hollywood is only now catching up to allowing strong female characters like these to lead a movie.
Radical and cutting edge at the time, its enlightened nature remains forward-thinking even today. Topless Women shows multi-cultural marriage, explores lesbianism, desexualizes breasts and dares to go close-up on wiry pubes. Of course, this only makes its imperfections more glaring today. Although even back then, overseas critics weren’t as enthused as our own.
Australian film critic Adrian Martin mauled the film, calling it “dull, witless, shapeless and ugly”.
Liz Armstong of America’s influential industry magazine Variety was also unimpressed. She didn’t dig the sound of our iconic record label Flying Nun, writing, “The almost nonstop music, which often threatens to drown out the strongly Kiwi-accented dialogue, is a questionable asset.” Before adding the brutal closer: “Other technical credits are serviceable.”
As always, today’s truth lies somewhere in the middle of the critics fawning and/or flaying. Even so, Topless Women Talk About Their Lives is still a classic. Auckland looks a lot different over two decades on, and few people still wear Soundgarden T-shirts or cut-off jeans over tights. But the messy romances and trials and tribulations that our protagonists live through will remain relatable to today’s 20-somethings.
In 2015, Flicks.co.nz editor Steve Newall wrote, “Harry Sinclair’s film is both a timeless portrayal of 20-somethings on the cusp of becoming actual adults as well a specific time capsule of Gen-X Auckland”.
For those of a certain age, Topless Women is nothing less than a nostalgia bomb as Liz and co. stomp up and down Queen St, K Rd and an inner-city filled with yellow buses, long closed bars and posters for gigs you’d give anything to rock out at now.
In his 1997 review for Next magazine, critic Matthew Bannister described the film as “urban, salty and in-your-face, like Shortland Street with spunk, like City Life with a brain and bodily functions.”
Topless Women Talk About Their Lives is about a very specific time in life when brains and bodily functions compete, and is set in a very specific, long-gone era. The film’s an enjoyable watch but there’s no denying that it’s also a little bit messy, conflicted, ugly and occasionally confusing. A lot, then, like life in your 20s.
Topless Women Talk About Their Lives can be streamed for $4.99 from NZfilm.co.nz
