Rochelle Simmons

The Suburb in Jane Campion's Films

Not only do most Australians live in suburbs, but also the suburb is frequently portrayed in Australian cinema, to the extent that quirky suburban comedy has been seen as the dominant way of presenting the Australian way of life in the feature films of the 1990s. Similarly, the suburb is central to Jane Campion's films, yet it is depicted in disturbing as well as in lighthearted terms. Her short film Passionless Moments (1983) presents ten fleeting moments of insight that are characteristically ironic and throwaway, but that collectively record and even celebrate the quotidian details of suburban life. Another short film, A Girl's Own Story (1984), explores adolescent crushes and sexual relationships within an incestuous and adulterous family setting, and it treats its suburban backdrop in critical terms. Although it came out in 1989, Campion's first feature film, Sweetie (1989), incorporates some of the common features of 1990s Australian cinema, according to Tom O'Regan, including eccentricity, individuality and alienation within everyday environments. Its depiction of the suburb is darkly comic. Like Sweetie, Holy Smoke (1999) contrasts an artificial and superficial suburban environment with an “authentic” desert locale. Further, in Holy Smoke, New Delhi functions like the desert, in that both places promote spiritual and emotional growth, whereas the suburb is inimical to such development.

In his book SuburbiaNation (2004), Robert Beurka claims that representations of the suburb in American film are typically either utopian or dystopian and that there is a dearth of films that present a more inflected view. Campion's depictions tend to be similarly polarized and they are dominated by negative images. These critical portrayals of the suburb often borrow American tropes: Campion refers to David Lynch's films in particular. However, the suburb can also be a site of resistance to hegemonic Hollywood influences. This paper draws upon research in Australian Cultural Studies, like Ferber, Healy and McAuliffe's influential Beasts of Suburbia (1994), to suggest that positive views of the suburb in Campion's film, such as we see in Passionless Moments, partly constitute an effort to record local social and cultural practices. Overall, Campion's treatment of the suburb emphasizes both its menacing and its everyday Australian aspects.

Biography

Rochelle Simmons studied English and Art History at the University of Auckland and gained a PhD in English from the University of Toronto. She now teaches courses on American Literature, Textuality and Visuality, and Cubism in Literature and Film in the Department of English at the University of Otago. In the past she has taught New Zealand cinema and this is an area in which she is still doing research. She has a chapter on The Piano forthcoming in 24 Frames: Australian and New Zealand Cinema from Wallflower Press. She is currently writing a book on John Berger's fiction, art criticism, and filmmaking.