Event

PALM BEACH

dir. Albie Thoms, 1980
88 minutes. Australia.

Paul was looking for work Joe was looking for drugs Leilani was looking for good times Larry was looking for Leilani They all ended up in

Four characters, all misfits of a sort, cross paths over one weekend on the northern beaches of Sydney. Leilani (Amanda Berry) is a runaway 16-year-old; Larry (John Flaus) is a private eye whos looking for her; Joe (Ken Brown) needs to score some LSD to get him out of trouble. Paul (Bryan Brown) is unemployed and broke, until he steals a gun.

Described as the ultimate surf movie, PALM BEACH is an entirely different kind of magnum opus from MARINETTI: a restless multi-character drama (anticipating the hyperlink cinema of the 90s and 2000s) centered on these disparate plotlines, each shot in long tracking-shot takes. It is a peerless feat of improvisation drawn in just over a hundred shots; what really sticks is Thoms use of overlapping dialogue and diagetic audio to stitch scenes together, a daring juxtaposition that grates in the fleeting moment but creates an overwhelming depiction of society as blissed out as it is logjammed.

PALM BEACH is a film of casual but cunning construction [] a terrible reminder that there are people of great ability who have never been able to pursue their craft in the Australian film industry, while dozens of mediocrities have had the chance to squander countless dollars and a multitude of opportunities. Geoff Gardiner, Australian Film 1978-1992