Review: Dogs in Space

 

Set in Richmond, Victoria in the late 70s, this film follows the shambled, unkempt lives of a bunch of young druggies, amateur punk rockers, and general losers sharing a house that looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in about twenty years. Michael Hutchence plays the quiet-spoken, sleepy-looking Sam, whilst Saskia Post is his junkie girlfriend Anna. Other characters include University student Luchio (Tony Helou- whose character stands out like a sore thumb), and the lazily named ‘The Girl’ (Deanna Bond), a teenager who finds herself living at the house for a time. Lots of drugging, partying, and semi-coherent behaviour ensues. Oh, and for some reason, we get lots of news reports about the crash of Skylab, which was happening at the time, and even the Aussie MTV-like show “Countdown” gets played on TV at one point. Chris Haywood turns up as a weird, chainsaw-wielding uncle of one of the characters.

This 1986 film from writer-director Richard Lowenstein (“Strikebound”, “He Died with a Felafel in His Hand”) probably has a cult following, and not just because it stars the late INXS front man (and general wannabe Jim Morrison) Michael Hutchence in the lead role. I can see that some people would gravitate to this kind of thing, and apparently Lowenstein based several of the characters on people he knew (including one based on himself). However, I don’t see why they would, and frankly I think it’s an aimless, virtually plotless, grimy, scummy, pointless piece of shit. Is it true to life? I don’t know and I seriously don’t effing care.

It’s such a shambles that you couldn’t even call its structure ‘episodic’. It has no structure. Just stuff going on. Stuff, yet nothing, really goes on at all. I’ve heard its champions bandying around phrases like an ‘anarchic abandonment of traditional narrative structure’, but that’s just a way of justifying an aimless load of shit with no structure. I hate pretentious talk like that, because it’s so obviously false. The only thing saving this from getting the worst rating imaginable is that the classic song ‘Shivers’ gets played twice, once via a video clip by the Nick Cave-fronted Boys Next Door (later The Birthday Party), and the other a fairly decent cover version by someone named Marie Hoy. Sure, there’s cameos by Chris Haywood (is there any Aussie film in the 70s and 80s he wasn’t in?) and future Black Sorrows front man Joe Camilleri (and apparently a young Noah Taylor, but I never spotted him), but so what?

This is just 100 minutes of a bunch of scummy, druggie losers shambling about either in a stoned stupor, or in Hutchence’s case, a constant look of half-bewilderment and half ‘just got out of bed the morning after a late night booze session’. Hutchence, in fact, underplays and whispers so much that you won’t believe that this is the dynamic, much-loved (and much-missed) INXS lead singer. It’s only at the very end when an incongruous (and obvious) video clip for a Hutchence solo single plays that the real, charismatic Hutchence is on display (His earlier on-screen ‘singing’ in the band of the film’s title is pathetic, probably deliberately). Playing against type is fine, but he’s actually not really playing against type. Let’s just say that if you know how Michael Hutchence died in real-life, this film proves to be seriously depressing in an entirely unexpected way. Hutchence was a charismatic guy on stage, but seemed very shy, quietly-spoken and reticent off-stage, so I can’t exactly say his performance is a stretch for him, if he’s even giving a performance. There’s nothing charming, interesting, or insightful about his characterisation.

The real problem is, none of this is even remotely entertaining. The characters are all creeps, geeks, and losers, and exaggerated to boot. They’ve all seemingly based their performances on the ones Chris Haywood and David Argue gave in “Razorback”. It worked there, but not here where it’s too much for too long. Meanwhile, aside from the aforementioned songs, the music is absolutely shithouse. I mean, the title band are absolutely horrible, their songs are full of irritating feedback. Fans of the more obscure elements of punk music might gravitate to that kind of thing (it’s certainly not indicative of the more famous punk bands, though Iggy Pop is on the soundtrack and he has his fans), but I found it ear-splitting noise.

What’s the freaking point? There doesn’t appear to be any. Even if this film was designed to be a slice-of-life in a specific underground movement from a certain era, there still needs to be an actual point to it, beyond just capturing something that once was. This film doesn’t seem to have that necessary overall point, and basically nothing happens throughout. These characters just sit around doing drugs, ramble a lot, swear a whole lot, occasionally have sex (if they are coherent enough), and perform really bad music. The characters really don’t seem to have the energy to do anything worth watching, and the film itself is similarly interminably lethargic.

Sorry, but spending 100 minutes with junkies, losers and freaks living in an absolute shithole does nothing for me. Even though I’ve been able to enjoy some of the LSD-infused films of the 60s (and some biker films), this slice of late 70s life did nothing for met at all. I got absolutely nothing from this film. Nothing. Ugly to look at, too.

If you absolutely must get your fix of Aussie rock music and lowlife junkies, I’d suggest watching “Monkey Grip”. It’s not much good either, but it’s slightly more preferable, and Divinyls front woman Chrissie Amphlett (in a supporting role) is a much better actor and on-screen presence than Hutchence, on evidence here (He was a bit better in Roger Corman’s otherwise awful “Frankenstein Unbound”, though).

This is easily one of the worst Australian films ever made as far as I’m concerned, but if you’re an Aussie, you might want to see it at least once just so you can compare what Hutchence goes through here not only to his own personal life (which is not poignant, just sadly ironic and pathetically wasteful), but if you’ve watched “The X-Factor”, think about the film in relation to the wannabe-Hutchence 2010 winner Altiyan Childs. It’s a safe bet that he’s a huge fan of this film, I reckon.

Rating: D-