Happy endings in Australia

I'm keen to take an Australian film to Chile, to show them what my country's like. One set in suburbia that captures the spirit of our culture, is neither violent nor depressing and would make sense to someone not familiar with Australian culture (thus ruling out The Castle, sadly). The last criteria is a particularly challenging one, as I'm sure you're aware. (One critic described Australian films as "so dispiriting that they make Leonard Cohen seem positively cheery".) The films I watched were Peaches, One Perfect Day, Danny Deckchair (well, half-watched), Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger, Till Human Voices Wake Us, Prime Mover, Mullet, Ten Empty, Two Fists One Heart, Strange Planet, Travelling Light (half-watched), Three Dollars, and Two Hands. A mixed bag. A few were self-consciously Australian, not in an exuberant, Crocodile Dundee sort of way or in an earnest, Australia sort of way, but in a mildly ironic, emblematic, indie sort of way. Prime Mover, Mullet, and Travelling Light are the ones I'm thinking of. Plus some, like Peaches and Strange Planet, which also had a quietly hopeful, prosaic plot.

Some moved beyond this quiet, suburban irony by exploring subcultures, raving in One Perfect Day, boxing in Two Fists One Heart; teenage experience, Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger, Travelling Light, Till Human Voices Wake Us; and the criminal world, Two Hands. Danny Deckchair was one of those gentle, self-mocking comedies that I don't find funny. Ten Empty was your typical, unredemptive tale of family dysfunction. Till Human Voices Wake Us delved into fantasy and magic realism.

Prime Mover and Mullet were both good, but my favourites were Three Dollars, a sincere, character-driven, redemptive story of a seemingly ordinary man's downfall; Two Fists One Heart, a believably complex story about boxing, fathers and sons, girlfriends, and Australian-Italian culture; and Two Hands, an entertaining fast-paced tale of an unwilling crim. This won the coverted prize of Going In Fiona's Suitcase, for its laconic, unhurried conversations. These three were excellent films, and gave me hope that we can produce hopeful, winsome, sophisticated films after all.