Australian movies are full of camp: the vulgar shriek of real life. The cast of most Australian movies wouldn’t get work playing gargoyles in America…and yet, in the movies of P.J. Hogan, Baz Luhrmann, et al, aesthetic ruin is celebrated, even beloved. The comb-over, that three-legged dog of a hair-style, is to Australian movies what a baseball cap is to America; it tells the viewer: here’s life, beat up…and yet, weirdly, resplendent. In Australian movies, men and women are festooned with flagrant collapse. They dress like they are trying to confuse satellites. They advertise imperfection. As the latest in this long and bumpy line, the new movie Mary and Max proves that even Australian animation is besotted with grotesques.
Posted by jtatham 
