ATAHAN – Feature Film….more

Bejesus! Wow! Incredible!

This is an interesting, strongly cinematic story that starts when a reckless
bank robber robs three banks in a row (running from one bank to the next)
in downtown Central Sydney.

And it’s true.

It’s a richly detailed treatment — full of the real and unexpected, full of beautiful
human weaknesses, and stupid human venal courage. A rollercoaster, helter-
skelter heist, siege, chase movie, like something Michael Mann might do. Or Sidney Lumet. Or John Frankenheimer. It’s brilliant. This could make an excellent groundbreaking movie.

Despite the US name-checking above, it feels like one of these new wave Korean or Taiwanese movies — that strange heightened steely-polished realism they do. Coldness as unbearable horror and warmth. This story and its telling is fresh and bold and cold and real. Distinctive and refreshing.

It’s crazy, mad and unimaginable. Truth here is not only stranger than fiction, it’s a darn sight more cinematic than most movies — when here the gods are having their fun.

What’s great about this story is it mocks reality somehow — the absurdity of the real and of the violent. In desperate situations, journalists do jump into taxis and shout, “follow that car”.

Quote: “In retrospect, it was like something out of a Keystone Cops movie. The car we commandeered was full of reporters and photographers. There were pressmen hanging onto the back. When Norm looked to the back and saw one of the reporters was from a rival newspaper, he stopped the car in the middle of the Harbour Bridge and chucked the reporter off.”

But really it’s the psychology of the central character, the small time crook who cracked and went for broke, that holds the whole thing together. It’s like a deranged DOG DAY AFTERNOON, but gone kinda modern and multi-story-strand.

The plot unfolds unruly, just like in real life, yet miraculously (the skill in the writing) it plays as “story” with a solid beginning, middle and end thematic/emotional structure. It’s an excellent, strange, odd piece of work. A 21st century movie (about the early 80s).

The treatment is basically a clip-and-pasteing of news articles, interviews, etcetera, etcetera, but it reads as pure movie — the rhythm, tempo, structure and pacing of this treatment is impeccable. Just join the dots and colour the spaces. A writer’s fuck’n dream.

I hope they write the script with the same matter of fact manner they’ve written the treatment. The notes indicate they will. If they stuffed it up with (in this context) all that character development baloney, it would be an inappropriate cop-out. Forget that shit. This just tells it like it is and it works.

Please excuse the superlatives, but this is excellent. A gilt-edged hit. The climax is astounding.

All in all, this is a beautifully-measured, cool, calm and intelligent take on a very intriguing (and hilarious) story. The masterstroke is all the decisions the director has made so far. I know this may sound dumb, but the story tells itself, revealing the complex and compelling psycho(patho)logies of all its major players.

This is a film with a brilliant vision and an impeccably measured distance. Pure, pure cinema.

Highly recommended.

ATAHAN A Feature Film ($5 to $10 million)
A Bank Robber, a Cop and a Reporter – not a good mix
A TRUE STORY

The day is shaping up as a pretty ordinary one.

Norm Lipson has a hang-over the size of Mount Everest. A junior reporter at work has once again got the front page. And he’s just been given an assignment that’s more worthy of a first year cadet.

Not so long ago, if there was a big story breaking, Norm would be sent to cover it. His reputation as a journo is that he’ll do whatever it takes to get the ‘scoop’ – and if that includes liberal amounts of sweet-talking (a nicer way of saying lying), then so be it.

Unfortunately, when you expose the shonky dealings of a businessman who just happens to be good mates with the Managing Editor, you quickly find yourself assigned to writing the fishing column.

His personal life is in a similar state of disrepair. The so-called ‘sweet-talking’ might get you the story, but it won’t stop your wife from packing her bags and walking out.

Norm’s just about ready to tell his Editor to get stuffed, when he hears the call on the police scanner.

An armed bank robber has taken hostages at a nearby city branch.

Norm is determined to get the story and he’ll do whatever it takes.

Which is something Hakki Atahan understands. He’s determined to be re-united with his young daughter. He wasn’t planning on taking hostages. He wasn’t planning on anyone getting hurt. But if that’s what it takes, then so be it.

In certain respects, both men have been trading on dishonesty. Today is the day their lies will catch up with them.

Atahan Trailer