Sirens (film)
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| Sirens | |
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 DVD cover for Sirens |
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| Directed by | John Diugan |
| Produced by | Sue Milliken |
| Written by | John Duigan |
| Starring | Hugh Grant Tara Fitzgerald Sam Neill Elle Macpherson Portia de Rossi Kate Fischer Pamela Rabe Mark Gerber |
| Music by | Rachel Portman |
| Cinematography | Geoff Burton |
| Editing by | Humphrey Dixon |
| Distributed by | Miramax Films |
| Release date(s) | April 28, 1994 |
| Running time | 98 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | N/A |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Sirens is a 1994 film, written and directed by John Duigan, and set in Australia between the two World Wars. The film stars Hugh Grant as Tony, an Anglican priest, asked to visit a notorious artist (Norman Lindsay, based loosely on that real Australian artist and played here by Sam Neill) out of the church's concern about a blasphemous painting the artist plans to exhibit.
Estella, the priest's wife (played by Tara Fitzgerald), accompanies him on the visit to the artist's bucolic compound in the Blue Mountains. The artist's saucy models are played by Elle Macpherson and Kate Fischer; Lindsay's wife Jane (Pamela Rabe) also poses for him. Portia de Rossi (in her film debut) plays the maid who has just begun demurely modeling for him as well. Mark Gerber plays the partially blind Devlin, the "odd-job" man who also poses for Lindsay.
While both Grant and Neill play characters critical to the film's story, the film is really about Estella, who responds to the sensuality of her surroundings over the course of her visit to Lindsay's estate. Her relationship with Tony includes the intimacy and commitment needed in a well-rounded marriage, but is missing the passion, in all of that term's senses.
All of Estella's senses are engaged by the backdrop for the film, a lush and dangerous landscape filled with the distinctive flora and fauna of Australia. To the prim and proper English wife of a priest it's all quite exotic. Lindsay's voluptuous models (played by Macpherson and Fischer) live the libertine lives that Lindsay champions through his paintings and his animated postprandial conversations with her husband. Those scenes and conversations, and various brief glimpses of naked models and a naked Devlin, contribute to the stimulating environment.
The surroundings and the lives of the models are siren calls that lead Estella to fantasize, and (with encouragement from the models) act on a few of her impulses. She suffers morning-after remorse about a late-night encounter with Devlin, and perhaps influenced by supportive words from her husband (who had witnessed her acting on one of her impulses, though not the one with Devlin), the film ends with a playful scene between the two of them. The scene hints at the possibility that she may find passion with her husband after all.
A separate story arc follows de Rossi's character as she grows up under the influence of the two models. It intersects with the primary arc in the person of Devlin, to whom de Rossi's character is attracted.
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[edit] Trivia
The start of the film has Grant's character walking past paintings in the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, including:
- "Spring Frost" by Elioth Gruner,
- "The Golden Fleece" (1894) by Tom Roberts,
- "Still Glides the Stream and Shall Forever Glide" (1890) by Arthur Streeton,
- "Bailed Up" by Tom Roberts, and
- "Chaucer at the Court of Edward III" (1847-51) by Ford Madox Brown.
[edit] See also
- Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum, the original home of Lindsay now managed by the National Trust of Australia and the setting for most of the film
- List of movies set in Australia
[edit] External links
- Norman Lindsay Gallery Home Page
- Sirens at the Internet Movie Database
- Sirens at Rotten Tomatoes
- Entry for the film on the Australian Film Commission website
 Cinema of Australia |
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Film chronology: 1890s-1930s • 1940s-1970s • 1980s • 1990s • 2000s |
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