Phillip Noyce, a fi lmmaker whose work challenges audiences with moral questions. real life

The unquiet Australian Phillip Noyce has directed 15 feature films, including Newsfront, Rabbit-Proof Fence and The Quiet American. JULIE McCROSSIN finds out what motivates him

y dad’s sister, Kath, was one African National Congress (ANC), receive information that would stop the slide into of the 21 nurses who were military training in Mozambique and single- anarchy they felt the ANC represented.” captured and killed during handedly blow up the Secunda oil refi nery. But in this era of the war on terror, some ‘M the Second World War in The fi lm also depicts the systematic use may fi nd the fi lm provocative because of its Borneo with Sister Bullwinkle, who was the of torture, including the torture of Patrick’s sympathetic portrayal of a man’s decision only one to escape,” Phillip Noyce says plainly. wife Precious (played by South African to set off a bomb. Catch a Fire is also “a love “Dad’s sister was bayoneted to death by Bonnie Henna) and Patrick’s imprisonment letter from two daughters to their father”. the Japanese. Dad spent a lot of time after on Robben Island, Nelson Mandela’s prison, Screenwriter Shawn Slovo and producer the war in Japan with my mother trying to for 10 years of a 24-year sentence. Robyn Slovo are the daughters of Joe Slovo, come to terms with the Japanese Bushido But Catch a Fire is not just about what a member of Nelson Mandela’s fi rst cabinet warrior code and trying to understand why a drives people to violence; it also deals in government, who led the military wing soldier would kill a non-combatant, or many with the motivation for reconciliation and of the ANC in armed resistance after the non-combatants, and how they could think forgiveness. At the close of the fi lm, we see Sharpeville massacre. This resistance included this was an honourable and justifi able act.” the real-life Patrick Chamusso running an the bombing of the Secunda oil refi nery, one Noyce, 58, is sitting in his rooftop orphanage for more than 80 children and of several refi neries bombed on a single night. apartment overlooking the sparkling beauty choosing not to pursue violent revenge Joe Slovo is portrayed in the fi lm training of Sydney Harbour. Our surroundings against the colonel of the Security Branch, Patrick in the skills of a saboteur. provide a stark contrast to the ugly story of Nic Voss (played with great complexity Noyce says the Slovo daughters — the 1942 sinking of the Vyner Brooke hospital and nuance by Tim Robbins), who was including a third sister, writer Gillian Slovo ship while it was fl eeing with wounded responsible for his capture and torture. — “were denied ongoing, close relationships passengers after the fall of Singapore, and Noyce describes his new fi lm as “a love with both their parents because they were the deaths of Australian nurses who were letter to South Africa”, which he sees as “a spirited out of South Africa and spent most marched back into the sea. beacon to the world in terms of confl ict of their lives in Britain”. Indeed, Shawn As a young boy in Griffi th in rural NSW, resolution”. In South Africa, he explains, Slovo described her sense of abandonment hearing of the shocking family trauma in “black and white were engaged in a struggle by her parents and the horror of her a foreign land was particularly painful. So to the death. They are the ones to show us, mother’s violent death in her award-winning it’s not surprising that questions about better than anyone else in the history of fi lm A World Apart. morality and violence are themes Noyce mankind, how to resolve confl ict.” This intimate family connection to the has explored in several fi lms. The questions The fi lm, he says, strives to tell both events depicted in the fi lm, combined with of when violence can be justifi ed, when it sides of the story: “We worked very closely the historical news footage and real-life cannot, and what motivates such human with many former police interrogators who images of people in the story, enhances behaviour are the core concerns of Noyce’s spoke very openly about the need to extract the emotional intensity of the movie and latest fi lm Catch a Fire, which has just been released in Australia. Catch a Fire vividly re-creates South Africa Noyce describes his new fi lm as ‘a love letter to South in the 1980s. It tells the true story of what Africa’, which he sees as ‘a beacon to the world in drives black South African Patrick Chamusso ➤ MAIN PHOTOGRAPH BY BAYTRIBE MEDIA AND SNAPPER BY BAYTRIBE MAIN PHOTOGRAPH (played by US actor Derek Luke) to join the terms of confl ict resolution’.

lifeetc 59 real life Left: Derek Luke as rebel Patrick Chamusso in challenges the audience to really engage with Catch a Fire. the question of when violence is legitimate. Below left: The Noyce’s stance is clear. “I want people in 2002 hit Rabbit theatres to cheer for Patrick,” he tells me. Proof Fence. “The issue of taking up arms to fi ght for : Right: Noyce freedom is a complex one. The screenplay is with Hollywood saying we should not be too quick to judge playmaker those who feel marginalised and feel they Harrison Ford in must engage in armed struggle to achieve 1994 blockbuster their political and social goals.” Clear and Present After many hours in conversation with Danger which the real-life Patrick Chamusso, Noyce Noyce directed. concluded it was his sense of powerlessness that led him to armed resistance. “He felt that to be a real husband, to be a Noyce’s earlier fi lm, The Quiet American, because history has already allowed the real father, he had to fi ght back,” Noyce says, set in 1950s Vietnam and based on the novel audience to take the side of the so-called adding he believes “most people will feel he by Graham Greene, also explored the theme terrorist and to call him a freedom fi ghter. was justifi ed, remembering that he was under of political violence. It was screen-tested in That allows the audience to see this story strict instructions that no one must die”. New York on September 10, 2001, the day and maybe think about the motives of the Does Noyce have a clear view as to when before Noyce witnessed the twin towers fall so-called terrorist.” violence is legitimate as a tool of change? while he was standing in a nearby street. Noyce agrees there’s a link between Catch “No. It’s not something that can be The Quiet American’s critical depiction of a a Fire and The Quiet American, both exploring measured. I’m not even sure a court of law US aid worker and the CIA was a marketing the legitimacy of violence, but he says there could judge. You can only judge it according challenge at that moment in history. Will is another link between these two movies and to your own feelings and they reside in the Catch a Fire face a similar challenge? Rabbit-Proof Fence, his fi lm about Aboriginal barometer that constantly changes — the “There is a similar challenge,” Noyce children fl eeing the Moore River settlement human heart.” acknowledges, “but a much easier one after being removed from their families.

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60 lifeetc real life

“The link is in the characters of the white As I listen to Noyce, I’m reminded of the and professional,” he replies succinctly. authority fi gures,” Noyce explains. “The CIA comment by the news correspondent played On refl ection, I believe the greatest agent posing as a medical worker in The Quiet by Michael Caine in The Quiet American: legacy Noyce has received from his father’s American, the Chief Protector of Aborigines “Sooner or later one has to take sides if one is and grandfather’s “investigation of human in Rabbit-Proof Fence and the Police Security to remain human.” behaviour and morality”, as he describes it, Branch Colonel in Catch a Fire: all three are Throughout our conversation, I’m is his capacity in the midst of all the technical white colonialists who feel their actions are for struck by the depth of Noyce’s engagement complexity of movie making to keep his focus the good of the natives, the Vietnamese, the with Africa, its history and all its current on the spirit at the heart of his fi lms. Australian Aborigines and the Africans.” challenges. This engagement extends into the “The technical people are not going to What has infl uenced Noyce to engage so personal. His partner is Kenyan fi lmmaker make a difference to the essence of a movie,” deeply with moral questions about violence, Wanuri Kahiu, managing director of DADA Noyce tells me. “It’s the people on the ground whether perpetrated by the colonisers or Productions, a company in Kenya that operates who’ve experienced the events that do.” the colonised? training and work exchange programs for the The heart of Catch a Fire, Noyce says, is the “My father Bill Noyce, who was a lawyer entertainment industry in East Africa. man called Four O’Clock, David Mbatha. and a farmer, has been a big infl uence. He’s 87 Kahiu has studied and worked in Britain “He’s my main guide; the man who taught now,” says Noyce. “My mother Phillippa also and the United States; she and Noyce met all these people to sing all the songs we hear had a sense of morality. in LA. She’s directing a behind-the-scenes in the fi lm because he sang them,” Noyce “And I was heavily infl uenced in my life by documentary about Catch a Fire with the explains. “David lives in a shack outside my grandfather George Sanders, who was a working title Making a Terrorist. Pretoria. He is the man in the movie outside Church of England minister and who came to Noyce has a daughter Lucia, 25, and a the gates of the Secunda oil refi nery who starts Australia as a missionary. I spent a lot of time stepdaughter, Alice, 31, from his former the fi rst chant.” with him because he would babysit me. marriage to Jan Sharp. When I ask about the Mbatha is credited as Freedom Song and “He would take me on his rounds. I would impact of his fi lmmaking on his family life, he Crowd Choreographer. The moment he starts see him counselling people in distress. He simply answers, “It’s not easy.” singing is very powerful. It goes beyond was dealing with the unknown, with what we What advice would he offer to another words and historical research to a visceral cry would call the spirit. Wherever you fi nd it. And passionate director about managing the for freedom, capturing the creative power of that’s about good and bad and your soul.” personal side of your life? “Merge the personal this great fi lm director. ❘❚

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