1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 99: The castle
(Not based on Kafka’s novel.)
Seldom viewed outside of Australia, The Castle (1997) is revered in that country. Wikipedia tells us that this movie
Even so, I love The Castle.
One begins by snickering at the protagonists – hapless Melburnians pursuing the Australian Dream in their dismal, airport-adjacent cul-de-sac. But by the end, one is touched by these people. One wishes they were one’s neighbors.
(It’s gratifying when one well-heeled outsider – a broadminded constitutional lawyer, played by the grave but twinkling Charles “Bud” Tingwell – is admitted into their circle.)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Darryl Kerrigan (Michael Caton), patriarch and hero, is lovable because there is so much that he loves: his family, his dogs, his tchotchkes, his boat, his garden, his pre-fab country house on a nondescript lake, and of course his suburban home (his family’s “castle”). Not to mention his neighbors and his lawyers. Having thrown in his lot with X, Darryl loves X proudly and unconditionally. We hear him, in a wedding speech, declare his family’s love for the new son-in-law; and what goes for that adoptee goes for every animal, vegetable, and mineral that Darryl claims as his own (or as his own’s own). It doesn’t matter that Darryl’s wife and children are pitifully ordinary, or that one son – in what I suspect is a symbolic nod to Australia’s origin – is in prison. Darryl treats each family member with something approaching veneration. And each of them responds in kind.
Darryl is not a rich man. He earns his living towing cars (i.e., clearing away others’ property). His boat, house, house-extensions, holiday house, and dogs – purebred racing Greyhounds – seem to have been accumulated opportunistically. The Kerrigans scour the trade papers for bargains. Once acquired, each purchase is accorded quasi-heraldic status. Non-purchases too: witness how the household acquires its front gates.
The Kerrigans are consummate appropriators. The movie’s sly irony is that it recounts their struggle against appropriation by outsiders.
One day, the Kerrigans receive notice that their house is to be compulsorily acquired by the airport, so that the runway might be extended. The Kerrigans and their neighbors oppose this order in the courts. But their lawyer is out of his depth, and the airport is backed by powerful business interests.
“I’m starting to understand how the Aborigines feel,” mutters Darryl.
(It’s a mark of comic deftness that this unadorned political statement produces one of the movie’s biggest laughs.)
It isn’t hard to guess that the Kerrigans’ misfortunes will be reversed. In time, the lawsuit is heard by Australia’s highest court. The judgment favors the Kerrigans, and the “castle”-dwellers end up better off than before. The legal aspect of the story is, I suspect, sheer fantasy. The movie’s really interesting questions aren’t about law; they’re about value. Can a life of utter tastelessness be good? How important is the aesthetic component, comparatively speaking?
Proverbs 15:17 says: “Better a vegetable dinner with love than a stall-fattened ox with hate.” The movie illustrates this principle.
For it leaves us in no doubt that the Kerrigans’ aesthetic is very, very bad. Indeed, it’s their utter non-descrimination, their determination to embrace absolutely every piece of kitsch, that enables them to love each other as they do. This is made clear from the beginning, in a brilliant faux-naïf voiceover by Darryl’s youngest son, Dale (Stephen Curry):
I believe the movie is responding to particular book: the classic Australian work of architectural and social criticism – The Australian Ugliness (1960), by Robin Boyd. (See the book’s Wikipedia article, and its Text Classics webpage.) Images of jet planes, electrical wires, and large TV antennae feature prominently in both works. It can’t just be a coincidence.
Some day, I may read the book, and then I’ll understand The Castle better. As funny and touching and socially observant as it is, it’s an “ideas” movie, really.
Seldom viewed outside of Australia, The Castle (1997) is revered in that country. Wikipedia tells us that this movie
can be seen as a social study [of] the lives and aspirations of the inhabitants of suburban Australia. The central character, Darryl Kerrigan, ties into the stereotypical depiction of an “Aussie battler,” a man who will protect and serve his family through bold and sometimes ruthless assertion.I’ve not observed Australians in their natural habitat. Doubtless, there’s much about this movie that I don’t understand.
Even so, I love The Castle.
One begins by snickering at the protagonists – hapless Melburnians pursuing the Australian Dream in their dismal, airport-adjacent cul-de-sac. But by the end, one is touched by these people. One wishes they were one’s neighbors.
(It’s gratifying when one well-heeled outsider – a broadminded constitutional lawyer, played by the grave but twinkling Charles “Bud” Tingwell – is admitted into their circle.)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Darryl Kerrigan (Michael Caton), patriarch and hero, is lovable because there is so much that he loves: his family, his dogs, his tchotchkes, his boat, his garden, his pre-fab country house on a nondescript lake, and of course his suburban home (his family’s “castle”). Not to mention his neighbors and his lawyers. Having thrown in his lot with X, Darryl loves X proudly and unconditionally. We hear him, in a wedding speech, declare his family’s love for the new son-in-law; and what goes for that adoptee goes for every animal, vegetable, and mineral that Darryl claims as his own (or as his own’s own). It doesn’t matter that Darryl’s wife and children are pitifully ordinary, or that one son – in what I suspect is a symbolic nod to Australia’s origin – is in prison. Darryl treats each family member with something approaching veneration. And each of them responds in kind.
Darryl is not a rich man. He earns his living towing cars (i.e., clearing away others’ property). His boat, house, house-extensions, holiday house, and dogs – purebred racing Greyhounds – seem to have been accumulated opportunistically. The Kerrigans scour the trade papers for bargains. Once acquired, each purchase is accorded quasi-heraldic status. Non-purchases too: witness how the household acquires its front gates.
The Kerrigans are consummate appropriators. The movie’s sly irony is that it recounts their struggle against appropriation by outsiders.
One day, the Kerrigans receive notice that their house is to be compulsorily acquired by the airport, so that the runway might be extended. The Kerrigans and their neighbors oppose this order in the courts. But their lawyer is out of his depth, and the airport is backed by powerful business interests.
“I’m starting to understand how the Aborigines feel,” mutters Darryl.
(It’s a mark of comic deftness that this unadorned political statement produces one of the movie’s biggest laughs.)
It isn’t hard to guess that the Kerrigans’ misfortunes will be reversed. In time, the lawsuit is heard by Australia’s highest court. The judgment favors the Kerrigans, and the “castle”-dwellers end up better off than before. The legal aspect of the story is, I suspect, sheer fantasy. The movie’s really interesting questions aren’t about law; they’re about value. Can a life of utter tastelessness be good? How important is the aesthetic component, comparatively speaking?
Proverbs 15:17 says: “Better a vegetable dinner with love than a stall-fattened ox with hate.” The movie illustrates this principle.
For it leaves us in no doubt that the Kerrigans’ aesthetic is very, very bad. Indeed, it’s their utter non-descrimination, their determination to embrace absolutely every piece of kitsch, that enables them to love each other as they do. This is made clear from the beginning, in a brilliant faux-naïf voiceover by Darryl’s youngest son, Dale (Stephen Curry):
I believe the movie is responding to particular book: the classic Australian work of architectural and social criticism – The Australian Ugliness (1960), by Robin Boyd. (See the book’s Wikipedia article, and its Text Classics webpage.) Images of jet planes, electrical wires, and large TV antennae feature prominently in both works. It can’t just be a coincidence.
Some day, I may read the book, and then I’ll understand The Castle better. As funny and touching and socially observant as it is, it’s an “ideas” movie, really.