The Last Days of Chez Nous

Gillian Armstrong is more than just a critically prominent woman film­maker. She's also a survivor of the New Australian cinema movement.

With her latest work, The Last Days of Chez Nous, Armstrong returns to her roots in both style and subject matter. She also returns to the basic points that made the New Australian cinema one of the more exciting film events of the late '70s: it's an intelligent film that wrestles with the pecu­liar contradictions of Australian society.

The Chez Nous of the tide is a small, ramshackle house in Sydney. Its peeling paint and barely functioning kitchen are the primary motifs in the film's leisurely tale of domestic collapse.

The overwhelming clutter indicates that no attention is being paid to basic caretaking of the house — and serves as metaphor for the lead characters' disintegrating marriage

At the center of Chez Nous is Beth (Lisa Harrow), a middle-aged writer who is emotionally blocked in her relationship with her French husband, J.P. (Bruno Ganz). He insists that she wants too much resolution, but Beth doesn't appear to be capable of resolving or coping with much of anything — especially the intrusive visit by her sister and her domineering father.

Beth knows that at certain, crucial levels, she simply is not in touch with her feelings. The core of her problem finally becomes apparent during a protracted, seemingly pointless drive through the Outback with her demeaning father. He's a man of few words, most of which take shape as nasty comments about what an idiot Beth is. The cruel commentary serves as a mask to hide his own possessive, nearly incestuous atti­tude toward her.

Meanwhile, back on the home front, J.P. begins an affair with Beth's sister.

There's more to Chez Nous than simple domestic melodrama and Aussie angst, however.

The film conveys a general sense of estrangement that belongs, particularly, to Australians. Like the rock formations in the Outback, Australian society often possesses a singularly impressive, but barren, look. As J.P. put it, while seeing a photo of an area visited by Beth and her father, "What a dreadful looking country."

The Last Days of Chez Nous is undoubt­edly Armstrong's best work since her first, and critically acclaimed, film, My Brilliant Career. It's also her finest statement yet about the psyche of her own country, which exists somewhere between families' confining homes and nature's empty space